Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 80: Thu Mar 21

Ghost Dog (Jarmusch, 1999): Clapham Picturehouse, 8.50pm

Film blogger Ashley Clark (aka Permanent Plastic Helmet) is hosting this evening. For more details see his Facebook page for the event here.

Here is his introduction: For the fourth instalment of our ongoing Permanent Plastic Helmet presents… series of events, we are delighted to announce a 35mm screening of Jim Jarmusch’s extraordinary, unclassifiable classic Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

This surreal tale stars Forest Whitaker as a perma-cool, self-taught samurai hitman who finds himself targeted for death by the mafia. Blessed with stunning cinematography from Robby Müller (Paris, Texas) and a brilliant original score from Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, it’s an intoxicating, unique and strangely moving fusion of gangsta, gangster and ninja worlds

Come to the bar before the screening for drinks and free food, all soundtracked by classic 90s hip-hop and soul. Before the film commences, there will be a free prize draw and an introduction by PPH editor and film critic (Sight & Sound, Little White Lies) Ashley Clark.


Chicago Reader review:
'Jim Jarmusch's seventh narrative feature (1999) focuses on a solitary inner-city maverick and hit man (Forest Whitaker) who lives on a rooftop with pigeons and has trained himself as a samurai according to the 18th-century book Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai, pledging loyalty to a New Jersey gangster (John Tormey) who once saved his life, whom he communicates with mainly by carrier pigeon. Like some of Jarmusch's other films, this is essentially a poetic comic fantasy that has a lot to say about contemporary global culture; it's beautifully cast and filmed (cinematography by the matchless Robby Müller) and often quite moving, despite the fact that most of the characters are never developed much beyond mythic or parodic prototypes. The music is by Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA; with Cliff Gorman, Camille Winbush, Isaach de Bankolé, Henry Silva, and Tricia Vessey.' Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here is an extract.

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