Forest Whitaker

In Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Forest Whitaker lets a pause last without filling it with a helpful signal about what his character feels. The hitman follows samurai rules, and Whitaker gives no sign that he finds this ridiculous. His solemnity lets us take the discipline seriously even when its application seems absurd. We were moved by those pauses, because they expose how much the man depends on his rules. That is the Whitaker we most want a director to make room for.

Small parts in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and The Colour of Money (1986) came before the breakthrough lead as Charlie Parker in Bird (1988). Jody in Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game (1992) followed. By The Last King of Scotland (2006), intensive research and physical preparation were central to his approach. Later supporting roles in Arrival (2016) and Black Panther (2018) put him in larger commercial films. Those changes of scale matter less to us than whether a film leaves him enough time to be watched.

Jim Jarmusch wrote the role of Ghost Dog for Whitaker. Robby Müller’s cinematography invites us to study Whitaker’s restrained face without expecting a more obvious display of feeling. Editor Jay Rabinowitz allows the pauses to last, which also gives the comedy time to work. Together they give Whitaker room to be funny without signalling that he thinks his character is odd. The patience is mostly rewarding, though there are stretches when we notice the waiting more than the man.

The larger problem is that Jarmusch’s script does not ask enough about why this black American assassin has adopted samurai honour. Whitaker’s conviction keeps him interesting, but it cannot supply the curiosity the writing lacks. For all his reputation for preparation, this is where we can see the limit of what an actor can do when the character has not been examined closely enough. Start with Ghost Dog, and give those pauses an evening without distractions.