tom moody

tom moody's weblog
(2001 - 2007)

tommoody.us (2004 - )

2001-2007 archive

main site

faq

digital media tree (or "home" below)


RSS / validator



BLOG in gallery / AFC / artCal / furtherfield on BLOG

room sized animated GIFs / pics

geeks in the gallery / 2 / 3

fuzzy logic

and/or gallery / pics / 2

rhizome interview / illustrated

ny arts interview / illustrated

visit my cubicle

blogging & the arts panel

my dorkbot talk / notes

infinite fill show


music

video




Links:

coalition casualties

civilian casualties

iraq today / older

mccain defends bush's iraq strategy

eyebeam reBlog

hullabaloo

tyndall report

aron namenwirth

bloggy / artCal

james wagner

what really happened

stinkoman

antiwar.com

cory arcangel / at del.icio.us

juan cole

a a attanasio

rhizome.org

three rivers online

unknown news

eschaton

prereview

edward b. rackley

travelers diagram at del.icio.us

atomic cinema

lovid

cpb::softinfo :: blog

vertexList

paper rad / info

nastynets now

the memory hole

de palma a la mod

aaron in japan

NEWSgrist

chris ashley

comiclopedia

discogs

counterpunch

9/11 timeline

tedg on film

art is for the people

x-eleven

jim woodring

stephen hendee

steve gilliard

mellon writes again

eyekhan

adrien75 / 757

disco-nnect

WFMU's Beware of the Blog

travis hallenbeck

paul slocum

guthrie lonergan / at del.icio.us

tom moody


View current page
...more recent posts



Ghost Dog 1

Ghost Dog 2

DVD captures from Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999). In the top frame Ghost Dog removes a license plate from a car he has just stolen and in the bottom, replaces it with a plate from some unsuspecting picnickers. I saw the movie twice before noticing the deadpan mottos for nonexistent states. The music is by Wu-Tang Clan guiding light The RZA, who is featured in cameo (and camo) near the end of the film as a fellow urban samurai. The RZA, who also did the Kill Bill score, is the subject of a wild interview over at the Onion AV Club. Amazing that music so heavenly could come from such a down-and-dirty talker.

(O: What was ODB like before the Wu-Tang Clan? RZA: He was similar, without the money and without the name. I've been involved in a lot of things in my life, and I'd always count him in. Like if I wanted to see some girls, I'd call him and say, "Yo, I've got these girls. These girls are going to steal some shit for us, and all we have to do is hang out with them, spit right with 'em, fuck 'em, and then they'll do that for us." He'd come over, and then the next day, the girls would be ready, and he'd do something to fuck up the whole shit, or get the dough and spend it in one day, or something that's real fucked-up. Like if he got hold of a car, he'd crash it. He was always like that.)

The Ghost Dog score is a strangely heart-tugging melange of hiphop beats, Asian temple chimes, industrial ka-chings & whirs and wispy, pretty recurring melodies. According to the DVD notes, RZA assigned the film's characters their own musical motifs a la Peter and the Wolf. Well, I'm damned if I find any relationship, but each motif is heard exactly when it's needed. The music, working in tandem with Jarmusch's entranced views of the city and frequent close-ups of Forrest Whitaker's sad face, creates an elegiac mood so powerful that it survives even the director's characteristic outbreaks of weird humor and inexplicable behavior (e.g., the old mafia guy suddenly yelling "passenger pigeon! passenger pigeon's been extinct since 1914!"). To hear the score properly you need to get the DVD, because the CD soundtrack is mostly songs by other artists, apparently (or get the Japanese version of the soundtrack for $44).

- tom moody 12-02-2003 8:36 pm [link] [3 comments]