David Mamet Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Not too long ago, we learned that David Mamet and Disney were coming together for a new take on The Diary of Anne Frank. The project was said to merge Frank's famous diary with the Tony Award-winning stage production and Mamet's own spin as -- believe it or not -- a "coming of age" story. Mamet + Disney + Frank -- it sounded too strange to be real, and it looks like Disney agrees.

Just over a month later, The Wrap reports that the project has been thrown into turnaround. It seems that this wasn't exactly a film about Frank (thank god), but rather "a pro-Israel exploration of anti-Semitism set in contemporary times," about "a contemporary Jewish girl who goes to Israel and learns about the traumas of suicide bombing." According to sources, Disney said the spin was "too dark." (One can only wonder why it took Disney a month to come to this realization when we all suspected it from the beginning.) One executive said: "It's very intense, and dark and scary. It's not a film version of The Diary of Anne Frank."

That begs the question: Why frakking call it The Diary of Anne Frank if it's not about her? If the film is set in modern times, and not about Anne Frank hiding out during WWII, why not call it something else? Why capitalize on one dead girl's name? And while we're on the topic -- why did Disney pick this to begin with? Did they think Mamet would have Anne tiptoeing through the tulips and singing "fa-la-la"?

The Criterion Collection releases two new DVDs today, two movies with nothing much in common. They were originally released in theaters almost exactly fifty years apart, in 1941 and 1991. One is an elegant, period romance set during the Napoleonic Wars, and the other is a gritty, modern-day urban cop story. The only thing I can think that makes them kindred spirits is their endings. I can see the two heroes, played by Vivien Leigh in the former and Joe Mantegna in the latter, sitting together at the end of their tales. They're both staring off into space, thinking about what an odd hand life has dealt them, thinking about what lies ahead, if anything. The cop looks over at the lady. "What's your story?" he asks. She might respond, "I used to be somebody." And he might retort, in a New York accent, "Tell me about it."

And maybe she would. Lady Hamilton would tell her heartbreaking story, as seen in That Hamilton Woman (1941), starting life as a lower class nothing on the grim streets of London, but meeting the son of an ambassador and looking forward to the good life. But she discovers that the son is deeply in debt and has "given" her to his father, Sir William Hamilton (Alan Mowbray), a collector of beautiful things. They marry and she becomes "Lady Hamilton," and she begins to enjoy her social life, until a weary soldier, Lord Horatio Nelson (Laurence Olivier) happens into her palatial home, asking for aid in the war against Napoleon. Her husband hems and haws, but Lady Hamilton uses her friendship with the Queen to get Lord Nelson what he needs without delay. From there, the married Lord Nelson and the married Lady Hamilton slowly form a passionate, centuries-spanning, heartbreaking illicit romance. A romance to end all romances.

In perhaps the most oddly juxtaposed match of artist and material since David Lynch gave us The Straight Story, acclaimed playwright and screenwriter David Mamet has signed on to write and direct his own version of the story of Anne Frank.

You read that right -- the man behind Oleanna is taking on the tale of the Jewish teenager who hid in an Amsterdam attic during the Holocaust before dying at 15, and on behalf of Disney no less. According to Variety, Mamet's interpretation will combine elements of Frank's renown diary, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett's Tony Award-winning stage adaptation, and whatever Mamet brings to the table that, in the trade's words, "could reframe the story as a young girl's right of passage."

I'm really not sure what to make of this myself. The man has certainly proven a gift with dialogue and direction on both screen and stage, but I can't say that I've seen a film of this that suggests that he might be ideal to bring Anne Frank's life back to, well, life. Maybe he'll go for something more abstract along the lines of I'm Not There; the best any of us can do now is just wait and see how this plays out.

George Ratliff's Joshua is my pick for the most underseen and underappreciated movie of last year; I suspect that as a true psychological horror film with something on its mind, it was simply too unpleasant to find much of an audience. But it proved Ratliff's chops as a brainy, skilled filmmaker, and he's been able to get more work (presumably) as a result. He'll be writing and directing an adaptation of an upcoming novel called Salvation Boulevard by Larry Beinhart. Beinhart is probably best known for writing American Hero, which David Mamet would adapt into the popular satire Wag the Dog.

Salvation Boulevard is more demanding stuff: it's a mystery about a private investigator hired to find the killer of a college professor that becomes an exploration of religious faith when it turns out that the professor was an atheist, the P.I. is a born-again Christian, the main suspect is a Muslim student, and the defense attorney is a Jew. Sounds a bit contrived, but I suspect we're missing some data. The movie's executive producer is quoted as saying that the book "uses a mystery to examine the religious process, the mega-churches and how they manipulate minds."

The novel comes out in September, and no schedule's set for the production of the film. In the meantime, go find Joshua on DVD!

When David Mamet's Redbelt was announced, the initial simple summary seemed bizarrely incongruous: A noted playwright and dramatist making a film about martial arts? But while Redbelt involves the worlds of Jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts, it's really just another way for playwright, screenwriter and director Mamet to look at the world. As martial arts instructor Mike Terry (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) is taken from his noble (but underfunded) studio and plunged into the greed and glitz of Hollywood and commercial fighting.

As Mike tries to hang on to the things that matter to him in a world that dismisses honor as unprofitable, Mamet's script and direction create a film that somehow puts a philosophical twist on traditional fight films while also embodying everything we love about them. Cinematical spoke with Mamet and Ejiofor in Los Angeles.

One of the challenges of being a great artist is that not all of your art is going to be great. The Beatles wrote several songs that lesser acts would have turned into careers, but that nonetheless lack the power of "Yesterday" or the joy of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"; George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier is an excellent work of journalism, but not nearly as good as Homage to Catalonia. Redbelt, the latest film from writer-director David Mamet, is not as impressive or thought-provoking as some of his other dramatic works, like Glengarry Glen Ross or House of Games or Oleanna; at the same time, it's an exciting, engaging mix of drama and action supported by an immensely appealing lead performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor (Dirty Pretty Things, Children of Men).

Redbelt's subject and setting may make it seem incongruous -- Why is one of America's greatest playwrights making a film about mixed martial arts and Jiu-jitsu? -- but it's actually in keeping with Mamet's other recent entertainments like Spartan, his work as a co-creator of The Unit and his pseudonymous work on the screenplay for Ronin. Redbelt fits in with these projects: They have a kind of heroic stoicism under them; they're stories of honorable men in a dishonorable world. They've all got a kind of muscular poetry, too, a hard-bitten nobility that's still a little sad about the edges.

So check out this pretty nifty Redbelt poster. Now what's interesting about the image above is that it's a "fight poster," which means it's not an actual poster FOR the movie, it's a poster promoting the big fight that takes place IN the movie. Talk about something cool to add to your geeked-out movie collection, huh? Not only that, but this poster also comes signed by David Mamet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ricky Jay, David Paymer, Emily Mortimer, Renato Magno, John Machado, and Joe Mantegna. Uh, yeah -- something tells me a lot of you folks might want one of these. Fine! Take them all, you bloody scavengers! Here's how this will play out:

You leave a comment (prior to 5PM EST on Monday, May 5) telling us why you're itching to see Redbelt. We'll then choose five random commenters, all of whom will be sent the fabulous poster featured above. It's that easy! Redbelt arrives in theaters in New York and LA tomorrow and nationwide on May 9. Check out the film's trailer, as well as the official rules for this contest, after the jump.

Who would have thought the brilliant playwright and pretty good director David Mamet would have anything in common with tasteless schlockmeister Uwe Boll? Boll once expressed a desire to fight movie critics in a boxing ring, and now Mamet has taken it a step further: he wishes all critics were dead.

Or at least that's what he told Vanity Fair. The magazine ends each issue with a "Proust Questionnaire," in which a celebrity is asked a series of frivolous-but-deep-sounding questions, usually to coincide with the promotion of the celebrity's new movie. This month it's Mamet (whose Redbelt opens May 9 May 2), and the first Q&A goes like this:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
My idea of perfect happiness is a healthy family, peace between nations, and all the critics die.

All the critics, Dave? All of us? Aw, gee. In my high school drama class, we loved doing scenes from Mamet's plays. Granted, this was primarily because it permitted us to swear in abundance, but over time we came to appreciate his work on a deeper level, too. The way he writes dialogue -- the unusual cadences, the stylized realism -- is like music, and the intellectual themes of his plays are eternally thought-provoking.

Here it is. Just as it was gratifying to see all the hallmarks of the X-Files franchise in the X-Files 2 trailer we linked to yesterday (it's since been pulled, but will no doubt reappear in studio-sanctioned form soon), it's great to see all the David Mamet staples pop up here. Hey, there's Ricky Jay, and Joe Mantegna, and Rebecca Pidgeon! Magic tricks! Macho posturing! Hints of cons, and cons within cons! Best of all, we get to hear a little bit of that unmistakable clipped Mamet-speak:

"Excuse me. Uh, who's the...?"
"It's alright. Come in."
"I believe I..."
"Hey Joe, take the lady's coat!"

Music to my ears. And far from straying from his usual milieu with the mixed martial arts angle, Mamet seems to have used it to create another of his shady underworlds where nothing is as it seems. For fans of the man's work, watching this trailer is like settling into a comfy old recliner.

I don't know about you, but the brouhaha over David Mamet's recent pronouncement that he is "no longer a brain-dead liberal" has made me only more eager to see his forthcoming martial arts drama Redbelt. This is not because I'm a conservative and glad to see Mamet cross over to my side (I'm not), but because I'm hugely curious to see what, if anything, an ideological shift does to one of my favorite screenwriters and filmmakers. Mamet's always been a little macho; will Redbelt go all out with a crazy libertarian message of grizzled self-reliance? Will his view of human nature get even dimmer than it already was? It'll be fascinating to try and pick his brain.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tribeca Film Festival attendees will get to do it a little earlier than the rest of us. Redbelt will have a gala premiere in New York City as part of the ESPN Sports section of the Tribeca fest on April 25th. So, if you're willing to brave Tribeca crowds and prices, you can see the film a week before its May 2nd limited release -- though you'll probably need one of the fest's notoriously pricey VIP Packages (David Poland has the hilarious price breakdown on his blog) to get into the gala premieres.

Take a look at the trailer for the film here. Can't you just feel the Republican vibes?