Redbelt

[MacGuffin]

Sony, Mamet put on 'Redbelt'
Film set in Jiu-Jitsu fight world
Source: Variety

Sony Pictures Classics is back in business with David Mamet, who will direct his original screenplay "Redbelt," which is set in the Jiu-Jitsu fight world of West Los Angeles.

SPC will fully finance and globally distribute the $10 million actioner, which marks a return to the indie film world -- as well as the theme of con games -- for Mamet, who has lately been shepherding his CBS series "The Unit."

Set to start production in May in L.A., "Redbelt" is an American samurai film set in an underworld inhabited by bouncers, cage-fighters, cops and special forces operatives.

"Redbelt" stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as a Jiu-Jitsu master who has eschewed prizefighting tooperate a self-defense studio. When he is conned by a cabal of movie stars and fight promoters, he must enter the ring to fightin order to regain his honor.

"Redbelt" will be produced by Chrisann Verges ("Warm Springs," "Mrs. Harris"). Ejiofor's credits include "Children of Men," "Kinky Boots" and the upcoming "American Gangster."

SPC co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard had been pushing Mamet for the past three years to bring his next low-budgeter to them. Mamet first worked with SPC on 1997 sleeper hit "The Spanish Prisoner," which Barker and Bernard acquired at the Toronto Film Festival. They also financed and distributed his 1999 pic "The Winslow Boy."

More casting is in the works; likely members include frequent Mamet collaborator magician Ricky Jay and Mamet's wife, actress Rebecca Pidgeon. SPC plans a summer 2008 release.

[SiliasRuby]

YES! YES! YES! This sounds awesome!

[Gold Trumpet]

I'm excited, too. This is the project I wanted him to do next.

He has underwhelmed lately with Spartan and Heist. His saving grace is that he developed a style that was too enjoyable to ignore. But the feeling I got with those two films is that a history of writing for a genre and story allowed him to coast through making those movies. He didn't really push any barrier and didn't go any further than better movies like House of Games.

The best chance with this new project is that he is writing for such a foreign subject that he will have to extend his abilities somewhat. I certainly hope he doesn't see this underground world as fodder for charcters he already knows too well. Those characters would just breed familar conclusions.

I think this film will be better than his last efforts. The description of story seems to entail new elements for Mamet. I sincerely am rooting that he makes a really good film.

[MacGuffin]

Tim Allen tops Mamet's 'Redbelt'
Ejiofor co-stars in Sony's martial arts drama
Source: Variety

Tim Allen will star in "Redbelt," the mixed martial arts drama David Mamet wrote and will direct for Sony Pictures Classics. Production starts next month in L.A. Chiwetel Ejiofor co-stars.

Emily Mortimer, Alice Braga, Joe Mantegna, Rodrigo Santoro, Ricky Jay, David Paymer, Rebecca Pidgeon and Jose Pablo Cantillo will star, along with martial artists and fighters Randy Couture, John Machado, Danny Inosanto, Enson Inoue and Ray Mancini.

Ejiofor, who was the first actor Mamet set, stars as a Jiu-jitsu master whose purity is compromised when he is drawn into the movie business and manipulated into brawling in ultimate fighting matches.

Allen plays a troubled action star with marital problems who meets the master when he is getting pummeled in a street fight.

Ejiofor has been training in London with members of the Gracie family, the renowned Brazilian fighting clan.

For Allen, the film marks a break from his usual comic and family fare. Allen last starred in "Wild Hogs" and is negotiating to reprise his role in a sequel, and was at the center of a Disney pitch deal for "Yosemite Three."

"Redbelt" is being fully financed and distributed by Sony Pictures Classics; Chrisann Verges is producing.

[Gold Trumpet]

I don't know. Oliver Stone loved using comedians for dramatic roles, but Mamet and Stone are two different species as far as eliciting performances goes so ultimately their reasons are different and I don't know if this is a good choice for Mamet. It certainly is an interesting one.

Looking at the storyline, it will be interesting how much the story is based around Hollywood (a familiar topic to Mamet) and mixed martial arts (a very unfamiliar one).

I'm hoping for a new story tract for Mamet. He got too easy going with his abilities in the con movie.

[MacGuffin]

David Mamet helps Hollywood discover ultimate fighting
Source: Los Angeles Times

HOLLYWOOD is so behind the curve on cultural trends that most fads are over before the movie biz can figure out how to exploit them. So I guess I shouldn't have been shocked to discover that someone is only now — after Ultimate Fighting Championship has become a huge ratings champ on Spike TV, made the cover of Sports Illustrated and, most important in terms of zeitgeist cred, been mocked by both the Onion and "The Daily Show" — making a film about the wild 'n' woolly sport that has gained a chokehold on the elusive 18-to-34 male demographic.

The picture, called "Redbelt," is shooting here in Los Angeles through the end of the month, with much of the filming at the Pyramid in Long Beach. After visiting the set last week, I asked industry-ites to guess the identity of the filmmaker who'd beaten everyone else to the punch, so to speak. An action impresario like Michael Bay? A guy's guy like Michael Mann? A sports-aholic like Mike Tollin?

Wrong, wrong and wrong again. The filmmaker who's plunged headfirst into the brutal world of ultimate fighting is ... David Mamet.

A celebrated playwright, opinionated essayist and fiercely independent filmmaker, Mamet was introduced to the sport several years ago by several enthusiasts, notably Mordecai Finley, Mamet's rabbi and a longtime jujitsu practitioner who has a part in the film as one of the undercard fighters. Fascinated by the sport, which blends the brawn of boxing and agility of kick-boxing with the art of jujitsu and the head-banging of wrestling, Mamet wrote a story that revolves around many of his favorite themes — honor, deception and betrayal — set in the world of mixed martial arts.

"Like everyone, I grew up with boxing, but everyone seems sick to death of it — it's all about whether Mike Tyson was going to bite someone's ear off or not," Mamet said during a break between scenes last week. "I'm interested in going backstage into this new world, especially since everyone loves backstage movies. You could say that the story is a lot like a story about Hollywood — it's all about honor and corruption."

Mamet grins. "In a lot of ways, it's an American samurai film. I think it's a script Kurosawa would've liked."

Mamet's script focuses on a jujitsu master, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor ("Children of Men"), who after years of refusing to fight must sacrifice his purity by going into the ring to protect his honor. The film is populated with top fighters, including Ultimate Fighting Championship legend Randy Couture, Enson Inoue and Ray Mancini, as well as John Machado, who runs a Brazilian jujitsu training school in L.A. But it also features such acting talent as Emily Mortimer and Tim Allen, as well as Mamet regulars Joe Mantegna and Ricky Jay, who plays a fight promoter who delivers such Mamet gems as "Everything in life — the money's in the rematch."

Mamet pitched the story all over town. To his surprise, everyone passed. "I was a little dumbfounded," he admits. "I told them, 'Crunch the numbers. Look at the UFC's pay-TV ratings. See how big Randy Couture and some of the UFC stars are.' God willing, I think a lot of people are going to be surprised at how well this will do."

Looking for a buyer, Mamet went to Michael Barker and Tom Bernard, the heads of Sony Pictures Classics, the art-house specialists best known for championing foreign films from the likes of Pedro Almodóvar and Zhang Yimou. "With them, at least you're talking to the two guys who can say yes," Mamet explains. "They didn't even ask to see the script. They said, 'We'll see you at the opening.' "

Still, that's quite a culture clash, a mixed-martial arts film being financed by the guys whose business model usually involves winning Oscars with exotic foreign films. But from Sony Classic's point of view, the movie is a good bet. For $7 million, they not only get a classic Mamet drama but also one rooted in a pop culture phenomenon.

Created in the early 1990s, Ultimate Fighting Championship events were initially more sordid brawling than sport, famously dismissed by Sen. John McCain of Arizona in 1996 as "human cockfighting." The UFC was purchased in 2001 by Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta with the aid of Dana White, an ex-gym owner who is now the sport's colorful impresario. With a host of new rules and the creation of weight classes, the UFC took off, thanks in part to a weekly Spike TV reality show, "The Ultimate Fighter," which often attracts a bigger young male audience than the NBA or Major League Baseball.

The UFC is represented by the Endeavor Talent Agency, which has helped the UFC put together TV deals with HBO and ESPN. But Hollywood has been a tougher nut to crack. Initially wary of the sport because of its extreme violence, the studios have only just begun to notice the sport's passionate following among men, just as the studios have been painfully slow to react to other pop subcultures, including hip-hop, skateboarding and street racing.

White spoke derisively about Hollywood's risk-averse attitude toward ultimate fighting, saying, "They are the last in line when anything new comes along." He got early interest from several prominent producers. "But we kind of pulled back. They wanted to use the brand, and we never came to a deal. If we do a movie, we want it done right."

The UFC at one point commissioned a script itself, hiring "15 Minutes" writer-director John Herzfeld for a project that would've been released by Lionsgate. White says, "We got cold feet and pulled out" over control issues. Studio executives say they've seen a number of spec scripts, but none that captured the world in an inspired way, the way "8 Mile" did with hip-hop. "Too much of what we've seen have been 'Rocky'-style stories, which felt too clichéd," says Moritz.

Studio execs who heard Mamet's pitch said they shied away because they still felt they were getting a Mamet movie, for them a product with limited box-office appeal. Only now, with the sport booming, are projects taking shape. Universal is developing a film while New Line is close to a deal with director Gavin O'Connor ("Miracle") for a script about two friends pursuing a mixed martial-arts title fight.

"For me, there's a great story that could put a microscope on the fighters' lives and capture their humanity as well as the brutality of the sport," says O'Connor, who produced an HBO documentary, "The Smashing Machine," that chronicled the struggles of fighter Mark Kerr. "But Hollywood has been very cautious. They're never ahead of the curve. They only jump on the bandwagon when something is already successful."

An ultimate fighting movie will never work if it airbrushes away the rough edges of the sport. Mamet's "Redbelt" script certainly doesn't. As Ricky Jay's fight promoter puts it: "Any two guys fighting for money. No way the fight is fair."

What seems to especially interest Mamet is the eternal conflict between art and business. In "Redbelt," the artist is Ejiofor's character, a loner who trains off-duty cops and bouncers in the art of self-defense but refuses to fight himself. As one of his friends puts it: "He can't stand the sight of money."

This is hardly the way of the new world of sport-tainment, where athleticism is often overshadowed by performance enhancement drugs and endorsement deals. Watching Mamet direct a scene one day, John Machado — whose uncle was the founder of Brazilian jujitsu — pondered the movie's themes, which hit especially close to home for him since he has chosen to teach instead of to fight.

"This movie could have a big impact, because it shows the love you must have for the art," he says. "My character is a businessman, so I'm part of the conflict in the movie — and in real life. How much do you do to sell yourself without selling out?"

Perhaps that's why the studios are so late to the party with ultimate fighting. How to sell yourself without selling out is one of those questions Hollywood has never figured out how to answer.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

[Stefen]

Are there any other MMA fans here besides myself? The last few years I've gotten really into it, and it's a shame that so many meatheads have picked up on it because of the UFC (which is AWFUL) We need more intellectual MMA fans.

I think Mamet is a Brazillian Jiu Jitsu blue belt under either Renzo or Cesar Gracie For those not familiar with BJJ, it's not easy to get a blue belt and especially not easy to get one under those two. I know that Cesar Gracie has only awarded three black belts in his ENTIRE life to Nick Diaz, Jake Shields, and David Terrell respectively, who are all excellent fighters. Gilbert Melendez (one of my favorite mixed martial artists) is on the cusp of getting his black belt. It's not easy to move up ranks under Renzo and Cesar.

With that said, this doesn't look very good. If someone did an MMA movie the right way I have no doubt that it could be great, but this just sounds silly with the differnet rule sets and stuff like that.

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer here.

[MacGuffin]

David Mamet
During his three-decade career, David Mamet, 60, has been an anomaly in Hollywood: a dramaturge whose scripts are the main attraction. With the release of his latest film, Redbelt, this month, the writer, producer, and director reflects on critics, a recent move, and being a fireman.
Source: Vanity Fair

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

What is your greatest fear?
My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line.

What is your greatest extravagance?
My greatest extravagance was, on moving house in Boston, empowering my decorator to conduct the whole procedure while I was away on location.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
My lowest depth of misery was, on my return, the discovery that she had moved me into the wrong house.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
The quality I most admire in a man is steadfastness.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
The quality I most admire in a woman is kindness. And that they should look good in blue jeans.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
The greatest love of my life is my wife and my kids.

Which talent would you most like to have?
The talent I would most like to have is the ability to cloud men's minds. This was possessed by Lamont Cranston (The Shadow) and various East European stage directors.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I consider my greatest achievement the few times I have refrained from telling various producers to go fuck themselves.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
If I were to die and come back as a person or thing, it would be a person.

What is your favorite occupation?
My favorite occupation is directing a movie. This beats napping—not by much, but nonetheless.

What is your most treasured possession?
My most treasured possession is the urn containing the ashes of my dog Fluff. There is not much difference between contemplating the urn and looking at my current dog, asleep on the couch. But I do not have to walk the urn.

What is your most marked characteristic?
My most marked characteristic is an all-inclusive, nonjudgmental joy in the constantly diverting multiplicity of human beings. And foreigners.

What do you most value in your friends?
What I value most in my friends is loyalty.

Who are your favorite writers?
My favorite writers are Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, Dawn Powell, George V. Higgins, Patrick O'Brian, and John le Carré.

Who are your heroes in real life?
My heroes in real life are firemen.

What is your greatest regret?
My greatest regret is that I was never a fireman.

How would you like to die?
I would not like to die.

What is your motto?
My motto is "Be Prepared." I am told this is also the motto of the Boy Scouts, but, if so, this only proves that they were acting according to my motto earlier than I.

[Gold Trumpet]

I don't know, I'm really excited for this. David Mamet is always a good subject for me. Whether he makes a film of semi interest or one or large interest, he still represents a field in film that is becoming more and more diminished. Spartan was a Hollywood thriller, but no filmmaker was making films like that. The thought and concern he had for plot and dialogue is the best throwback to quality entertainment.

Redbelt already feels like Spartan. It will have descriptional ideas about Mixed Martial Arts accurate, but will be a Hollywood take on the subject. It won't be a dedication to the grim brutalism of the sport. Too many people will probably associate the degree of brutality to accuracy and judge the film solely on that merit. I remember years ago when James Ellroy was asked to comment on Auto Focus. Ellroy was a known associate of porn studies and said the film was too tame. I remember thinking Paul Schrader likely had little interest in just the graphic reality of the story. He had to represent it somewhat, but probably knew he couldn't make a true porn like film for major audiences. With every interview I read it looks like David Mamet is taking to his own conception of underground fighting. He has little interest in topping the most graphic fight scenes.

[MacGuffin]

MAMET!!!!!
Source: ComingSoon

It's not too often that a writer achieves the same level of celebrity status as an actor or even a director but when you say "Mamet" to anyone in the entertainment business, they'll immediately know who you're talking about and understand the reference. After all, it's not just the man's name as it is his style of writing, which creates a tone and a feel that many have tried to emulate but few have replicated.

David Mamet was already a respected playwright when he was nominated for an Oscar in 1982 for his screenplay for The Verdict in 1982, followed shortly by two Tony nominations and a career as an in-demand Hollywood screenwriter writing movies like The Untouchables and Hannibal. As a director, Mamet has spent his time jumping genres from crime dramas to comedies and political thrillers, incorporating his distinctive style of dialogue and speech patterns that's helped put his last name among the ranks of "Hitchcock" and "Shakespeare." His life and filmmaking career have been fairly eclectic and he doesn't do a ton of interviews--he was noticeably absent at the junket for his last movie Spartan in 2004-- so when ComingSoon.net had a rare chance to take part in a roundtable interview with Mamet, we jumped on it.

Mamet was back in New York to talk about his new movie Redbelt, which kicked off the 2nd Annual ESPN/Tribeca Sports Film Festival. It's a crime drama (of sorts) set within the world of Jiu-Jitsu and ultimate fighting, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mike Terry, a trainer desperately trying to get the money to save his school, when he's caught in a situation that forces him to return to the ring to fight in a major martial arts tournament. The eclectic cast includes Alice Braga (City of Men, I Am Legend) as his wife, Emily Mortimer as a lawyer who happens upon Terry's school by accident, and Tim Allen playing a rare dramatic role as an actor who asks Mike to do stunts on his new film. Mamet has filled the cast with a number of his regulars as well as real-life fighters from the world of mixed martial arts and ultimate fighting.

ComingSoon.net: Was it difficult getting this film greenlit due to the premise?
David Mamet: Yeah, nobody wanted it in Hollywood except for Sony Classics. I think it was my third or fourth film for them, so they said, "Yeah, sure." I talked to everybody in Hollywood and said, "If you don't get it, look at the demographics. This is the hugest demographics in the world of young males 18 to 25. They all watch the UFC. Look at what they did last year in DVDs, are you nuts? If they make the worst movie ever made, all these kids are going to watch their movie. Guess who I'm going to put in it," and they all said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, no thanks," They all want to make movies about people standing up on a beach with their arms spread, looking up at the heavens, and twirling because they've understood the meanings of life, and indeed, they have.

CS: Can you talk about casting Chiwetel? Obviously, you could have found an actor who had more of a martial arts background, but you went for a strong dramatic actor instead. Was there any concern about getting him trained?
Mamet: Well, he's a great athlete, so he trained with one of the Gracie brothers in London, then he trained very much over here. He doesn't have to get in the ring and fight, all he has to do be is two things: a great actor, which he is, and a sufficient athlete to master the moves, which he did.

CS: How did you come across him? Had you seen any of his stage work, for which he just won an Olivier?
Mamet: No, I saw him in "Dirty Pretty Things," and then I saw him in "Kinky Boots" and I said, "Anyone who could do those two films can do absolutely anything," and I do believe he can.

CS: Did the two of you talk about working in the theater together some time?
Mamet: I want to do "Hamlet" with him. We talked a lot about it, and I said I'd love to direct him in "Hamlet," and he said, "Done," so it's just a question of finding a mutual amount of time.

CS: His character doesn't seem like a typical Mamet character if there's such a thing either. Did you feel that he was a different character than you've written before?
Mamet: I don't know. One of the great things about being in show business, especially about making movies, is that you get to enter into different worlds. I really admire people like Billy Wilder, for example; he made so many different kinds of films. He made one of each kind of film, made so many different kinds of films, so everyone wants to make different kinds of films. I'm really not interested in making the same movie twice.

CS: Why is his character so pure of moral? Does it have anything to do in your mind with his being in the war?
David Mamet: That's an excellent question. It's a film noir, and it's a fight film, so it's a film about purity, so in a certain way I understand film noir as being kind of the younger brother of tragedy. It's about the individual trying to come to grips with what seems to be an external defect in the world which he understands as an internal defect in himself. I've spent a lot of time working with, not in, but with the military due to this television show "The Unit." I also spent a lot of time around and being a fighter, training in Jiu-Jitsu, and always so chastened and inspired by the purity of the military and of the other fighters in the marital arts world. What they're trying to do ideally is to cleanse the lesser elements from themselves in service of a higher ideal, in service of the country and service of the purity of the fighter because what the fighter does is they go through life with an absolute belief in their physical perfectibility. When they believe in that and give themselves over to that, the greater chance they have of prevailing in the world, so that it's really kind of a physicalization of a quest for morality. It's also a spiritual quest. It's like, I can cleanse from myself laziness, sloth, weakness, despair, and there's going to be a test down the line, it's true of the military and of the fighters.

CS: Could you explain why you wanted to cast Emily Mortimer opposite him?
Mamet: I've always loved her work and one of the nice things about making movies is you get to not only work with old people, you get to work with new people, so if you've got a great casting agent, you've got wonderful casting people. Sherry Thomas had been given this television show, and I can't remember if I suggested Emily, or if they suggested her. I think I said I loved her in "Match Point," but that she wasn't doing too much, and they said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, let her do the thing," so that was it.

CS: You've worked with a lot of interesting casts over your career, but you've definitely topped yourself with this movie since it's one of the most eclectic casts from your fighters and you've worked with a lot of very serious, theater, dramatic actors. After you wrote this, how did you find the cast and can you talk about working with non-actors like the actual fighters?
Mamet: Well, sure, Ray Mancini is in the movie; I know him as a friend and also as a fellow member of my Jiu-Jitsu academy. Dan Inosanto also, and a lot of the fighters I gained access to them through Renato Magno, who is my teacher and produced the choreographed fights here. Jean Machado is his cousin and Rico Chiapparelli also trained sometimes and helps Renato, and Rico is one of the guys who trained Randy (Couture). I can't remember how we found Enson Inoue—the short is that a lot of those connections come through the Jiu-Jitsu academy.

CS: In this movie, you have many actors you've worked before who are familiar with the way you make movies, but you also have a lot of new people and non-actors on board as well, so how did you work them into the mix?
Mamet: Well, fighters are easy. I think anyone who can do something very, very well under a lot of pressure, they're probably going to make a pretty good actor. Stanislavski said, "Forget acting training, give me an opera singer, I'll teach them to act in six days."

CS: There are also people you've worked with before: Ricky, David, and your wife obviously, but none of them appeared in "Spartan." Was there any deliberate reason they didn't appear in that movie but you brought them back for "Redbelt"?
Mamet: No, I mean I've got a bunch of guys who I'm very fortunate to work with, and usually I work with them if and when they are available. The thing about making movies that aren't big budget is they tend to get put together at the last moment, so a movie that gets put together at the last moment, a lot of times the people who you'd like to work with, being terrific actors, are working. For example, I wanted to put Macy in a movie and he was off directing a movie in South Africa. Had he been available, and there was no part for him, I would've written one.

CS: So do you do consciously write parts for people you know?
Mamet: No, I don't write parts for the people. I just kind of write parts and call on my pals.

CS: Which was the trickiest character to write for this?
Mamet: None of them were hard to write. The characters in this one weren't hard to write, the plot was hard to write.

CS: Was it hard to differentiate between the two female characters?
Mamet: No, because if you get the story the rest of it is easy because basically if you have a good story and good actresses, you have to do very, very little. They just don't have that many lines, they're just acting them.

CS: How important was it to make the fighting scenes authentic versus making something that was watchable?
Mamet: Well I hope it's watchable, but it's absolutely authentic. I mean these are the greatest fighters in the world either fighting in the movie, or choreographing the fights. There's absolutely nothing inauthentic in it, and I don't think you will find anyone who will say differently because it just is, and so I hope it's entertaining. I found it entertaining.

CS: Who came up with the three marble system that we see used in the film?
Mamet: I thought of it. I was sitting with Rickson Gracie one day, we were watching a thing that he staged and we were talking about ways to make martial arts, not necessarily mixed martial arts, but perhaps Jiu-Jitsu more film-friendly, so I came up with this idea and that's where it comes from.

CS: Has anyone stolen that idea yet to use in actual fights?
Mamet: No, they will, but I copyrighted it. The other thing, the actual idea of training under a handicap is fairly widespread in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, training using only one arm, training using only your legs. In fact, Randy Couture who is the current champion of the UFC, in his last fight he won with only one arm because his arm was broken.

CS: How do you apply the Jiu-Jitsu philosophies from the film to your own life?
Mamet: Well, there are two ways about how to deal with conflict. One way on how to deal with conflict is, "Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah," and another way to deal with conflict is to move it to the side, to walk away, not to get involved in conflict if you don't have to. If you do have to get involved in a conflict with another person, to not bring anger to it, because what's that going to help, and to not bring fear to it, to try to deflect their anger, to not to carry their weight physically, but to not carry their weight spiritually and emotionally. This sounds touchy-feely, but it's extremely important in a fight if someone says, "Oh yeah, you blah blah blah," that person's not hurting you, so why would you let that get your heart beating? Why would you let that get your adrenaline pumping? Because if your heart's beating and your adrenaline is pumping, you're getting weaker, so you train really not to take on not only the other person's weight physically, but to not take on their emotions, to say, "I'm not getting hurt, I'm going to save position. I'm not going to let this happen to me. Later on, if things are different, I'll deal with them then."

CS: Presidential candidate John McCain has been very outspoken against mixed martial arts--he called it "human cockfighting." What do you think about those comments?
Mamet: Oh, I hadn't heard them, but I'd just like to make the point: it's not a mixed martial arts movie, it's a fight movie and one aspect of it is mixed martial arts.

CS: It's been four years since "Spartan" but before that, you were far more prolific as a filmmaker. You've obviously been very busy with theater, but are you going to try to make more films after taking such a long break?
Mamet: Well, if you grew up in show business, you generally start young, so if you grew up in show business and start young, it means you generally start poor, so if you do those things, what happens is, however old you get, when you walk past the supermarket and its offers of employment with those little strips of paper, you stop and read them. You never stop looking for work, so I've just been working every day.

CS: Was "Redbelt" something you'd worked on a long time before it finally came to fruition?
Mamet: It is. In the meantime between "Spartan" I wrote a couple of movies that I thought I was going to direct and they fell through, as movies tend to, and so here we are now.

CS: I've spoken to a number of actors who've worked with you in the past and whenever you have a new script, actors will jump at the chance to be involved, same with Woody Allen. That being the case, do you find that it's very easy to get a cast in a movie once you have a new script or play?
Mamet: That's a great question. There's two ways to make a movie... well, there's three ways to make a movie: if you have a lot of money and you go out to all of these actors, then you can get a fairly easy response. You can pay them whatever the going rate is and do the movie on this date. You get a decent response, yes or no, but if you have a script and an idea, and you give it to actors and say, "What do you think?" The only thing worse they will say than no is yes, because it's always "Yes, but...." Of course, they're very busy as we all are, but the third possibility is if you're making a movie on whatever budget, and you say, "We start shooting this movie on August 5th, would you like to do it?" You can always get a quick response, and most of the time the answer is "yes." I mean if it's someone who you think in advance is probably likely to do it because if they're free, and they like doing anything anyway, and if they like the script, and they want to work with you, why not? Who wouldn't do it?

CS: When you and Rebecca wrote the music for this, did the songs precede the film or were they influenced by it?
Mamet: She's a spectacular musician, and I'm a musician myself. I've been playing the piano since I was four years old, and I can play anything. If I can hear it, I can play it, and I've got a pretty good understanding of musical theory, but she hears stuff that's just... especially the Brazilian songs... she just hears harmonies and melodies that are off the charts. I'm rather in awe of her composing talent. Sometimes I'll write a poem and say, "What do you think about this?" and sometimes she'll write a song and say, "What do you think about this?" and there's a couple things you might want to check out, I think they're kind of cute. They're on YouTube and they're two of her songs that we just went in the backyward and I just shot them on our son's (camera). One of them is a country song called "Baby Please Come Home again", and one of them is a song called "Army Brat" which is kind of our homage to the military.

CS: Do you have any film projects that you're working on right now?
Mamet: Yeah I do, and I can almost talk about them, but not quite yet, but God willing I hope to begin them.

CS: Once you're ready, you basically plan everything even before you start casting?
Mamet: You have to. When you are doing a lower budget movie you have to.

CS: Is "Joan of Bark" a real film that you might still do?
Mamet: Oh, it's this great film. Will Ferrell said he wanted to make the movie, and I was going to make it with Will Ferrell, and then Sony bought it. I don't know what happened, and time went by, it's just sitting around on their shelves. They have this wonderful thing in Hollywood called "there's too much money against it," which means if they pay for a script or pay for development, they then start charging interest on the money that they've spent. Any time you come back to them and say, "Well, what happened about the movie?" and they say, "Well, there's too much money against it," so you say to them, "I don't understand. Wouldn't you rather make back some of that money against it than have there be constantly too much money against it?" And they look at you like a dog just pissed on the road.

CS: Where do you currently live and where do you usually write?
Mamet: I live in Vermont sometimes, and I live in Los Angeles sometimes and I write in an office. I don't live in New York anymore, but I was here quite a while during the fall, during rehearsals of "November." That was a lot of fun. I lived in Chelsea for many, many years, and I lived in a wonderful apartment on 20th street that I rented, and I said to them, "If you ever want to sell the building, please let me know." I went out of town for a couple of weeks, I came back and they had sold the building for a $175 thousand dollars, so I can't even walk through Chelsea anymore without being overcome by real estate remorse.

Redbelt opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, May 2, and in more cities on May 9.

[MacGuffin]

David Mamet and the way of the 'Redbelt'
The playwright and movie writer-director studies jiu-jitsu. He looked around, and there was his new picture.
By Chris Lee, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

DAVID MAMET would prefer to avoid conflict, but he isn't above choking another man into unconsciousness. He knows where the body's pressure points are and how to use them. And although the Chicago transplant never sets out to "win" a fight, his aim, should he be drawn into one, is simple: Don't lose.

Turns out Mamet's got a purple belt in jiu-jitsu. Who knew?

Quite a bit of dojo wisdom came up in conversation one sunny morning outside Street Sports Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the Santa Monica academy where the Pulitzer Prize winner has studied martial arts for the last seven years. Lately, the way of the warrior has been front of mind for Mamet on both professional and personal levels.

The writer-director's cerebral martial-arts potboiler, "Redbelt," reached theaters in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and will open wide across the country this coming Friday. The film follows a jiu-jitsu academy owner (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who obeys a strict samurai code of honor; the prize fight circuit is anathema to his sense of integrity -- never mind the current cultural tipping point at which mixed martial arts has become the fastest growing sport in the country.

However, when he gets sucked into a typically Mametian vortex of corruption, exploitation and deceit (Hollywood hard chargers and unscrupulous fight promoters are mostly to blame), the character must either suit up for a high-stakes cage fight at an Ultimate Fighting Championship-style event or fall short of his high moral ideals and face bankruptcy.

"The movie is my love letter to the world and philosophy of jiu-jitsu," Mamet said.

Tough-talking guys in emotionally fraught situations have long been subject matter A for the prolific pen-pusher behind such plays as "Speed-the-Plow" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" and screenplays including "The Verdict" and "Wag the Dog." But, until now, the art house hero has steered clear of fight films, racking up nine movie credits as a writer-director ("The Spanish Prisoner" and "State and Main" among them) in addition to his sideline as an author, essayist and contributing cartoonist to the Huffington Post.

Judging from pre-release excitement about "Redbelt" in mixed martial arts circles, Mamet's aesthete pedigree is doing him no disservice. And to hear it from several high-level jiu-jitsu practitioners, the 60-year-old indie auteur does more than simply understand the action sports metier. He can give as good as he gets when it comes to grappling, chokeholds and submission techniques.

"He's a tough guy," said Renato Magno, one of Brazilian jiu-jitsu's most respected practitioners and Mamet's instructor at Street Sports since 2001. "I think he uses jiu-jitsu very well. You're using your leverage, your balance -- you use your intellect. It's like a chess game. That's why he's enthusiastic. He's no young guy. But he has a lot of dedication to the sport."

Check out this arm block

Without Ed O'Neill, it's unlikely that Mamet -- who has also boxed, wrestled and dabbled in kung fu -- would have found his way into the world of arm bars and hip throws. That is to say, the actor best known for portraying Al Bundy on "Married . . . With Children" turned Mamet on not only to the sport when the writer-director moved to Los Angeles seven years ago but also to Street Sports, which is just blocks from Mamet's office.

"David wanted me to do 'The Spanish Prisoner' in New York, and when I was there, I demonstrated a choke, an arm block," O'Neill recalled. "When he moved out here, it was in the back of his mind."

"It looked interesting. Like a fun thing to do," is all Mamet will divulge about his initial interest.

In March, O'Neill earned his black belt in jiu-jitsu after 15 years of training at Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy -- owned and operated by the dynastic Brazilian family credited with founding the sport, popularizing it in this country and co-creating the UFC -- becoming one of only five Americans to have been awarded the school's highest ranking.

As someone at the top of his game who happens to have been in Mamet's plays and movies since 1980 -- and who will appear in a run of Mamet's one-act farce "Keep Your Pantheon," scheduled to run alongside his short play "The Duck Variations" beginning May 18 at Culver City's Kirk Douglas Theatre -- O'Neill offered a sober appraisal of the playwright's skill set.

"Dave is a very game, pugnacious guy. You would be hard-pressed if he got ahold of you," O'Neill said. "Good tendon strength. He's been rumored to be smart, so he can apply the techniques of jiu-jitsu properly. He immerses himself in it. He's passionate about it. He goes 100%. And I know from talking to some of the guys he's rolled with, it's no day at the beach."

Giver of noogies

Nonetheless, when Mamet dropped by Street Sports recently, he was greeted warmly by several students -- tough guys with buzz cuts and black belts to whom he proceeded to give friendly noogies on sight. Fittingly enough, the school's wider community had everything to do with the content, narrative verisimilitude and casting of "Redbelt."

"Over the last years, David said to me, 'Let's do a movie about Brazilian jiu-jitsu,' " Magno recalled (Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a separate and distinct martial art from its Japanese forebear, jujitsu). "So we'd meet up every Friday, talk about it at lunch. We went to see some tournaments, grappling competitions. I tried to give him the raw material."

Also, through his connections at Street Sports and Magno's introductions, Mamet was able to enlist a who's who of mixed martial arts and boxing luminaries in supporting roles. Three-time UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture has a role as a commentator; former WBA lightweight champ Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini plays a movie stunt coordinator, and John Machado, a multiple world jiu-jitsu titleholder, appears as the Brazilian champion Ejiofor's character must square off against in the film's climactic battle.

Mamet credits Magno, who served as a technical consultant on "Redbelt," with inspiring him. "Much of it is a homage to Renato and the people he introduced me to," he said. "A lot of them, guys from Brazil like John Machado, Rorian and Rickson Gracie, they understand jiu-jitsu as a spiritual discipline. It's a way of looking at life."

Even though mixed martial arts has reached a kind of cultural apogee lately -- with televised bouts scheduled to appear on CBS and reality television shows about the sport regularly airing on Spike TV and Black Entertainment Television, as well as a spate of theatrical films, including "Never Back Down" and "Flash Point" -- Mamet said nothing other than personal enthusiasm and kismet had factored into his making "Redbelt."

"It takes a long time to do a movie," he said. "And to have it synergistically mesh with something that's going on in the world, it's an accident. I did that with 'Wag the Dog.' Exactly the same thing going on with the Monica Lewinsky scandal was in the movie."

Mamet surveyed the practice facility's padded walls and floors. "The guys who train here are real fighters," he said. "Cops and Navy SEALS, stuntmen and bouncers. They come to learn skills in the real world.

"Why do a movie about this? There's no real answer. One's choices are not the result of intellectualization. It's the result of inspiration."

[Gamblour.]

There was a great interview of Mamet on NPR, Bob Edwards Weekend. I wasn't listening straight through, but it led to an interview with Ricky Jay, as well.

[pete]

just came back from a screening at the international film festival here.  Mamet couldn't make it because he was sick.
First thing, first,
don't watch the trailers, they spoil pretty much everything!

speaking of which, I make references to the movie too, so don't read on if you want to stay 100% pure.

now, the movie is really solid.  People who are very keen for the sports martial arts formula or the standard Mamet twists might see through some stuff, but I wasn't really trying to predict the story as I did in The Spanish Prisoner, it played out very smoothly, with a lot of nice buildups to big fights and little touches that keep on blindsiding you - like a gun that goes off early in the film - and those touches balloon into the meat of the story.  Everything unravels beautifully, but ends too abruptly; Mamet thinks a big fight can satisfy the audience without letting some of the last-minute double crosses and revelations play out fully.  He might be right too, if I didn't see some crucial moments play out in the trailers.  martial artist vs. con artists.  good call.
The film takes place over just a few days of a fighter's life - as he falls and rises and falls and rises in perfectly logical and reasonable manners.  Everything feels very urgent and the fights break out as good, enjoyable payoffs.  the fights themselves seem phony at times; especially when the camera is far away.  I cringed but the majority of the theater was fully absorbed.  the moves and the choreography are not exceptional, but Mamet does a wonderful job building up the world.  The Brazilian-jijiutsu philosophy is delivered very matter-of-factly, and their noble principles did not seem particularly pretentious or exotic.  The movie essentially pits Ejifor's character's standards against a much bigger and more cynical force.  Mamet details his temptations very convincingly, where they almost do not confront moral principles.  Mamet very generously doses out good knowledgeable tidbits on Hollywood, big-budget action films, sketchy club inner-workings, legal manuevers, and of course, Brazilian Jijiutsu.  Real information and insight clouds about everything, further aiding the relatively straightforward plot.
All of the actors are great, the women were amazing in particular.  Mamet's ladies are seldomly fleshed out like his dudes, but the ladies here really put themselves out there, even more so than his usual films.
All in all, a thrilling movie that circumvents predictable plot points by piling on details and surprises - so you don't know which details are for texture and which ones for the arcs.  A very accessible martial arts/ sports film.