Edmond

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

Release Date: July 14, 2006

Cast: William H. Macy, Julia Stiles, Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, Dylan Walsh, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon, Dule Hill, Bai Ling, Bokeem Woodbine, Debi Mazar, George Wendt, Lonnie Smith

Written by: David Mamet

Directed by: Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator)

Premise: A successful businessman leaves his wife and family after a visit to a fortune teller. He embarks on a journey of self-discovery and redemption heading into New York's underworld where he kills a pimp and a wanna-be actress that lands him in jail.

[SiliasRuby]

Oh hell ya.

[RegularKarate]

Stuart Gordon and David Mamet?

Why haven't I heard of this until now?

[polkablues]

Hot damn!

It looks like "Falling Down" on acid.  With William H. Macy.

Even Denise Richards being in it can't ruin this for me, and that is really, really saying something.

[Ghostboy]

I saw it a few months ago, and it's pretty awesome, especially if you don't mind slightly stagey films. Here's my review.

[Pubrick]

stiles. richards. gruel.

[soixante]

I read the play years ago, and loved it.  I always thought it would make a great movie.  And now, here it is, with Stuart Gordon at the helm.  Now that should be interesting, something nobody has ever done before -- a horror film director having a go at Mamet. 

[MacGuffin]

indieWIRE INTERVIEW: "Edmond" director Stuart Gordon

Starring William H. Macy and Julia Stiles, director Stuart Gordon's ("Re-Animator") "Edmond" is the story of a successful businessman who abandons his wife and family after a fateful visit to a fortune-teller. Following her musings, he leaves on a voyage to New York's seedy underworld in a quest for self-discovery. Along the way though, he kills a pimp and a wannabe actress, and ends up in jail. "Edmond," written by David Mamet, based on his play, opens in limited release by First Independent Pictures Friday. Gordon answered questions from indieWIRE about his film and his early yearnings to make the Mamet play into a film.

Please share a bit about your background...
I'm 58 years old. Was born in Chicago. Co-founded the Organic Theater in Chicago in 1970 and was artistic director for 15 years. Joe Mantegna ("The Godfather" Trilogy) and Dennis Franz (TV's "NYPD Blue") among the actors in the ensemble. I produced and directed the first professional production of David Mamet's play, "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" in 1974.

What were the circumstances that lead you to become a filmmaker?
In 1985 I directed my first feature film "Re-Animator" which won a Critics' Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Based on its success I was offered a three-picture deal and moved to Los Angeles where I now reside.

Did you go to film school? Or how did you learn about filmmaking?
I have always loved films and made 8mm movies with my friends when I was a teenager. In college I tried to get into the one and only film course and it was full, so I took an acting class instead and fell in love with theater (which I pursued for the next fifteen years). I never went to film school but have taught at several.

How did the idea for "Edmond" evolve?
I saw the first production of Mamet's play "Edmond" in 1982 and never forgot it. It burned itself into my brain. I immediately thought it would make a great film and have been talking to David about this for a dozen years or more.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in either developing the project?
The biggest challenge was getting "Edmond" financed. We had a script by Mamet, with William H. Macy and Julia Stiles starring and no studio would touch it. After almost 25 years the work is even more controversial than it was when Mamet wrote it. We finally took it to Chris Hanley at Muse and he was able to piece together the financing from half a dozen companies. Gary Rubin of First Independent pictures was the first company to invest and they are now distributing the film in the US. No guts, no glory.

What are your biggest creative influences?
I am a huge fan of Hitchcock, Kubrick and Fellini. Polanski's film "Rosemary's Baby" was my film school. I have also been very influenced by the writings of Artaud and his "Theater of Cruelty."

What is your definition of "independent film?"
Independent films are a dying breed.

What are some of your all-time favorite films, and what are some of your recent favorite films?
My favorite films: "2001," "Psycho," "8 1/2," "The Wild Bunch," and "Duck Soup." Recently I was blown away by "Master and Commander," "Irreversible," and "Cache."

How do you define success as a filmmaker, and what are your personal goals as a filmmaker?
I would define success as a filmmaker as being able to make films unlike any that have ever been seen before. [I hope to] amaze and surprise audiences, [and] to break rules and boundaries of good taste.

[MacGuffin]

FEATURE - Re-Animating Mamet's EDMOND
For director-producer Stuart Gordon, the travails of a zombie-like human character played by William H. Macy have become as fascinating as those of revived cats and corpses.
By Daniel Robert Epstein, FilmStew.com

Through films such as Re-Animator and From Beyond, director Stuart Gordon has created some of the most frightening contemporary images to grace the silver screen. But his latest picture, Edmond, based on the play by David Mamet, may be his most disturbing work yet.

Not only does Edmond take Gordon back to his stage days, when his company The Organic Theatre was helping define the early days of American avant-garde, but it also reunites him with Mamet. Gordon was the first person to stage Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, which later of course became the film About Last Night.

Edmond stars William H. Macy as a man who is clinging to his life by one finger. Then, one night, he lets go; he leaves his job and his wife, buys a giant knife, and proceeds to try and physically decimate anyone unsympathetic to his rationales.

Gordon first saw Edmond as a stage production way back in 1982, and remembers being mightily impressed. "I was blown away," he recalls during a recent interview with FilmStew. "Mamet had never written anything like it, and he hasn't since."

"It was so shocking and truthful that it burned itself into my brain," Gordon continues. "I never forgot it, and I have been talking about making it into a movie for at least a dozen years. I think Neil LaBute wanted to make a movie out of it at one time. There were a lot of attempts, but nobody could get the financing for it."

"Gary Oldman wanted to play Edmond in one of the scenarios. When we had Macy and Julia Stiles attached, we would go to the studios and they'd say 'We can't wait to read this.' And we'd never hear from them again. What eventually happened was a dozen tiny little companies were brave enough to each put up bits of money."

As Mamet was fearful that any Hollywood treatment would inevitably try to sanitize the provocative content of Edmond, he insisted that not one line of dialogue could be changed without his explicit approval. He stayed in close contact with Gordon during production and was actively involved throughout. However, when Mamet finally saw a rough cut, he was surprisingly open to idea of paring the narrative down.

"He said, 'I think we can cut some of these lines,'" Gordon recalls. "Some of them I did cut, and others I said, 'No, those are great; you can't cut that stuff.'"

Mamet wrote Edmond at a time when he was going through similar life experiences as those of his title character. His first marriage was breaking up, he was living in New York City, and he was definitely not having a grand old time. Gordon theorizes that he probably started fantasizing about what could happen to him if he gave in to his most primal of urges.

With Edmond, Mamet had begun to make the transition from less narrative-driven material like American Buffalo. But Gordon says dealing with the residual monologue-like dialogue was not a problem.

"I always thought that the play was very much like a movie," he insists. "It really is a journey, and you travel into these very short scenes and you meet all these people. My daughter once said the movie reminded her of Alice in Wonderland, which I think is true. There's a lot of story in it. I also found out recently that Edmond was the name of David's grandfather."

"I also have to say that we were so lucky to get William H. for this role," he adds. "He had never, ever played the role on stage and he was really born to play this part."

"It was a very short conversation with him when I called him up and asked him to do it. He said, 'I've been waiting all my life to play this part.'"

On the flipside, Edmond reunites Gordon with his one-time theater company colleague and Mamet Hall of Famer Joe Mantegna, with whom he had kept in touch over the years. Other more recent collaborators also became involved in the project, including Jeffrey Combs, George Wendt, Debi Mazar and Lionel Smith.

But two things were markedly different for Gordon during the pre-production of Edmond. There was no need to flesh out a myriad of special effects and prosthetics scenes, and he was able to rehearse his actors prior to filming for one full month.

"There are certain lines in this that just jump out at you," Gordon muses. "Like, 'How much of your life are you really happy?' I think we all feel that way. How much of our lives are we really alive? According to Edmond, it's just a few minutes every year."

"I think that's true," he adds. "You can get into ruts and routines, and it takes something to shake yourself out of those things and really let yourself experience new things. Bill [Macy] and I had a lot of discussions about. Is Edmond crazy? I believe he's not. I think he just wants the same thing that everybody wants, which is for people to be honest with each other."

"He doesn't want to waste his time with bullsh*t. He wants to be happy in a world where people care about each other."

Up next for Gordon is Stuck, a play-like drama centered on two characters. Based on a true story, it focuses on a woman who, after hitting a homeless man with her car and having him become embedded in her windshield, chooses to leave him in her garage to die rather than take him to the Emergency Room. As he pleads with her for help, it becomes a duel between the two of them.

Gordon is also about to film Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Hat for the second season of Showtime's Masters of Horror. But there are, delightfully, other horror possibilities on the horizon.

"I've done an adaptation with my old friend Dennis Paoli of The Thing of The Doorstep, which is one of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories," explains Gordon, referring to the source of inspiration for Re-Animator. "We've been trying to get that made for a while. I've learned that all these things take forever."

"And I think we're going to be shooting House of Re-Animator next year," he reveals. "We've got some more work to do on the script, but William H. is going to play the President and George Wendt will be the vice president. I'm hoping to get Barbara Crampton to play the First Lady."

"And, of course, it's going to be Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott from the original movie."

Although Gordon has joked with producer Brian Yuzna that the little boy character introduced in House of Re-Animator could pave the way for a gaggle of additional sequels to those already planned, he thinks this will be it as far as his involvement in the signature franchise."

"I've been kind of moving toward more realistic stories recently," he admits. "Although I still love to do Lovecraft and all those kinds of movies, I have started to realize that the things that happen in real life are much more horrifying than any vampires, werewolves or tentacled monsters."

[MacGuffin]

This was like a f'ed up version of Cleo From 5 To 7, and I'm probably saying that 'cause they both start off with tarot card readings, but it's not such a stretch when you think about it. Both main characters go through life-assessing, reality checks and their journey transforms them. Gordon was the right fit for this material because there is shock and horrors of a different nature here that were staged perfectly. And Macy commands the screen going through his descent. A great Mamet adaptation.