David Mamet’s film inspirations for ‘Redbelt’
Sunday, April 27th 2008, 8:22 AM
Writer-director David Mamet‘s new film, “Redbelt,” takes place in the world of mixed martial-arts competition, culminating in an arena showdown similar to the Ultimate Fighting Championships.
Mamet draws a straight line between “the bushido code of the samurai films and the code of the American gunfighter. Samurai movies had an influence on American westerns,” he says.
But to make the film, he drew upon his love of film noir, and points to three specific fight scenes that were models for what he hoped to accomplish in “Redbelt”:
“White Heat” (1949): The famous Jimmy Cagney film (“Top o’ the world, Ma!”) cast Cagney is crazed killer Cody Jarrett and Edmond O’Brien as the lawman sent undercover to infiltrate Jarrett’s gang in prison. “There’s a pretty good fight in ‘White Heat’ between Edmond O’Brien and Jimmy Cagney,” Mamet says. “And O’Brien is ganged up on by some of Jimmy Cagney’s thugs. He uses a little bit of judo – he applies a cross-collar choke that’s pretty accurate.”
“Night and the City” (1950): In Jules Dassin‘s film, the late Richard Widmark played an American small-timer on the hustle in London, who puts together a wrestling match between a popular wrestler known as the Strangler (Mike Mazurki) and an aging wrestling champion known as Gregorius: “Jules Dassin had seen Stanislaus Zbyszko wrestle as a young man and said he wanted someone like him for Gregorius,” Mamet says. “They said, ‘Why not get Zbyszko?’ Zbyszko was in his 70s – but he played the part. He beats Mazurki in the film – and then dies after the match.”
“Bad Day at Black Rock” (1955): In Raoul Walsh‘s progressive drama, Spencer Tracy played a one-armed veteran who goes to the tiny town of Black Rock in 1945 to present a posthumous medal to the father of a Japanese-American soldier who has been killed in combat. But he runs into nothing but hostility in the town because he is on the verge of uncovering its dark secret. “I love the fight scene in that film,” Mamet says. “Spencer Tracy fights with one arm. And he beats up Ernest Borgnine.”