David Mamet’s New Film, RedBelt, Reworks the Jiu-Jitsu Legend
|
The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating interview with David Mamet about his new martial arts film, RedBelt. Unlike some other American directors who have little first hand knowledge of martial arts, yet insist on directing martial arts films, Mamet has trained in the art of jiu-jitsu as well as traditional Western-style boxing and wrestling. |
|
|
Those of you who have heard me lecture on the films of Akira Kurosawa know that I have a certain regard for Kurosawa’s first directorial effort, Sanshiro Sugata, with its theme of the honorable use of martial arts versus their disreputable mis-use. It’s amazing especially for its staging of the jiu-jitsu matches. Kurosawa portrays them with power and excitement, something that can be hard to convey with the art of jiu-jitsu. As Mamet notes in this interview, Jiu-jitsu is a grappling, not a striking form of fighting. Striking is very filmable, because you have distance between the fighters. They come together and then apart, and the audience can follow it. But jiu-jitsu looks much more like wrestling. The fighters are tied up, and instead of fancy kicks and roundhouse punches the most dramatic thing might be one guy working to get a hand free and turn the fight around.
|
|
Read the rest of the interview here.
Posts (RSS)