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Filmmaker Stuart Gordon has funny memories of hanging out with David Mamet back when they were in their 20s. “We were working at a theatre company in Chicago. He used to give me a new script to read every week. He would tell me, ‘One day, this is going to win a Pulitzer.’ I’d laugh.”

Since Gordon produced the first production of Mamet’s celebrated play Sexual Perversity in Chicago in 1974, the two have remained close friends. Mamet has become one of the most respected figures in the American theatre, with plays like American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross to his name (not to mention a good deal of film writing and directing). Gordon has become a filmmaker—he’s the director and co-writer behind the cult horror sensation Re-Animator, which has fostered a loyal following, and he’s now at work on a sequel, House of Re-Animator.

But Gordon says that for over 20 years he had dreamt of bringing a Mamet work to the big screen. In the early ’80s, at Chicago’s famous Goodman Theater, he saw one of Mamet’s darkest works, Edmond. Set in New York, the play is Mamet’s exploration of his own nastiest side. Written while Mamet was struggling in Manhattan and grappling with an ugly divorce, it’s the story of one man’s descent into hell, a trip that involves the unleashing of his inner racist and misogynist thoughts. It’s pure unfiltered Mamet: the realistic acting that Gordon gets from his amazing cast—William H. Macy, playing Edmond, is flanked by Julia Stiles, Mena Suvari and Joe Mantegna, among others—is accented by that surreal, rapid-fire, expletive-laden banter. Edmond is funny, disturbing and odd, all at once. And it’s not hard to see why it took more than 20 years for Gordon to adapt the piece for the big screen.

Race matters

“The race stuff in the film, that’s what really scared the studios,” says Gordon. “Most racists are depicted as monstrous. Edmond is a character who is very messy, but not entirely unsympathetic. It really freaked people out. What Mamet is trying to say is that we’re all racists to some degree. Once you scratch the surface, it’s there. This is unsettling, but it’s also very truthful.”

Gordon says things began to come together as his cast signed on. “I’ve known Macy for some 30 years, but we’ve never actually worked together. He is such a professional, he’s like a dream to work with. Watching him act is like watching Fred Astaire dance, he makes it seem effortless, but it’s so much intense work.”

And he says he thought a great deal about another famous unsympathetic and unhinged character when he made Edmond. “I looked at Taxi Driver a lot. There was a film where the city itself became a character. The protagonist was someone you wouldn’t normally care about under normal circumstances, but come to.”

Despite the 20-odd year age of the work, Gordon feels Edmond couldn’t be more timely. “Mamet is a prophet. Look at the time we’re in. I would argue racial tension still runs very high in America. Bush has been a very divisive force in this country, he’s appealed to the worst fears in people. I think this is a very dangerous time.

“Edmond really is about Mamet’s imagination: Basically, what would happen if he became totally unhinged? He let himself go, and that’s why it’s so scary and so truthful. I learned later that Edmond was Mamet’s grandfather’s name. I think that says something about where he was coming from when he wrote this.”

The studios, Gordon believes, “would have wanted to remove all the sharp edges from Edmond. They actually wanted to change some of the black characters to white in the film, because they couldn’t handle it. The studios essentially try to make film projects like all other films. To me, the point of being independent is to say and do things the studios can’t do.

“Indie movies should be the ones that wake us up.”

Edmond screens as part of Fantasia on Sunday, July 23, 9:30 p.M. at Concordia’s Hall THEATRE. Stuart Gordon will be there to introduce the film. It opens in theatres on July 28.

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