Edmond - (2005) - DVD
rewatch
Various MoFo posters got me going on Stuart Gordon (tagged below.) I'd seen
Edmond and
Stuck and really appreciated them - all the more now knowing who directed them. Originally I was going to re-watch
Reanimator, which I thought I had on DVD - but ended up watching
Edmond again. The DVD of that has two commentary tracks, a making of featurette, interviews with Stuart Gordon and the trailer. They're all very enlightening.
Edmond was originally a very controversial play by David Mamet - seen by Gordon in Chicago 1982 (he rates it as a seminal experience - people in the audience were raising hell at the performance he caught - "It struck a lot of nerves" he says.) Gordon knew Mamet, and had directed a few of his early plays. He also knew William H. Macy, counting him as one of his good friends from his early, experimental theatre days. When he called Macy asking him to play the role of the title character he told Gordon he'd been waiting all of his life to play this part.
It's a film I can barely fault. Macy's performance is really something, and it's hard to imagine anyone else in this role. Does the main character descend into madness or ascend into liberation? It's hard to say. "Every fear hides a wish," Edmond says, so while his worst nightmares come true (
anyone's worst nightmare it feels like) the film has, as Gordon describes, a "happy ending". I think that's vague enough not to include as a spoiler. Watch out for Jeffrey Combs as the Desk Clerk! A lot of familiar faces including George Wendt as a Russian Pawn Shop Owner and
Stuck's Mena Suvari as the prostitute Edmond haggles with.
Deleted scenes include one where Edmond misreads a newspaper headline - "MAN CONCEDES EXTENT OF ERROR ON SELF", a fantastic speech about fate from the fortune teller (why this was left out I do not know,) and the gory sight of a certain murder (which was the right choice I think - our imagination is enough.) Stuart Gordon's commentary (backed up by cast members) is greatly beneficial - they have a lot to say about the film. David Mamet's commentary is terrible. He might be drunk/stoned - during a 10 minute silence I thought I'd changed the audio track - he basically has nothing to say except for the occasional mumble of "great scene" or "good lighting".
9/10
@
Torgo @
LordWhis @
Wooley @
Captain Terror @
ThatDarnMKS @
WHITBISSELL!