Pulitzer Prize winner and two-time Oscar nominee David Mamet brings his unique style of storytelling to the world of Jiu-Jitsu in Redbelt, a dramatic film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alice Braga and Rodrigo Santoro. The stars of Redbelt signed on to the project in large part because of the opportunity to speak Mamet’s lines, but the writer/director downplayed his talent at the film’s LA press junket. “You paint the kitchen yellow. You paint the living room beige. You hang around and you learn. I make it up as I go along. That's all,” explained Mamet about his style of writing.
Redbelt focuses on a Jiu-Jitsu trainer named Mike Terry (Ejiofor) who’s skilled enough to earn major money in the ring, but whose disdain for the idea of competitive fighting makes him avoid the ring until he’s pushed beyond his limits. The idea of doing a film centering on Jiu-Jitsu stemmed from a conversation Mamet had with Ed O’Neill. “I washed up in Los Angeles a few years ago and my friend Ed O'Neill said if I ever came to Los Angeles he would put me together with these Brazilians who teach this marvelous art called the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so I did and he did. I got intrigued with Jiu-Jitsu not only as an art, but with the world surrounding. The people it attracted. That's what the movie is really about. It's about all the different people, all the cross- pollenization of people who are attracted to this world. The people who fight for a living and fight to stay in shape, and the woman who comes and discovers she can re-form her life. Those are the people you find in a Jiu-Jitsu academy. It's a fascinating place.”
Most people believe the highest belt you can receive is a blackbelt, but Mamet says there is in fact one person who holds a redbelt. “It's currently Helio Gracie who is one of the two men who created Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,” said Mamet. “He's now 95 or 96, and he wears the redbelt. It's an honorific because in Jiu-Jitsu there are only the four belts: white, blue, purple, brown, black. White means you don't have a belt, in effect.”
In the film, Ejiofor is a blackbelt who owns his own academy and also teaches. For those not into the sport, Mamet explained how different belts are awarded. “They get their belt because the belt is awarded to them by the teacher in the academy. The tradition of my academy, which I believe is the tradition of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the purest form...it's very different than a lot of martial arts because with a lot of martial arts people test for the belt. The teacher says there are things you have to do in kung fu or tae kwon do to get the next level belt, but in my academy it's exactly the opposite. What happens is one day, usually after a particularly strenuous class or a particularly strenuous workout, the teacher will come over and give you the next belt. Everybody's reaction is almost universally the same. They say, ‘No, I'm not ready yet.’ So the belt is a symbol that you've been watched and observed and it's time for you to take on new responsibilities.”
But Redbelt is more than an intense look at Jiu-Jitsu and the philosophy surrounding the martial art. It’s really about the challenges of trying to remain honorable in a world which throws obstacles in your path on a daily basis. “As what happens in any hero journey, you start off saying, ‘I'm not going to engage in the world. I'm going to live on my mountaintop. If I'm in my academy, everything is pure and I can teach purity,’” explained Mamet. “Step two is that, ‘I'm going engage in the world. How can I live in a world full of stupid, venal people?’ And step three in the hero journey is, and ‘I'm one of them,’ so that's what Mike Terry has to go through.”
Mamet’s kept busing writing stage plays and screenplays for decades, and to the critically acclaimed writer they’re both gratifying. “It's a great treat to do both. Making movies is an especially great privilege, and I say making movies especially, because you've got to get a lot of people to agree with you and endorse you, both the people who put up the money and the people that work with you to say, ‘That's a good idea, I'll do that.’”
Being a wordsmith first doesn’t detract from his enjoyment in directing actors. “It's fun. It's like going on safari. You get to go out and be with people, instead of sitting just sitting in your room,” said Mamet. “Being a director on a movie set is very much like being a director in a play in that you have to be able to explain in simple, practical terms what you see happening. But on a play you just have to explain to the actors, and on a movie you have to explain it to the scenic designer and the cameraman and the editor and all those people. So the more you have to explain it to these wonderful artists and craftspeople you're working with and answer their specific questions, the more precise it makes you. It's a great process and a challenging process and I love doing it.”
