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domino harvey wrote:David Mamet writing/directing HBO film on Phil Spector, to star Al Pacino

Dammit. While these has the potential to be very good and interesting; I really wanted to see Cameron Crowe's take on his life with Tom Cruise starring. HOO-HAH!

It's been five lonely years since Mamet's masterful synthesization of his cinematic concerns in Redbelt and now finally we have one more entry in the argument for David Mamet being one of our greatest working filmmakers. I don't know much about the case against Phil Spector and have no opinion on his guilt or innocence but the truth of the matter is irrelevant: the film believes in his innocence, or at least entertains the notion, and it does so via an exceedingly clever process of mounting Spector's defense. Aided by some familiar faces from Mamet's past (Al Pacino, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rebecca Pidgeon-- gasp), Mamet's decision to frame a courtroom film almost entirely out of the actual courtroom is a shrewd move, and it allows Mamet to indulge in the trial prep as one more form of masquerade. Research volunteers are exposed to defense strategy sessions (these result in two of my favorite sequences in the film, one involving an unusually positive fan and the other involving a rubber gun) and a mock trial is engineered on a sound stage with extras filling in mid-process and the car wheels of an SUV peeking out behind the backdrop wall-- the illusory nature of the defense is fitting with Mamet's deep concerns for the perceived injustice of Phil Spector's predicament. And in the process Mamet naturally drops armfuls of quotable bon mots ("Jesus wasn't killed because he was the son of God. He was killed because he was still the son of God!") and for those curious, yes, he does get in his digs at liberals early. I suspect many viewers will either treat this with disdain (how dare Mamet suggest Spector's innocent) or process and devalue Pacino's bravura performance as camp overreaching, but for me the joys were simple to elucidate: this is ninety straight minutes of precise cinema art

Well, you've certainly described the movie I saw, but I think you're really misjudging its success. Aside from the trial research you mention -- the kind of granular insider procedural detail Mamet is so gifted at dramatizing -- there wasn't much in the film for me as a longtime fan of the writer-directors' best work in all media. Pacino should get nominated for his second HBO movie in a row; no argument from me there. And the elaborate set of Spector's weird house is certainly a cool place for some playlike Mametspeak to happen. But Mamet's angle of attack and his intellectual concerns here are ultimately less interesting than they are just kind of muddled and baffling. This seems like exactly the wrong story to string his concerns about the way the American public and the justice system can prejudge the freaky and the famous. I kept waiting for the narrative to offer us a revelation, to cohere in some way or come alive (which, it did very briefly and fitfully, especially in the gun research scene), but was left wondering very much aloud: "Is that all there is?" For my money Redbelt and his work on the better episodes/seasons of The Unit gave me a lot more to chew on.

I also don't happen to see how the issue of Spector's actual guilt or innocence is beside the point, when the film seems very much interested in the question. In one of the weaker moves in Mamet's career, he conveniently leaves out or distorts a few key pieces of evidence (more on that below). Why tell this particular story at all if he isn't interested in the realities of it? There's such an odd disclaimer at the beginning that it makes you wonder if it isn't because HBO legal felt that Mamet had distorted the facts of the case past the point where they could legitimately claim it was "based on a true story."

From The Los Angeles Times

Harriet Ryan wrote:In the film, we are told repeatedly and emphatically that there is no evidence Spector pulled the trigger.

"They have no facts!" insists defense lawyer Linda Kenney Baden. It's as plain as Spector's white dinner jacket, the movie says. If he had shot her, we are informed again and again and again, the snowy fabric would be drenched in blood.

In fact, there was blood on Spector's jacket: Tiny mist-like spots near the lapel that, according to expert testimony, put Spector no more than three feet from Clarkson's face when the gun went off. The same type of blood mist was found on the outside of Clarkson's wrist, an indication, experts said, that at the time of the gunshot, her hands were up in a defensive posture and not on the trigger.

warren oates wrote:I also don't happen to see how the issue of Spector's actual guilt or innocence is beside the point, when the film seems very much interested in the question.

Sorry, I worded my comment poorly. I meant the question is irrelevant to my enjoyment of the film.

Though Spector constantly makes moves in the area of this being persecution of the fringe entertainers, I don't think Mamet is all that convinced in this film-- even though I know in interviews Mamet contradicts my statement, I think he'd appreciate the irony of me still making it regardless however! Mamet rather seems fixated on the idea of guilt or innocence in the legal justice system as ultimately just one parlor trick or flashy move away. Mirren's fixer keeps insisting if only they could pull this stunt, the jury will be so blinded that the rest won't matter. It's cynical beyond just persecuting the weirdos-- it's all of us, normal or strange, screwed

Fair enough. I guess I just think he backed a better horse when a younger version of the same cynical Mamet let Frank Galvin exploit similar courtroom theatrics for his client's cause in The Verdict.

In related news, does Rebecca Pidgeon not age or something?

I liked the BBC documentary better as something that linked his life (especially his work as a producer) to the trial. But Pacino definitely got Phil down, as good (won't say better) than his Roy Cohn or Jack Kevorkian.

Recently saw Mamet's Phil Spector for the first time; Not surprisingly, this was excellent. Pacino was spot-on as Spector; perfect casting, and I can't imagine anyone else playing that role as well as he did.

Obviously PS got preferential treatment because he was a celebrity, and he obviously had more $ to pay for expensive lawyers than if he had been a regular Joe off the street. But, he was still convicted. Interesting.

Going along with the above, how much of this case was tried in the court of public opinion?! There were a lot of protestors in front of the court-house during the trial who obviously hated PS.

It also seemed that PS's eccentricites ended up working against him. I'm sure those outlandish wigs he wore in the courtroom didn't help his case....Not sure why he thought that was a good idea....