From `Bookworm' To Big Action -- Director Transforms Mamet Story Into `The Edge'

Playwright David Mamet ("Glengarry Glen Ross," "American Buffalo") doesn't ordinarily write big action movies that attract millions of viewers. But he flirted with the genre 10 years ago with "The Untouchables," and its producer, Art Linson, has coaxed him back.

"Art commissioned David to write a film that Americans will go and see," said Lee Tamahori, the intense New Zealand filmmaker who was so taken with the script that he ended up directing the picture.

"My agent gave it to me one night and said he needed a decision in the morning."

The next day, Tamahori bailed out of his planned remake of "Dial M for Murder" and signed on to direct Mamet's "Bookworm." The picture went through what Tamahori calls "title hell" before it finally emerged as "The Edge." Now it's one of Twentieth Century Fox's potential fall blockbusters.

"I liked `The Wild' best," said Tamahori during a Seattle stop on a publicity tour for the picture.

"It seems to be about the movie. But that title is owned by Francis Ford Coppola, and `The Edge' is certainly better than some of the titles they came up with - horrible two-word things like `Natural Enemies.' You can't let a film go out like that."

Starring Alec Baldwin as a mercenary fashion photographer and Anthony Hopkins as his billionaire employer, "The Edge" was filmed almost entirely in Alberta, on the edges of Banff National Park, where their characters become involved in a power struggle following a plane crash. Hopkins is the bookworm of the original title; his book-learned survival skills come in handy when they're battling the wilderness and a ferocious kodiak bear.

Baldwin was cast first, largely because of the small role he played in the 1992 film of "Glengarry Glen Ross."

"He stole the movie with that 10-minute cameo," said Tamahori. "When Alec is good, as he is in that film and `Miami Blues,' he's brilliant. When he doesn't have the right material, he's forgettable. He loves Mamet, and I had no doubt he was right."

However, it took six months to come up with Hopkins. Several other actors, including Robert De Niro, had considered and turned down the part. Tamahori thought of making the character younger and casting Sean Penn, but that didn't work, either. Eventually Tamahori became convinced that Hopkins, who will turn 60 in December, was both the right age and had the correct approach to the role.

"These things are all about casting," he said. "You could easily have two bad actors going over the top, and you couldn't win. The subtlety of Tony's performance provides such a contrast, and his age is crucial. The older this character is, the more people want to steal his money and his wife."

Mamet's original script ended with Hopkins' character going off into the woods, "Jeremiah Johnson"-style, as result of the "primal experience" of his wilderness adventure. Tamahori wasn't sure he could make that work, though his ending - an extreme closeup of Hopkins' face, slowly fading to black - is just as solitary in its way.

"Normally you'd have a big crane shot pulling back from him, but we decided to do the complete opposite," said Tamahori. "Some studios want you to have eight endings in the can, but I was just interested in making this one work. David intended a more stoic character. I wanted to push this man's emotional buttons and take it somewhere else."

The last time Tamahori toured with a film, it was to promote his first feature, "Once Were Warriors," which became the No. 1 box-office attraction in New Zealand's history, outgrossing even "Jurassic Park."

He took it to festivals around the world, impressing enough agents, actors and studio executives to land him an MGM contract to make "Mulholland Falls," a Los Angeles crime story set in the 1950s.

"MGM didn't want to spend too much on it, so they didn't send me out," he said. He believes they mistakenly tried to sell it as an action film, and it flopped with audiences and most critics.

However, it's done quite well on video, and a critical re-evaluation appears to be under way. The current issue of Film Comment features an overview of Tamahori's career and describes "Mulholland Falls" as a film with "many idiosyncratic good graces . . . (a) poetic evocation of human alienation and loss of all futurity."

Although he's living "semi-permanently" in Los Angeles, the 47-year-old Tamahori plans to return to New Zealand for another picture after he finishes his next major-studio film.

As for the movie he left to make "The Edge": "You know you're going to get slaughtered if you remake a Hitchcock picture, but this is a very smart rewrite of `Dial M.' "

He sends his best wishes to Michael Douglas and director Andrew Davis, who are now committed to retooling "Dial" for the touch-tone phone era.