David Mamet

[beamish14]

This sounds almost a bit like Alex Cox’s exiled from Hollywood digital creations, which ramp up his normal obsessions and use significant amounts of incredibly low-quality VFX shots.

Mamet is distributing this himself, no? I think LaBoeuf’s production shingle is also behind it.

[Never Cursed]

This sounds almost a bit like Alex Cox’s exiled from Hollywood digital creations, which ramp up his normal obsessions and use significant amounts of incredibly low-quality VFX shots.

Mamet is distributing this himself, no? I think LaBoeuf’s production shingle is also behind it.

Yes, Mamet is self-distributing, but no, it isn’t nearly that level of production quality. I haven’t seen those movies, but judging from the YouTube trailers for Repo Chick and Tombstone Rashomon, I would say that Mamet was at least willing to try and tell a story at the budget level he found himself located. All the little technical hallmarks of filmmaking are fine in Henry Johnson - the brief visual effects are satisfactory, the costumes and makeup convincing, the sets very slickly done for the budget level, and the lighting and color grade all professional. What’s actually telling about Mamet’s film is that there are only four onscreen actors (not counting one woman’s shoulders) and otherwise empty sets, or sets shot around a lack of people, in locations and social contexts where people obviously would normally be, and a complete absence of any scenes that would require the film to move from the three main sets (an office, a prison cell, and a prison library) and into locations with supporting players. I know the film is based on a play, but watching it you can feel Mamet’s desperation in not being able to open it up (this is not like his Glengarry Glen Ross or Oleanna or Tennessee Willams’ Suddenly, Last Summer, where the omission of key characters or events is important or the entire purpose of the play). Characters frequently explain what other characters are about to do as a method of communicating the plot without having to show and thus film it. Mamet is an intelligent and accomplished enough director (indeed, an experienced enough writer of rules of dramaturgical practice, however bad his recent plays may be) to know to “show not tell,” and so the fact that he tells rather than shows so constantly is a keen indication that his hands were tied.

By contrast, the Alex Cox clips look like a bad YouTube or Channel Awesome video and demonstrate huge problems in all of the aforementioned film craft practices. Similarly to those kinds of content creators, it seems as though most of the ideas for those films are lazy mashups of tropes and extant stories (“what if Repo Man was a girl,” “what if Rashomon was a western,” etc.). What I’m saying is those movies almost certainly have much bigger problems than Mamet’s.

[therewillbeblus]

I like how Shia wears Mamet's haircut in this

[diamonds]

In A Play About David Mamet Writing About Harvey Weinstein, a fictional David Mamet is poisoned, castrated and murdered with his own playwriting award.

An interview with Mathilde Dratwa about her new play

[domino harvey]

Thumbed through what appears to be yet another Mamet memoir at Myopic today, Everywhere an Oink Oink, and was treated to a garbled anecdote about Arletty’s “pussy” and claims that Chevalier was a collaborationist, so he’s still got it (circa the last dozen years or so). What brings me to mention this book at all is discovering just now after googling what this book was called (“David Mamet pig book” reveals that 25 years ago David Mamet also wrote a children’s book about a pig? Am I really being Mandela Effected rn?) that there’s an audiobook of this memoir… read by someone who isn’t Mamet. Why would anyone who wants that want that?

[Never Cursed]

...there’s an audiobook of this memoir… read by someone who isn’t Mamet. Why would anyone who wants that want that?

For what it's worth: the voice actor is the guy who tries to buy the boat from Hackman in Heist. Not actually the worst get in the world, but not a good get either. Why am I defending this?

[ZolaBola]

I really must devote more time to watching films from Mamet. "The Verdict" and "Glengarry" are the only films of his I have watched and that was years ago! But from memory he is very good at character development, even if the film as a whole doesn't have a global appeal in terms of box office.

Glengarry Glen Ross, stands out for special attention because the characters in that film are outstanding, especially from Arkin and Lemmon.

Always
Be
Closing!

[hearthesilence]

I guess this is no surprise when it's for the Spectator.

[bearcuborg]

I tried, I really-but David lumped MLK and Kirk together, the pay to read notification was perfect timing to checkout.

[hearthesilence]

Pretty rich putting the two together when, well, this.

[swo17]

He was one of the greats. He was the Jess Franco of Criterion Forum

[thirtyframesasecond]

I guess this is no surprise when it's for the Spectator.

Wow, Mamet has had quite the political pivot in the last decade or so. But then Oleanna is thirty years old.

[beamish14]

I guess this is no surprise when it's for the Spectator.

Wow, Mamet has had quite the political pivot in the last decade or so. But then Oleanna is thirty years old.

I think it was already fermenting when he became more religious after his divorce from Lindsay Crouse. 9/11 pushed him into insanity

[hearthesilence]

I think it was already fermenting when he became more religious after his divorce from Lindsay Crouse. 9/11 pushed him into insanity

Religious insanity is about right. Someone posted the entire article and the opening paragraph before the paywall notice doesn't reveal how batshit insane the rest turned out to be, closing with this:

Dennis Prager said that the sole accomplishment of the left was its demonisation of the right – a contemporary rendition of ‘tell the truth and shame the Devil’. The young may not yet realise there is honour in shaming the Devil, as they do not yet have to face the shame of their own complicity. The modern transgender insanity, which is accepted by so many of the young, is in essence child sacrifice. It’s the ultimate delusion of a populace trying to gain autonomy in a universe they understand as ruled by malevolence appeaseable by shed blood. The Devil will go to any lengths to prevent his victims from saying his name.

[denti alligator]

Wait, he's Jewish. Why does he sound like a fundamentalist Christian?

[domino harvey]

I’ll just quote my suspicions from exactly ten years ago today…

I felt sorry for Mamet and wondered what he could have been thinking when he wrote the Anarchist. With China Doll, I'm worried he might legit have some kind of undiagnosed mental disorder and no one in his circle is brave enough to challenge him. This play is that bad.

[Never Cursed]

The most unbelievable film news of the year so far: Mamet will direct an adaptation of his Speed-the-Plow with a bunch of names: Anthony Mackie, Ben Mendelsohn, Emily Alyn Lind, Sharon Stone, Chris Bauer, and, yes Rebecca Pidgeon. The play only has three roles, so it sounds like the film will open it up(!) a bit. Sharon Stone plays one of the added roles, insane movie star “Gemma Speed.”

[LastMinit]

I just watched the We're No Angels remake on the channel, first time since it came out, and I was impressed by the effort put in by everyone... except for David Mamet.

It feels like that thing where someone says 'comedy' and people stop taking it seriously.

On the one hand, I get it, I hate to see movie budgets spent on a few gags that a stand-up comedian could deliver better, which is why I think comedy movies should always take human behaviour a little bit seriously, and balance things out with some poignancy at least.

With this film the dramatic elements are there, and George Fenton on score, Philippe Rousselot on camera, and the entire production design team, all deliver career highs. The opening sequence, set in a very grim working prison, is hugely atmospheric and intriguing, and these standards are sustained in these departments throughout. It's a 4k looking movie, no question.

BUT no effort is made in the script, first of all, to bring the unlikely premise into line with the tone of the film, it remains highly implausible and caper-ish, when just a little bit of nuance could've given it a lot more weight. Second of all, the character progression is skipped over. The Sean Penn character has no scene with John C. O'Reilly where they come to some form of clumsy theological breakthrough or understanding, despite them having multiple moments together, and despite their resolution suggesting that is what occurred. Likewise with Demi Moore and Robert De Niro's romance. And De Niro is given multiple scenes where he's trying to pull Sean Penn away, to get back on board with their escape, with each one of those scenes playing out the same way, with De Niro urging 'Father Brown' along by repeating his name ever more earnestly. The space is right there in the film! For more dialogue! It's crying out for it!

Anyway, it feels like they should've told Mamet they were making a drama, for the first draft at least, and tweaked it from there.

I'm going to watch it again to drink in that atmosphere, and maybe the core of it will resonate a bit better this time? We'll see. Maybe I just have a hard time with comedies in general.