Mamet's books include: On Directing Film (1991), a commentary and dialogue about film-making; The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; Bambi vs. Godzilla, a commentary on the movie business; The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (2011), a commentary on cultural and political issues; Three War Stories (2013), a trio of novellas about the physical and psychological effects of war; and Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood (2023), an autobiographical account of his experiences in Hollywood.
Early life and education
Mamet was born in 1947 in Chicago to Lenore June (née Silver), a teacher, and Bernard Morris Mamet, a labor attorney. He is Jewish. His paternal grandparents were Polish Jews.[4] Mamet has said his parents were communists and described himself as a red diaper baby.[5] One of his earliest jobs was as a busboy at Chicago's London House and The Second City. He also worked as an actor, editor for Oui magazine and as a cab-driver.[6] He was educated at the progressive Francis W. Parker School and at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. At the Chicago Public Library Foundation 20th anniversary fundraiser in 2006, though, Mamet announced "My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library. I got what little educational foundation I got in the third-floor reading room, under the tutelage of a Coca-Cola sign".[7]
After a move to Chicago's North Side, Mamet met theater director Robert Sickinger, and began to work occasionally at Sickinger's Hull House Theatre. Thus began Mamet's lifelong involvement with the theater.[8]
In 1987, Mamet made his film directing debut with his screenplay House of Games, which won Best Screenplay awards at the 1987 Venice Film Festival and the Film of the Year in 1989 from the London Film Critics' Circle Awards. The film starred his then-wife, Lindsay Crouse, and many longtime stage associates and friends, including fellow Goddard College graduates.[16] Mamet was quoted as saying, "It was my first film as a director and I needed support, so I stacked the deck."[citation needed][17] After House of Games, Mamet later wrote and directed two more films focusing on the world of con artists, The Spanish Prisoner (1997) and Heist (2001). Among those films, Heist enjoyed the biggest commercial success.[18][19][20]
Mamet continues to work with an informal repertory company for his films, including Crouse, William H. Macy, Joe Mantegna, and Rebecca Pidgeon, as well as the aforementioned school friends.
Mamet rewrote the script for Ronin under the pseudonym "Richard Weisz" and turned in an early version of a script for Malcolm X which was rejected by director Spike Lee.[22] Mamet also wrote an unproduced biopic script about Roscoe Arbuckle with Chris Farley intended to portray him.[23] In 2000, Mamet directed a film version of Catastrophe, a one-act play by Samuel Beckett featuring Harold Pinter and John Gielgud (in his final screen performance). In 2008, he wrote and directed the mixed martial arts movie Redbelt, about a martial arts instructor tricked into fighting in a professional bout.
In On Directing Film, Mamet advocates for a method of storytelling based on Eisenstein's montage theory, stating that the story should be told through the juxtaposition of uninflected images. This method relies heavily on the cut between scenes, and Mamet urges directors to eliminate as much narration as possible. Mamet asserts that directors should focus on getting the point of a scene across, rather than simply following a protagonist, or adding visually beautiful or intriguing shots. Films should create order from disorder in search of the objective.
In March 2024, Mamet stated that he is currently writing a screenplay centering about Hunter Biden, the second son of U.S. President Joe Biden.[26] In June, Deadline reported that the film, titled The Prince, will directed by Cameron Van Hoy and star Scott Haze as the lead character Parker; alongside Nicolas Cage, J.K. Simmons, Giancarlo Esposito, and Andy Garcia. Mamet added that the film won't be "a travelogue", and will be inspired by Hunter's life, rather than serve as a biopic.[27]
Books
Mamet published the essay collection Writing in Restaurants in 1986, followed by the poetry collection The Hero Pony in 1990. He has also published a series of short plays, monologues and four novels, The Village (1994), The Old Religion (1997), Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources (2000), and Chicago (2018). He has written several non-fiction texts, and children's stories, including True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor (1997). In 2004 he published a lauded version of the classical Faust story, Faustus, however, when the play was staged in San Francisco during the spring of 2004, it was not well received by critics.[28] On May 1, 2010, Mamet released a graphic novel The Trials of Roderick Spode (The Human Ant).
Mamet detailed his conversion from modern liberalism to "a reformed liberal" in The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture in 2011.[29] Mamet published Three War Stories, a collection of novellas, in 2013 ; the novel The Diary of a Porn Star by Priscilla Wriston-Ranger: As Told to David Mamet With an Afterword by Mr. Mamet in 2019;[30] and the political commentary Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch in 2022. In 2023 Mamet recounted his experiences in Hollywood and the movie-making industry in Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood.[31]
Television and radio
Mamet wrote one episode of Hill Street Blues, "A Wasted Weekend", that aired in 1987. His then-wife, Lindsay Crouse, appeared in numerous episodes (including that one) as Officer McBride. Mamet is also the creator, producer and frequent writer of the television series The Unit, where he wrote a well-circulated memo to the writing staff. He directed a third-season episode of The Shield with Shawn Ryan. In 2007, Mamet directed two television commercials for Ford Motor Company. The two 30-second ads featured the Ford Edge and were filmed in Mamet's signature style of fast-paced dialogue and clear, simple imagery. Mamet's sister, Lynn, is a producer and writer for television shows, such as The Unit and Law & Order.
Mamet has contributed several dramas to BBC Radio through Jarvis & Ayres Productions, including an adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross for BBC Radio 3 and new dramas for BBC Radio 4. The comedy Keep Your Pantheon (or On the Whole I'd Rather Be in Mesopotamia) was aired in 2007. The Christopher Boy's Communion was another Jarvis & Ayres production, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on March 8, 2021.
Style and reception
Mamet speak
Mamet's style of writing dialogue, marked by a cynical, street-smart edge, has come to be called Mamet speak.[32] Mamet himself has criticized his (and other writers') tendency to write "pretty" at the expense of sound, logical plots.[33] When asked how he developed his style for writing dialogue, Mamet said, "In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, based solely on our ability to speak the language viciously. That's probably where my ability was honed."[34]
Gender issues
Mamet's plays have frequently sparked debate and controversy.[35] Following a 1992 staging of Oleanna, a play in which a college student accuses her professor of trying to rape her,[36] a critic reported that the play divided the audience by gender and recounted that "couples emerged screaming at each other".[35]
In his 2014 book David Mamet and Male Friendship, Arthur Holmberg examined Mamet's portrayal of male friendships, especially focusing on the contradictions and ambiguities of male bonding as dramatized in Mamet's plays and films.[37]
Archives
The papers of David Mamet were sold to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin in 2007 and first opened for research in 2009.[38] The growing collection consists mainly of manuscripts and related production materials for most of his plays, films, and other writings, but also includes his personal journals from 1966 to 2005. In 2015, the Ransom Center secured a second major addition to Mamet's papers, including more recent works. Additional materials relating to Mamet and his career can be found in the Ransom Center's collections of Robert De Niro, Mel Gussow, Tom Stoppard, Sam Shepard, Paul Schrader, Don DeLillo, and John Russell Brown.
Personal life
Mamet and actress Lindsay Crouse married in 1977 and divorced in 1990. The couple have two children. Mamet has been married to actress and singer-songwriter Rebecca Pidgeon since 1991, and they have two children. Mamet and Pidgeon live in Santa Monica, California.[4][5]
In 2005, Mamet became a contributing blogger for The Huffington Post, drawing satirical cartoons with themes including political strife in Israel.[40] In a 2008 essay at The Village Voice titled "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'"[41] he discussed how his political views had shifted from liberalism to conservatism. In interviews, Mamet has highlighted his agreement with free market theorists such as Friedrich Hayek,[42] the historian Paul Johnson, and economist Thomas Sowell, whom Mamet called "one of our greatest minds". In 2022, Mamet declined to explicitly label himself a Republican, but described himself as a conservative who "would like to conserve those things I grew up with: the love of family, the love of the country, love of service, love of God, love of community".[5]
During promotion of a book, Mamet said British people had "a taint of anti-semitism," claiming they "want to give [Israel] away to some people whose claim is rather dubious."[43] In the same interview, Mamet went on to say that "there are famous dramatists and novelists [in the UK] whose works are full of anti-Semitic filth." He refused to give examples because of British libel laws (the interview was conducted in New York City for the Financial Times).[43][44] He is known for his pro-Israel positions; in his book The Secret Knowledge he claimed that "Israelis would like to live in peace within their borders; the Arabs would like to kill them all."[45]
In an essay for Newsweek, published on January 29, 2013, Mamet argued against gun control laws: "It was intended to guard us against this inevitable decay of government that the Constitution was written. Its purpose was and is not to enthrone a Government superior to an imperfect and confused electorate, but to protect us from such a government."[48]
Mamet has described the NFL anthem protests as "absolutely fucking despicable".[4] In a 2020 interview, he described Donald Trump as a "great president" and supported his re-election.[49] After Trump lost the election, Mamet appeared to endorse claims that the election had been illegitimate in his 2022 book Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch, though shortly after its publication, he said he "misspoke" on the subject.[50]
In 2022, Mamet made comments in support of Florida's Parental Rights in Education Act, called the "Don't Say Gay" bill by its critics,[51] which restricts what public school teachers in Florida can discuss with children in kindergarten through third grade about sexual orientation and gender identity. In an interview with Fox News, Mamet claimed that the law was necessary because teachers "are abusing [children] mentally and using sex to do so", further alleging that "teachers are inclined, particularly men because men are predators, to pedophilia".[50][52]
^Schleier, Curt (April 22, 2014). "Clara Mamet Makes a Movie". The Forward. Retrieved January 23, 2024. She is also the daughter of playwright David Mamet and English actress Rebecca Pidgeon, and she is the half-sister of Zosia Mamet…
^ abRabin, Nathan (June 9, 2009). "Fatty fall down, make tragedy: The Chris Farley Show". The A.V. Club. Retrieved June 19, 2022. For Farley, the projects that could have pulled him out of a steep professional downward spiral were a plucky animated comedy called Shrek and a David Mamet-penned biopic of Fatty Arbuckle.
^Stephen Randall, ed. (2006). "David Mamet: April 1996, interviewed by Geoffrey Norman and John Rezek". The Playboy Interviews: The Directors. M Press. p. 276.
^Blumenfeld, Samuel; Vachaud, Laurent (2001). Brian De Palma: Entretiens avec Samuel Blumenfeld et Laurent Vachaud. Paris: Calmann-Lévy. ISBN978-2702130612.
David Mamet (February 12, 2007). "David Mamet: Bambi vs. Godzilla". The Leonard Lopate Show (Interview). Interviewed by Leonard Lopate. New York: WNYC. Retrieved December 23, 2008.
Radavich, David. "Man among Men: David Mamet's Homosocial Order". American Drama 1:1 (Fall 1991): 46–60.
Radavich, David. "Rabe, Mamet, Shepard, and Wilson: Mid-American Male Dramatists of the 1970s and '80s". The Midwest Quarterly XLVIII: 3 (Spring 2007): 342–58.
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