"It's only words... unless they're true." -- David Mamet
David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.
Best known as a playwright, Mamet has won a Pulitzer Prize, and Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997). Mamet's books include 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; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, a commentary on the movie business.
"A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.""Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.""Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.""Films have degenerated to their original operation as carnival amusement - they offer not drama but thrills.""I always thought the real violence in Hollywood isn't what's on the screen. It's what you have to do to raise the money.""I grew up in a tough neighborhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word.""I hate vacations. There's nothing to do.""In a world we find terrifying, we ratify that which doesn't threaten us.""People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.""Policemen so cherish their status as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status.""The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create.""The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle.""We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dreamlife."
Mamet was born in Chicago to Jewish parents, Lenore June (née Silver), a teacher, and Bernard Morris Mamet, an attorney. One of his first jobs was as a busboy at Chicago's The Second City. He was educated at the progressive Francis W. Parker School and at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont.
Mamet is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company; he first gained acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976, The Duck Variations,Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Glengarry Glen Ross, which received its first Broadway revival in the summer of 2005. His play Race, which opened on Broadway on December 6, 2009 and featured James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington, and Richard Thomas in the cast, received mixed reviews.
Film
Mamet's first produced screenplay was the 1981 production of The Postman Always Rings Twice (directed by Bob Rafelson), based upon James M. Cain's novel. He received an Academy Award nomination one year later for his first script, The Verdict, written in the late 1970s. He also wrote the screenplay for The Untouchables.
In 1987, Mamet made his film directing debut with House of Games, starring his then-wife, Lindsay Crouse, and a host of longtime stage associates. He uses friends as actors, especially in one early scene in the movie, which featured Vermont poker playing friends. He is quoted as saying, "It was my first film as a director and I needed support, so I stacked the deck." Two of the four poker friends included in the film were fellow Goddard College graduates Allen Soule and Bob Silverstein. Three of Mamet's own films, House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, and Heist, have involved the world of con artists.
Mamet remains a prolific writer and director, and has assembled an informal repertory company for his films, including Crouse, William H. Macy, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Ricky Jay, as well as some of the aforementioned poker associates. Mamet funds his own films with the payments he receives for credited and uncredited rewrites of typically big-budget films. For instance, Mamet did a rewrite of the script for Ronin under the pseudonym "Richard Weisz" and turned in an early version of a script for Malcolm X that director Spike Lee rejected. In 2000, Mamet directed but did not write Catastrophe, based on the one-act play by Samuel Beckett, and featuring Harold Pinter and John Gielgud (in his final screen performance). In 2009, he directed and wrote the mixed martial arts movie Redbelt, about a martial arts instructor tricked into fighting in a professional bout. Mamet teamed up with his wife Rebecca Pidgeon to adapt the novel Come Back to Sorrento as a screenplay, the film in development during 2010.
In On Directing Film, Mamet iterates the objectivity of filmmaking. He believes meaning is found in juxtaposing cuts, and that when shooting a scene, the director should consistently follow the point of the scene. He doesn't believe film should follow the protagonist or consist of visually beautiful or intriguing shots, but should be focused getting a point across in an essential and necessary way. He wants his films to be shaped by logical ways of creating order from disorder in search of the superobjective. Mamet believes in minimal stage and prompt directions.
Books
In 1990 Mamet published The Hero Pony, a 55-page collection of poetry. He has also published a series of short plays, monologues and three novels, The Village (1994), The Old Religion (1997), and A Consideration of the Sources (2000). He has written several non-fiction texts, and children's stories. in 2004 he published a lauded version of the classical Faust story, Faustus, however, the play, when staged in San Francisco during the spring of 2004, was not well received by critics. On May 1, 2010, Mamet released a graphic novel The Trials of Roderick Spode (The Human Ant).
Television and radio
Mamet wrote the "Wasted Weekend" episode of Hill Street Blues 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, and 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 also 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).
Other Media
Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post. As part of his contribution Mamet has drawn many satirical cartoons with themes including political strife in Israel. Writing in The Village Voice, his first post chronicled his astonishment that one can communicate on a computer. Mamet announced that he was no longer a "brain-dead liberal", but instead believed in free market thinkers such as Thomas Sowell, who Mamet called "one of our greatest minds". Mamet also appeared as a guest on Episode 312 of the animated Comedy Central program Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. The episode, "New Phone System," originally aired on March 2, 1997.
Mamet's style of writing dialogue, marked by a cynical, street-smart edge, precisely crafted for effect, is so distinctive that it came to be called Mamet speak. He often uses italics and quotation marks to highlight particular words and to draw attention to his characters' frequent manipulation and deceitful use of language. His characters frequently interrupt one another, their sentences trail off unfinished, and their dialogue overlaps. Mamet himself has criticized his (and other writers') tendency to write "pretty" at the expense of sound, logical plots.
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."
One classic instance of Mamet's dialogue style can be found in Glengarry Glen Ross, in which two down-on-their-luck real estate salesmen are considering breaking into their employer's office to steal a list of good sales leads. George Aaronow and Dave Moss finagle the meaning of "talk" and "speak," steeped in fraudulent connivance of the language and meaning:
Moss No. What do you mean? Have I talked to him about this [Pause]
Aaronow Yes. I mean are you actually talking about this, or are we just...
Moss No, we're just...
Aaronow We're just "talking" about it.
Moss We're just speaking about it. [Pause] As an idea.
Aaronow As an idea.
Moss Yes.
Aaronow We're not actually talking about it.
Moss No.
Aaronow Talking about it as a...
MossNo.
Aaronow As a robbery.
Moss As a "robbery"? No.
Mamet dedicated Glengarry Glen Ross to Harold Pinter, who was instrumental in its being first staged at the Royal National Theatre, (London) in 1983, and whom Mamet has acknowledged as an influence on its success, and on his other work.
Mamet and actress Lindsay Crouse were married from 1977 to 1990, and have two children together, Willa and Zosia. Mamet has been married to actress and singer-songwriter Rebecca Pidgeon since 1991. They have two children, Clara and Noah.
