David Mamet

Watched Mamet bad mouth the hand that feeds him. He's so much better than the rest of us. So superior. Look at me. I'm David Mamet. I wrote the Untouchables. He's got an answer for everything. Prima Dona.

Book Review

By Oggy Bleacher

Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business

By David Mamet

“Have you seen your dog lately,” asked an associate and neighbor of David Mamet. “Why no. I haven’t,” Mamet replied.

“That’s because I have it chained to my toilet and I am going to put a bullet in its head if you don’t direct an episode of The Unit.”

So goes another day in Hollywood and the birth of a new prime-time drama on CBS.

Mamet’s Feb 28th appearance at Borders Books in Westwood gave him an opportunity to promote his latest collection of essays and to speak plainly about his profession. While the above anecdote was a good substitute for the less dramatic truth, many of Mamet’s verifiable comments are no less revolting. Whatever gloss or respectability the movie business had should now be as hard to find as an Enron executive at a business ethics seminar. The rats have taken over the ship. The question is: what do we do now?

In 1958 Hollywood manufactured 2,000 films, which listed in their credits 230 producers. In 2003 Hollywood produced 240 films with 1,200 producers listed (10 just for Return of The King). That’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen. And when the kitchen is turning out charred turkeys like Gigli one has to wonder what so many producers are doing? Well, Mamet knows the truth, is mired in the truth, and the truth isn’t pretty. The producers are, according to Mamet, proving their worth by failing. Much like the U.S. Defense Department, whose research and development branch has deified failure, Hollywood producers have realized that they can make more money by making nothing. What they DO make, when it bombs, only further justifies their existence, “because the movie business is so hard to figure out. Only an expert can fail so monumentally.”

Proving the emperor wears no clothes is but one of Mamet’s objectives of this collection of essays ranging from “How to Write a Screenplay” (something Mamet admits is impossible to teach), to “The Audition Process” (useless), to why the writer is a thief destined for court (because he should be ashamed to ask for money).

If you’re already in Hollywood then much of what Mamet describes will ring so true as to be prophetic. How could he know that? For instance, I asked Mamet to comment on droit morals.

“Droit morals are a writer’s creative interest in his work. When you are hired to write then you must waive these rights. The production company will then disfigure the script you wrote and refuse to pay you the amount they agreed to pay you. They will claim you didn’t do your job. A Hollywood writer asks to be abused and he usually gets his wish.”

The crowd laughed, but I didn’t laugh. Mamet had just perfectly described the last 8 months of my life. A quick glance around the room revealed several others who looked like they had been kicked in the throat. We came to honor our hero, but now felt utterly betrayed. We were thieves, slaves, scum and we had asked to be abused. How awful.

Mamet is the writer of nearly 20 feature films and just as many stage plays. His approach to directing is influenced by Alfred Hitchcock (Shadow of a Doubt) and Sergei Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin). His respect for these and other masters of the craft is often displayed in his essays, as well as his disgust for the “mainstream” film. He has succeeded where many have failed. His success allows him to see behind the curtain and expose the wizard as a short, insecure operator of an essentially low-tech machine. Mamet’s attitude is like a wise grandfather trying to talk you out of entering the family business (He defines film school as an expedient method to certify Hollywood house slaves).

Take this anecdote as told to the Borders audience:

Robert De Niro called Mamet, presumably prior to the filming of The Untouchables (1987), and wanted clarification on part of Mamet’s script. Mamet’s take on De Niro’s role (Al Capone) was deliciously glamorous.

“Why didn’t you call the director (Brian De Palma)?” asked Mamet.

“I did. I wanted to talk to you,” replied De Niro. “One of these lines doesn’t make sense. I don’t think it’s right.”

“Did you read the script before you took the role?”

“Yeah.”

Mamet paused.

“Then how the fuck did the script get worse because you got paid?”

The two didn’t talk again for a decade. Mamet now admits he was wrong and has since apologized to De Niro for being a hot head, but he’s obviously only sorry for the argument, not the principle behind the argument. Integrity leads to such rifts. Mamet has written 11 other works of nonfiction, but none have the bite of Bambi vs. Godzilla. He has compiled all his anecdotes for one massive indictment of an industry he readily admits is capable of original art.

Consider this chestnut:

“A wiser man than I might advise you, gentle reader, to write - if you must write, and if you must write for Hollywood - two scripts: one to appeal to those who man the conference rooms of the Valley; the other, once you’ve obtained their imprimatur, an actual document capable of being designed, filmed and acted”

There is no grain of salt small enough to take with Mamet’s advice. Cries of “Save Yourself!” echo through the pages of Bambi vs. Godzilla. If he can’t convince you to look elsewhere for fame and fortune then you can’t be convinced. If he hasn’t changed Hollywood in his 26 years in the movie business then what evidence is there that someone else can? Perhaps that is beside the point. Mamet is, in the tradition of his Jewish ancestry, a witness to a kind of artistic holocaust that is burning away the potential of cinema. When historians look back on this dark age of over-produced film at least books like Mamet’s will exist to prove we had no excuse. We knew what we did, but our appetites were too great, our blindness too appealing, our degradation too rewarding. We were too proud of our failures.