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David Alan Mamet (born November 30, 1947) is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue, arcane stylized phrasing, and for his exploration of masculinity.
His recent 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, an acerbic commentary on the movie business.
Early yearsMamet was born to a Jewish family in Chicago. One of his first jobs was as a busboy at Chicago's Second City. Educated at the Francis W. Parker School and at Goddard College and 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.[1] He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Glengarry Glen Ross, which received its first Broadway revival in the summer of 2005. Later yearsFamily
Transition to filmMamet's first screenplay was the 1981 production of The Postman Always Rings Twice based upon James M. Cain's novel. He won an Academy Award nomination for his next script, The Verdict. 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 remains a prolific writer and director, and has assembled an informal repertory company for his films, including William H. Macy, Joe Mantegna, Crouse, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Ricky Jay. Like independent director John Sayles, Mamet funds his own films with the pay he gets from 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.[2] Three of Mamet's own films, House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, and Heist have involved the world of con artists. Mamet has published three novels, The Village in 1994, The Old Religion in 1997, and Wilson: a Consideration of the Sources in 2000. He has also written several non-fiction texts as well as a number of poems and children's stories. Since May 2005 he's been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post. The majority of his posts are scans of his own doodles, all political satires laced with humor. His first post journaled his astonishment that one can communicate on a computer.[3] He has also published a lauded version of the classical Faust story, Faustus, in 2004. However, the play, when staged in San Francisco during the spring of 2004, was not well received by the critics.[citation needed] TelevisionHe is also the creator, producer and frequent writer of the television series The Unit, co-produced with Shawn Ryan of The Shield. Writing styleMamet's dialogue, marked by a cynical, street-smart edge, is precisely crafted for effect and impact.[citation needed] 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.[4] When once asked how he developed his knack for writing abusive, obscene dialogue Mamet once commented, "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."[5] One classic instance of Mamet's dialogue style can be found in Glengarry Glen Ross, in which two down-on-their-luck realtors are considering breaking into their employer's office to steal a list of good leads. George Aaronow and Dave Moss finagle the meaning of "talk" and "speak":
Mamet dedicated Glengarry Glen Ross to Harold Pinter, who was instrumental in its being first staged at the Royal National Theatre, in 1983, and whom Mamet has acknowledged as an influence on its success, and on his other work.[6] Mamet's writing has developed over the years, primarily in his skill at sustaining longer plots, and his use of tantalizing, playful surprises. He himself has expressed that he grew tired of writing short plays — largely exercises in dialogue — before the audience grew tired of attending them. Directing StyleIn Mamet's book, On Directing Film, he reiterates the objectivity of film making. He believes meaning is found in juxtaposing cuts, and that when shooting a scene, the director should consistently follow what the point of the scene is. He doesn't believe film should follow the protagonist or consist of visually beautiful or intriguing shots, but should be simply functional in getting a point across in an essential and necessary way. He wants his films to be perpetuated by logical ways of creating order from disorder in search for the superobjective. Written workMamet directed, but did not write the film Catastrophe in 2000. References
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