May 25, 2008

 Reviewed by David Maine

David Mamet has written 21 stage plays, 14 books and 18 movie scripts, being twice nominated for Academy Awards. Among his many credits are screenplays for The Untouchables (1987) with Kevin Costner and Robert DeNiro, Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) with Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey, and Wag the Dog (1997) with Dustin Hoffman. He wrote and directed State and Main (2000) with William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sarah Jessica Parker. (All these movies are well worth seeing). He’s been involved in the business for decades, and anyone with an interest in Hollywood movies — including the many Pakistanis who watch American films — might have an interest in what he says about the business.

Alas, what he says about the business is dire. Mamet is a writer, and his love of movies is bound up with his love of storytelling. But according to him, movies have less and less to do with storytelling these days, and more and more to do with set pieces: the car chase, the explosions, the ambush in a darkened room, the battle sequence, the fistfight, the sex scene. Or maybe, in the case of Bollywood: (this is me talking, not Mamet) the dance sequence, the sad song, the explosions, the fistfight, the other dance sequence, the comic relief, the happy song.

When movies are made this way — a collection of elements stitched together with minimal thought for plot, character, or originality — the result is a movie that reminds us of a lot of other movies. This year’s newest blockbuster, 10,000 BC, is just like last year’s Transformers, with giant mammoths instead of giant robots; Transformers in turn is just like The War of the Worlds (2005), with robots instead of Martians, and The War of the Worlds is just like Armageddon (1998) with Martians instead of meteors, and Armageddon is just like Deep Impact (1998) — meteors again — as well as Dante’s Peak (1997), which has volcanoes instead, and which was just like Twister (1996), which has tornadoes instead of volcanoes, and Independence Day (1996), which has space aliens instead of natural disasters. Stop me if you’re getting tired; the list goes on and on.
 

‘I pass a poster for [a] current film and count 18 names of the producers… Who in the world has ever gone to a film because of the identity of a producer? No one.’
 

The reason for this formulaic approach is that movies are made by two groups of people. In one group are craftsmen and women who care deeply about what they do: lighting and sound technicians, wardrobe and set designers, some actors and actresses and directors. In the other group are executives, accountants and studio bosses. These people don’t care whether the movie is any good or not. Or rather, their definition of ‘good’ is different: a good movie makes money. A bad movie loses money. When such people are in charge of making films, it’s no surprise that so much Hollywood product just looks like a mild variation on the thing that made money last year.

In Mamet’s book, pithy one-liners and telling observations abound. ‘Moviemaking is an appallingly simple process,’ he tells us. ‘One needs a camera, film, and an idea (optional).’ Or: ‘I pass a poster for [a] current film and count 18 names of the producers… Who in the world has ever gone to a film because of the identity of a producer? No one. Then why list 18?’ Later, he compares politics with theatre: ‘Politicians… have, since World War II, staged their political campaigns as dramas, with themes, slogans, inflammatory appeals, and villains.’ Distilling the very notion of what makes a story, Mamet settles on just three questions: ‘One: Who wants what from whom? Two: What happens if they don’t get it? Three: Why now?’

This is all illuminating, and great fun besides, but given the depth and complexity of Mamet’s dramatic work, it’s a shame that he doesn’t dig deeper. Of the 44 chapters in the book, fully 23 are four pages or less; time for an anecdote or two, little more. The reader hungers for substance, as occurs in chapters concerned with the absurdity of the actor’s audition (‘Good In the Room’) or ‘Learning By Doing,’ in which are considered the various ways a cat might be induced to stick its head into a funnel, then pull it out again. Hey, it makes sense when you read the book.

This criticism might not be fair, since it boils down to, ‘I enjoyed it so much, I wish it had lasted longer.’ There are few enough books that one can say that about. Or movies, for that matter.
 

Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the nature, purpose, and practice of the movie business
By David Mamet
Pantheon Vintage
ISBN 0375422536
206pp. $22.00