I know they say you can find anything and everything on the internet, but that’s not true, and it’s not true in a lot of ways, and I was just reminded on one of the ways it isn’t true just now, as I searched in vain for a print morsel or even the TV interview clip in question, to no avail. In any event, I’ll just have to recollect it and you’ll have to take my word for it, unless one of you can actually FIND the citation which would be awesome. In any event, what I was recollecting was a television interview, which perhaps aired on Entertainment Tonight or something like it, depicting the then-25-year-old Demi Moore attending the 1988 Democratic National Convention (the self-same event at which Moore colleague Rob Lowe had that whole sex-tape thing happening) and offering up her views on what was wrong with the system. And her laying out, rather passionately, this complaint about how people should be able to check boxes on their tax returns to specify what they wanted their money, that is, the tax revenues collected by the U.S. Treasury, to be spent on. Because, as Demi astutely pointed out, some people might object to their money being spent on evil things like bombs and stuff, and those people ought to be allowed to SAY NO to that, on account of their consciences and whatnot. This argument clearly was not all that thoroughly thought-out, policy-ramification-wise, and clearly doesn’t really “get” the whole concept of “render unto Caesar,” which concept one is of course free to mentally reject but which ought to at least be cited as some sort of precedent before advancing any kind of proposition involving taxation.
I thought about Moore’s entirely earnest complaint on my way today to the public pool in my neighborhood, which opened on Wednesday and will stay open until Labor Day, and could conceivably stay open later, but won’t, because budgets, which are reliant on tax revenues, aren’t sufficient to keep it going past then. And the pool, at the Red hook Rec Center, is a honey; huge, clean, and…well, what more do you need besides huge and clean? Yeah, the locker room could use a sprucing up, but whatever. I thought of Moore and I concurrently thought of David Mamet, whose recent book The Secret Knowledge describes a political conversion during which—and here I CAN give the exact words, as the book’s been getting a good amount of attention—he made the galvanic personal discovery that…wait for it…” I not only hated every wasted hard-earned cent I spent in taxes, but the trauma and misery they produced…”
Well, let’s cut the guy some slack, and allow that he is describing his direct personal experience. It is not the experience of a particularly mature, or wise, or, as it happens, particularly smart person, but there you have it. And still: Has David Mamet never been to a public library, or a municipal pool? I imagine he’s likely to have done the former at least once. So when he did, did he think, “my tax dollars at work, and I feel pretty good about it?” Also, has no one told him about tax dollars and the wonderful part they play in U.S. aid to Israel? If not, will doing so cause a matter-meets-anti-matter explosion to take place in what’s left of Mamet’s brain?
It occurs to me that in my making a mental collage of these two quotes, I was being a little unfair; even without allowing for Moore’s naïveté and inability to construct a coherent policy plank out of what is after all only a feeling about what is fair and what is right, her dumb proposal comes from an altogether better place than Mamet’s petulant complaint does. And if you’re wondering why I thought of Demi and David together in the first place, just remember…
…About Last Night.
So, is ABOUT LAST NIGHT any good? It’s been years since I “saw” it, and I put that in quotes because “seeing” it in my case meant fast-forwarding through my dad’s VHS to see if the sex scenes were any good.
It’s been a long time since I’ve watched it, and my memory is it’s basically two different movies inhabiting the same space. The first is James Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins basically doing the play that the movie is based on, by which I mean their characters in the movie are pretty much true to the characters as written in the play, and Belushi and Perkins are completely credible in those roles (yes, Belushi did show flashes of talent, and this is one instance). The second is Rob Lowe and Demi Moore basically attempting a weird hybrid of Mamet’s play and Edward Zwick’s attempt to make the whole thing “nicer”, and while I happen to think Lowe is a decent actor (alas, I can’t say the same thing about Moore, with the exception of MORTAL THOUGHTS and a couple of other movies), the whole thing seemed beyond his and Moore’s capabilities at this point in their careers.
Heh. Here in Mamet’s hometown of Chicago, the main branch of the Chicago Public Library – the massive Harold Washington Library Center in the Loop – has various library-friendly quotations printed on its walls, e.g. T.S. Eliot’s “The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man,” and so on. One such quote comes from Mamet himself: “My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library.” This quote being something of an insult to Mamet’s actual alma mater, Goddard College in Vermont, but still. Whattan asshole. (Though I maintain that anyone familiar with “Oleanna” shouldn’t be all *that* shocked that Mamet’s right-wing tendencies have gone full-retard.)
‘Oleanna’ aside, I remember Mamet’s decree that directors shouldn’t use the Steadicam and thinking to myself that no good could come of such absolutist aesthetic asshattery.
a.k.a. Political Perversity in Hollywood. Or, given its eponymous proximity to The Secret Doctrine, perhaps Kneejerk Dave might consider changing his name to H.P. Bloviatsky.
Briefly, fuck this guy and the mannered, reproducible horseshit he rode in on, mindful that, when less reproduced, its effect was galvanizing (see American Buffalo, The Woods, &c.). What has his tired, predictable, reactionary, cracker apostasy done for me – or anyone – lately?
Re About Last Night: it CLONES the sex scene in Don’t Look Now, right down to the shot of Donald Sutherland/Rob Lowe walking past a doorway while putting his necktie on. Zwick is thereby shown to be the hackiest of hacks, but his lamebrained choice still seems more interesting to me than any of Mamet’s directorial choices, which are, you know, tasteful and sensible and simple, but incredibly dull in effect.
I don’t think he forbids the steadicam, however: he laments the way it’s generally used to cover stuff quickly in an “exciting” way. But he basically declares all stylistic flourishes verboten, which makes him an asshole of another kind.
Best Demi Moore movie: The Seventh Sign. Spectacular The Omen/Rosemary’s Baby mashup. I miss heartfelt, low-budget 80s genre movies, especially ones with Michael Biehn and Jurgen Prochnow.
Mamet has a way of writing that is very persuasive in tone, but not neccessarily as well thought out as he pretends. This happens to serve his drama very well (he is one of the greatest living playwrights after all) and even a bit of his essay writing, but political rhetoric is another matter.…
In regard to pools (funded partially by donation), check this out:
http://kck.st/mjvju9
About Last Night is very, very bad. It also happens to be the first review in Roger Ebert’s Four Star review book, and its inexplicable presense shouldn’t (but almost does) put you off the whole thing.
I always thought Jim Belushi had talent. He could be great with the right material. Unfortunately, he rarely seeks it out. In the 80s at least, he could be good with some awful material- like the insufferably sad Homer and Eddie, or the otherwise forgettable actioners The Principal and Red Heat (which was written by- of all people!- Troy Kennedy Martin).
As for Mamet, “Why I am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’ ” opens with Rebecca Pidgeon chuckling as Mamet complains about ‘National Palestinian Radio’ which, to me, pretty much said all it needed to say about where Mamet’s really coming from.
Marc: you could make a whole other book filled Roger Ebert’s inexplicably positive reviews. Sleepers! Home Alone 3!
Roger Ebert giving About Last Night a four star review becomes much more explicable when you take into account that the film was set in Chicago. Roger always had a soft spot for the Windy City.
What’s most surprising about Mamet’s conversion is how… knee-jerkily wholehearted it’s been. I mean, it’s one thing to declare that free markets are the best economic system ever invented (an arguable but perfectly defensible position), which is what he was saying in the Village Voice back in 2008, and another to go from there to deny global warming, sympathizing with Sarah Palin, claiming that woman’s place is the kitchen… He seemed to have thought that the “conservative” ideological package was one of those “all-in-one”, unsplittable things, and that he had to buy everything in order to get the one he was interested in.
Paul, that’s Mamet’s problem. He’s merely trading in one from of orthodoxy for another. He’s switching teams, not actually thinking for himself.
For anyone curious, Hitchens’s takedown of Mamet’s book in the NY Times was surgical and delicious.
Yeah, but isn’t Hitchens v Mamet an ‘Alien v Predator’ situation – “Whoever wins, we lose” – if ever there was one? 🙂
Oliver: No, actually, it isn’t.
@Dan: Could call it “Stop! or my Inexplicably Positive Review Will Shoot!” Pushing it?
The Hitchens-Mamet takedown was nice, though I could have done with more vitriol. If only Mamet had embezzled money through the Catholic church, then we’d REALLY have something.
No let’s NOT give david Mamet “some slack.” He was two-bit fascist when he started and he’s a two-bit fascist today. His “Saul at Damascus” moment is about as sincere as a Televangelists tears.
He’s a lousey writer and always has been. The last straw was his cribbing Terence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy.
DON’T
GET
ME
STARTED!!!!!
This post must be considered a gross libel of Demi Moore, a far more sophisticated political thinker than Mamet.
//I always thought Jim Belushi had talent. He could be great with the right material. Unfortunately, he rarely seeks it out. In the 80s at least, he could be good with some awful material//
Off-topic, I just saw the Ghost Writer and didn’t even recognize Belushi (not that I was ever a huge fan) in the small role of a gruff, no-nonsense book publisher. I certainly wasn’t thinking “Hey, that’s Jim Belushi, the comedian” or “that’s the lesser Belushi brother” but “hmmm, who is this guy? He’s good. I know I’ve seen him before…”
Yeah, I always thought citizens should get a line-item veto on the federal budget. People who don’t drive, for instance, needn’t bother with highway maintenance (never mind how all the goods and services they depend on get to them). Those who aren’t sick now can forget about health insurance or cancer research. Heck, why stop there, my house has never caught on fire, if I want to take my chances, why do I have to support my local fire department?
It’s exactly this kind of dumbass provincialism that turns Plato off to the idea of direct democracy in THE REPUBLIC.
As for Mamet’s recent and unfortunate turn to the ultra-right, I think of other writers who made bad political judgments in their personal lives like Knut Hamsun’s flirtation with Nazism and Peter Handke’s support of the Serbs. While regrettable, none of these choices lessen the greatness of their best creative writing.
@ warren oates: I agree with your last line, yet I have to express my doubts about Hamsun or Handke being able to write a piece as hilariously inept and badly written, ideas notwithstanding, as that thing on the Village Voice. I first discovered it through this link,
http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/771/hackwatch-david-mamet-why-i-am-no-longer-a-brain-dead-liberal/
… and couldn’t believe there weren’t deliberately chopping off sentences in between, or something. It’s like watching a clip of ‘The man who saves the Earth’ (AKA ‘Turkish Star Wars’) on Youtube, and saying “wow! I can’t believe anybody could have edited a film like that, this is a joke!”… then watching the entire film to discover that yes, the clips on Youtube are unedited, the thing is absolutely insane, and that I fuckin’ love it.
Which goes a long way to say that I would like to read the Mamet book if its style alone, not just the content, rendered it moronically unreadable. Sadly, it seems just boring…
P.D.: the post is two days old, and no Victor Morton yet? Me are disappoint’!
At least she didn’t mention Solaris…
What Brandon said. Mamet has a rhetorical gift that is mostly unrivaled by contemporary writers, but when he gets stuck on politics, he doesn’t bother to include logic, or even most of the relevant facts, in the discussion. I count myself as a fan of many of his dramatic works (and several of his movies, chief among them The Spanish Prisoner, which is a pretty impressive pastiche of Hitchcock). It’s clear that he delights in provocation, in playing the gadfly and the grumpy old sage. The fact is, whether he is serious or not, you can’t take his screeds seriously; there’s no real argument, just a litany of shrill complaints and self-righteousness. It’s a shame, because up until that last few, they were even kind of fun to read. Now I mostly just feel bad for him – who can’t help bragging how good he has it, even as his entire raison d’être is a seething resentment against the world.
On some level, he seems to understand he’s full of shit – witness him squirm whenever he’s asked to discussed politics in person, as he does on an appearance on Charlie Rose.
I have to say, as wonderful as I find the best of Mamet’s creative writing, even that is somewhat behind what Handke and Hamsun were capable of at their respective heights. And I do think there was also more genuine conviction behind their avowals of genuinely repellent positions; with Mamet there’s a good deal of bullshit showmanship, a “Hey, look at me, I’m a conservative now, am I pissing you off yet? How you liking me NOW?” exhibitionism that’s become part and parcel of the new rightie new media sideshow, of which Andrew Klavan is such a delightful example.
You know, if Mamet had come out espousing the virtues of Whitaker Chambers, of Koestler, or some such, that would have been one thing. But to profess to care somewhat about the English language, and about good writing, and then turn around and endorse an incompetent not-even-hack like Thomas Sowell; well, there’s giving the shell game away right before your eyes. Not that I don’t think Mamet believes that he believes all the nonsense he spouting.
@David Ehrenstein: Is it fair (or accurate) to say that Mamet “cribbed” from Terrence Rattigan’s THE WINSLOW BOY? He adapted the play, and gave credit where it was due. Are you referring to how good a job he did with it? I saw it years and years ago and thought it was pretty good, hopelessly square and outside the Mamet wheelhouse, but with some fine performances and involving bits.
Anyway, Mamet’s work has meant a lot to me over the years. I think he’s actually pretty underrated as a director of films. There’s great, cinematic stuff in movies like HOUSE OF GAMES, SPARTAN, and HOMICIDE (maybe his most personal film and also greatest?) And though THE EDGE may not be great exactly, I sometimes think of Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin out there in the woods with the bear and I smile. I don’t plan on reading his new book.
It is the height of laziness (to be polite about it) to “adapt” a perfect play.
The “virtues” of Whittaker Chambers elude me. There is no virute among vengeful closet queens – and that includes the object of his affection Alger Hiss.
Though I still haven’t read this “Secret Knowledge”, I’d like to point out that Mamet has stated in several pieces of writing that he does not approve of intentional, political art. So, for whatever political rhetoric he may involve himself in, rest assured that his plays should remain as consciously unencumbered (lest he wish, for shame, to be branded a hypocrite).
I was actually reading today from his previous book, THEATRE, where he states the following opinion:
“…These issue plays are then a mild form of propaganda, not putting forth the view of the state but, perhaps more dangerously, positing the existence of and recruiting for that group greater than of the state: the cofraternity of right thinking. The invitation is potentially the mild beginning of fascism.
Should the theatre be political? Absolutely not” (56−57).
Taking works like OLEANNA or RACE into account, I would guess that Mamet makes some sort of distinction for himself between political intention and provocative rhetoric. By not taking a ‘side’ in his plays, he is simply writing about ‘the human condition’. Voicing these political ideas, granted in a wholly different medium, could cause some people to retrospectively make assumptions and inferences into the intentions of his text. To which he would probably answer, ‘What intention?’, I guess…
Sorry for the excessive wordage, but Mamet is a favorite to read and watch. Separating the artist’s words from his character’s words is an important concept, whether we use it as an excuse to justify or vilify them.…
“It is the height of laziness (to be polite about it) to “adapt” a perfect play.”
– David Ehrensetein, 1966, upon release of the Nichols/Lehman film adaptation of Albee’s WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
Kids, when David E. asks you not to get him started, well…I wouldn’t get him started.
That said. I’m big on “House of Games” and “Homicide” and “Glengarry,” and, yeah, bits of “The Edge.” Didn’t really give a damn about “Olleana” but very much liked Stuart Gordon’s properly lurid rendering of “Edmund.” My problematic feelings about Mamet, I have to admit, began with “Hoffa,” during which I remember thinking, “The screenwriter is really enjoying the license he’s given himself to throw the word ‘cunt’ around a lot, isn’t he?”
Then there’s the disastrous final third of “Spartan,” the dopey final fifth of “Redbelt,” and the rightly forgotten—because it cannot be forgiven—novel “Wilson.” Which appeared in 2003. Around the same time that I went to see a “conversation” between Mamet and Ricky Jay at Town Hall with two screenwriters, one of whom was a hardcore, unapologetic Mamet worshipper at the time. And Mamet was such a pompous, pretentious blowhard (Jay was fine, a little ruffled), that we all walked out about midway through.
I can’t wait for the David Mamet/Dennis Miller conversation about how they saw the Light of the Right.
Re “the dopey final fifth of Redbelt”–I believe the climax was Mamet’s homage to Buster Keaton’s outside-the-ring capper to BATTLING BUTLER.
“I can’t wait for the David Mamet/Dennis Miller conversation about how they saw the Light of the Right.”
Frank Miller’s comicbook-style transformation from libertarian Japanophile to conscription-advocating NeoCon makes it a fanatic, fearsome threesome!
Rebecca Pidgeon is also a singer-songwriter with a new album about to appear. Following is the final paragraph of the news section of her site: “A success in both film and music, Pidgeon recently drew rave reviews in the much-lauded movie Red, starring Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman.”
I’ve been posting this passage far too much on the Net – I first read it in one of Mamet’s essay collections in the 80s – but I think of it every time I hear that Mamet claims he used to be a liberal (all-caps emphasis is mine):
“When we look at our large society today we see many problems—overcrowding, the risk of nuclear annihilation, the perversion of the work ethic, the disappearance of tradition, HOMOSEXUALITY, sexually transmitted diseases, divorce, the tenuousness of the economy—and we say ‘What bad luck that they are besetting us at once.’
“Even taken individually these occurrences seem incomprehensible. Taken as a whole the contemplation of them can surely induce terror. What is happening here and why have these things, coincidentally, beset us?”
Nice one, Dave. That said, I love The Edge (and was glad to see it spoken highly of in earlier comment threads), and am a big fan of Spartan and Glengarry Glen Ross.
I just watched two hours of Christian Marclay’s wonderful The Clock at LACMA this weekend (highly recommended for all SCR readers in the L.A. area), and was embarrassed while watching Anthony Hopkins hand a watch to Elle McPherson that it wasn’t until the Goldsmith music kicked in that I realized it was the last scene of The Edge.
My favorite bit of Mamet dickishness was when Ronin was about to be released, and one of Mamet’s reps announced that he would be using a pseudonym, since he found it so unfair to have to share the screenplay credit with the guy who, you know, wrote the original screenplay. This way, of course, Mamet got to make a stand on “principle” while taking credit away from the original writer and keeping his share of the residuals. All class.
Bettencourt:
In the 70s and early 80s, moral or other opposition to homosexuality was not a left-liberal litmus test. Indeed the classic-Marxist view of homosexuality (that it was leisure-class decadence) could be seen in films by such euro-Commies as Angelopoulos, Bertolucci and Visconti.
It was Justine Bateman, not Demi Moore. Spy magazine had the exact quote.
“The “virtues” of Whittaker Chambers elude me. There is no virute among vengeful closet queens – and that includes the object of his affection Alger Hiss.”
I guess I expect a certain level of hostility aimed at any “member of the gang” who commits the unforgivable effrontery of going over to the other side as Mamet has, but David E’s comment above is utter nonsense. Chambers doesn’t need my defense, but it just pisses me off to read such crap.
Hey, I’m a David E. fan, but I don’t take responsibility for his pronouncements. My perspective on Whittaker Chambers is not his.
As for “member of the gang,” holy shit, that’s just dumb.