Interview conducted by Josh Horowitz
March 19, 2004
Few writers can lay claim to their very name being used as an adjective. But today “Mamet-ian” dialogue is familiar to most fans of film and theater. And even if you don’t think of certain dialogue as being Mamet-ian, you probably recognize it as being different. It has that snap, crackle, and pop to quote a favorite breakfast cereal.
Mamet’s never met a double-cross, con, or F-word he didn’t like. Witness his scripts for films ranging from THE UNTOUCHABLES and GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS to HOFFA and HANNIBAL. Hot-button issues and politics are fair game as well in movies like OLEANNA and WAG THE DOG.
Mamet has recently directed his tenth feature and it’s his best in years. SPARTAN stars Val Kilmer as a government operative charged with finding the missing daughter of the President. It’s a vigorous and energetic chase through back rooms and brothels as Kilmer finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having to question the government he’s slavishly defended throughout his entire career.
One need only look at the breadth of work of Mamet get a sense of his intellect. Admittedly it can be hard to keep up with him at times. I gave it the old college try on the phone recently.
Warning: place tongue firmly in cheek. As I quickly found out, Mamet can be as dry and sarcastic as they come.
Josh Horowitz: How’s it going?
David Mamet: It’s going real good. How are you?
JH: Not bad. Is now an okay time?
DM: Yeah, do me a favor and give me 18 seconds. I got some water on the boiler and I want to pour it into a cup as is my wont.
JH: Take your time.
DM: Start counting now…ready…go.
(37 SECONDS LATER)
DM: 16, 17, 18!
JH: (LAUGHS) I don’t know about that but I’ll cut you some slack. So thank you for giving Val Kilmer, one of my favorite actors, one of his best parts in years. He’s such a great badass in this. How did you arrive at Val for this?
DM: Well, he was sitting at the next table when I was discussing the movie with producer Art Linson. There he was. Art had worked with him. I looked over at him and said, “Jesus Christ, what about him?”
JH: Did you bring it up to him right then and there?
DM: I think so. The first time that I met him he said that I was his huckleberry so I was, of course, wont to his cause.
JH: With someone like Val, is there much of a dialogue before the film about the script and what he wants to bring to this? Os is it basically; he knows the script, let him bring what he’s going to bring to the set?
DM: There’s kind of a ceremonial courting that goes on. Basically it is on the page. The guy knows what I do. I know what he does. Does he want to do the movie or not?
JH: This character couldn’t give a damn about politics and finds himself for the first time having to make a judgment call as the story progresses. Does the story get more difficult to write as it progresses and he has to make these difficult choices?
DM: Well, traditional wisdom is that anybody can write a first act. I think that’s true all over the world except in Hollywood. It’s really easy to write the first act because the first act is the proposition. The second act is where all the work is because both for the hero and for the writer, who at some point are the same entity, the question is: how do the hero and writer deal with the
difficulties of the second act, which starts with both of them saying I knew what I was getting into but now I don’t have a clue. So in this, he says, I think I had everything whipped, all I had to do was give my life and soul to this organization and want nothing for it other than the opportunity to give my life and soul for the principles for which it stood. And then in the second act he finds out that he’s gonna have to make a choice. He can either choose the organization or he can choose the principles for which it stood. When the froggies used to be a nation before our current administration de-nationed them, this was referred to as a cries de la foi, a crisis of faith, that happens to anyone involved in any sort of religious organization.
JH: Do you think that’s a problem in American politics today, people not stopping to ask why they are doing a thing before simply executing that thing?
DM: It’s more than that. He says to Derek Luke at one point, the essence is not asking. He says if you have to ask, you can’t go in the door.
JH: You guys all went out for a little camping trip prior to shooting? All I can picture is you and Val sharing some Dinty Moore beef stew by the campfire…
DM: I didn’t go. I wasn’t invited. Our technical adviser was a guy who spent many many years in Delta Force. He took all the guys out, shooting automatic weapons, skinning beavers…I don’t know what the hell they did. They got their knees dirty, camped out in the high tundra or whatever the hell it is around here.
JH: You didn’t have to make it all the way to Dubai to film this. Does Warner Brothers now have a back-lot that specifically subs for Dubai?
DM: (DRAMATIC PAUSE) We didn’t film it in Dubai? I can’t remember. My memories of these things is fragmented. They wake you up in the morning
and the driver takes you wherever the hell you’re going. It was someplace with a lot of people with turbans. And there were a couple of camels and a goat or two. The important thing is internal consistency. We ate pita rather than wonder bread so there is no greater test.
JH: I was shocked to see that “where is the girl” is not the tagline for this film. It’s like a mantra repeated in the film. Do you pay much attention to how your films are marketed?
DM: I care very deeply. The marketing is always and ever tied to the investment of the studio. They say you’re entitled to your labor, you’re not entitled to the fruit of your labor and I think that’s been fairly applicable in various aspects of my experience in the movie business.
JH: I kept looking in the film for [your companion] Rebecca Pidgeon to show up as a tough as nails secret service agent. What happened? No part for her in this?
DM: (LAUGHS) I gave her the script in the beginning. I said, “Baby, I love working with you. If you can find a part in there for you, it’s yours.” She looked through it and said “I actually can’t.” So I said, “OK, catch you on the next one.”
JH: As someone who has been closely associated with an artful use of profanity in much of your work, are you concerned over the policing of language and decency from Janet Jackson’s nipple to Howard Stern?
DM: Sure. It’s going to get a lot worse too. Society tends to peter back and forth between an obscene amount of license and an obscene amount of oppression. If you live long enough, you’ll probably see both sides of the cycle.
JH: You were pretty critical of SCHINDLER’S LIST back in the day and got some heat for it. Has Spielberg forgiven and forgotten? Are you on his holiday card list?
DM: I don’t know. I check my mail so infrequently.
JH: What’s your take on the movie of the moment, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST?
DM: This is a very educational movie. It turns out that the Jews killed Christ. In my real guise during the
day when I’m not being a mild-mannered reporter, I write a film column for The Guardian. I just wrote an article about religious films. I said that perhaps communion is better celebrated with bread and wine than popcorn and Coca Cola.
JH: As the writer of WAG THE DOG and a man that was assigned the skills of a psychic because of that movie, can you look to the future and tell me what you see in this upcoming election?
DM: Jeez, I wish I could. It’s certainly the most important election in my memory. We’ll see, won’t we? I was fortunate enough to be a resident of Massachusetts for many years and a friend of John Kerry. Certainly I’m going to make my political decisions independent of his sterling record both in the armed service of the United States and in the Senate.
JH: Did you watch the Oscars this year?
DM: No, I didn’t watch the Oscars because I was afraid I was going to see Janet Jackson’s nipple again. I can stand a lot of things but I just can’t stand being bored.
JH: You just directed an episode of THE SHIELD. How about creating a TV show of your own? You must have been approached about doing that a number of times.
DM: I’ve considered it many times. I’ve had a lot of experiences of people asking me to work on creating a show. In fact I’ve gotten it down to the point now where if somebody asks me that, I just take my penis out and whack it with a ballpeen hammer.
JH: Have you ever turned down a gig on principle? Projects you just didn’t believe in?
DM: Sure. Somebody asked me once to do a musical version of OKLAHOMA. I did what I thought was a modicum of research and I pointed out that arguably it had already been done in a musical version and that it would be prideful of me to attempt it again.
JH: Do you find that you ever buy into your own hype and not be as self-critical of yourself as maybe you should be?
DM: I tell you what, in solidarity with every other writer who has ever been born, I believe what they say about me when it’s good, my only reservation being that it’s never good enough.
JH: So if you were writing in a vacuum and never sold any of your work, would you be writing the same kinds of things?
DM: How do you know I’m not writing in a vacuum? Don’t they teach you journalists never to assume?
JH: Do you ever worry the well will run dry, that you’ve just told your last compelling story?
DM: Nope.
JH: Ever experience writer’s block?
DM: Hell, I don’t know. I really don’t know what writer’s block is. I get bored once in a while but who doesn’t. And I get tired once in a while and I get lazy once in a while. For each of those situations I have many remedies.
JH: Any that you can share?
DM: Sure. Cursing fate, that’s a good one. Taking a nap. Writing something different or reading a book.
JH: I spoke to Danny DeVito recently about the film he made of your script for HOFFA. Is there more anxiety working on something like that when you know that you’re never going to please everyone?
DM: I didn’t realize that was a controversial subject until I wrote it. I thought that respect for the American worker and the American labor movement
was a fairly universal article of faith in the United States. I was surprised to realize that I had spent too much time in my room and that the American labor movement had died while I was writing.
JH: What happened to doing HAMLET with Macy? Was this something serious you were considering doing?
DM: Yeah, he couldn’t do the Swedish accent which is odd because that’s why I cast him, because I saw him in FARGO. Christ, Macy, if you can do it in FARGO, why can’t you do it HAMLET?
JH: Does he have some resentment towards you for never giving him the sex scene that he finally got in THE COOLER?
DM: I don’t know. It’s a very good question. I plan to exploit it in the future if he’ll let me.
JH: Is this film WHISTLE your next movie?
DM: No, I’m not doing WHISTLE. Everyone seems to tell me I’m doing that.
JH: It’s lazy journalists trusting the IMDb.
DM: That’s what I do. On the other hand, if enough people tell you you’re dead, you should lay down.
JH: So what’s next for you? What’s on your “to do” list today?
DM: I had this idea. I wanted to get Neil Jordan and everybody who made THE CRYING GAME and I wanted to get them together and produce a version of BLACK BEAUTY with that same team. Halfway through the show we take off his saddle and find out he’s a cow.
SPARTAN is now playing.
E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES
