David Mamet's Spartan

[Ghostboy]

I liked Hoffa just because I didn't know anything about him or the teamsters, and so I found it educational, and Nicholson was good in it.

Godardian, you've gotta see Oleanna! It's my favorite Mamet movie (that he directed). I need to see it again, since it's been a few years, but I remember being surprised at how worked up it made me.

[RegularKarate]

I think Oleanna might be my least favorite of the Mamet directed Mamets.

It was a Halmark production and REAAAALLLY obvious that it was originally a play (something that just always upsets me).  It doesn't work what it's trying to work.

I think I would have enjoyed it as a play, but I really disliked it as a film.

[godardian]

It was a Halmark production

Wow... that seems so odd. "Yes, we'll greenlight Sarah, Plain and Tall, and oh yes, that David Mamet!"

What's your favorite Mamet-directed-Mamet, RK...eg?

[RegularKarate]

I didn't mean that Literally... (though I really do have a picture in my head of "Hallmark being written somewhere on that box)

My favorite Mamet Directed Mamet is probably House of Games.

My favorite Mamet Directed Rattigan is The Winslow Boy

[godardian]

I didn't mean that Literally... (though I really do have a picture in my head of "Hallmark being written somewhere on that box)

My favorite Mamet Directed Mamet is probably House of Games.

My favorite Mamet Directed Rattigan is The Winslow Boy

See how gullible I am? "Yes, godardian, Hallmark Channel produced Mamet. Coming up next: Neil Labute adapts the Marquis de Sade, starring Elizabeth Gilbert!"

Sheesh. I think I know what you meant now, though. You found it static and stage-y and overly muted...?

[MacGuffin]

[Pedro]

She's missing.

What the fuck is that?

[MacGuffin]

Political conpiracy thriller Spartan

David Mamet is one of the most legendary writers not only in Hollywood, but in the theater community as well. Though he’s written blockbusters like The Untouchables and Hannibal, Mamet’s usual work is the smaller film that never shatters the box office, but remains in movie buffs’ hearts forever. From the heartbreaking desperation of Glengarry Glen Ross to the industry satire of State and Main, Mamet proves himself a master at every genre he tries.

Spartan is not his first action movie. Heist played with the conventions of the subgenre it was named after and of course there was The Untouchables and all the for hire studio jobs. But Spartan does the political conspiracy thriller a bit differently. It’s all the stagey, crackling dialogue that screams Mamet, while it plays its plot twists at unexpected points.

Val Kilmer plays a military officer investigating the kidnapping of the president’s daughter. But as he follows the leads, he realizes some people don’t want him to succeed. Who can he trust? If that was an easy answer, there’d be no movie.

How do you make a genre film unique? Well, you can’t help but make a distinct movie. If you give yourself up to the form, it’s going to be distinctively your own. Because the form’s going to tell you what’s needed. That’s one of the great things I find about working in drama is you’re always learning from the form. You’re always getting humbled by it. It’s exactly like analyzing a dream. You’re trying to analyze your dreams. I know what that means, I know exactly why that means, why am I still unsettled? Let me look a little harder at this little thing over here. But that’s not important, that’s not important, that’s not important. The part where I kill the monster, that’s the important part and I know that that means my father this and da da da da da. But what about this little part over here about the bunny rabbit? Why is the bunny rabbit hopping across the thing? Oh, that’s not important, that’s not important. Making up a drama is almost exactly analogous to analyzing your dreams. That understanding that you cleanse, just like the heroes cleanse, not from your ability to manipulate the material but from your ability to understand the material. It's really humbling, just like when you finally have to look at what that little bunny means. There’s a reason why your mind didn’t want to see that. There’s a reason why you say oh, that’s just interstitial material, f*ck that, that’s nothing, right? Because that’s always where the truth lies, it’s going to tell you how to reformulate the puzzle.

What’s the bunny rabbit in Spartan? Part of the bunny rabbit in Spartan is what does he do in the second act? He finds out that everything is screwed up and it’s not a question of manipulation, I better get on my white horse and ride off in all directions, but the question is what am I going to do? So the first thing he does is he says I’m going to get everything to the first lady, because she’s the mommy. She’ll solve the problem. He finds out that he’s failed. He was so intent on trying to get to the mother of the victim that he overlooks the fact that he’s just gotten trapped. The mother says, “There’s nobody there but you, there’s nobody there but you. Everything you wanted to avail yourself of isn’t there. There is no government. The government’s trying to kill you. There isn’t any unit cohesion. The unit’s trying to kill you. There isn’t any sense of patriotism. Your country’s trying to kill you. Everybody wants you dead. You have to save her.” The woman says, “You have to save her because there’s nobody but you. It’s just your responsibility.” And then he goes to his friend and says what am I going to do? She tells him the same thing, “There’s nobody there but you.” So he says I’d better go do it. Let me go back and avail myself of one of my other allies. And the other ally says, “I’m not even going to help you.” She offers him an out as we find that friends often do when we’re in the midst of a moral dilemma. We go talk to our friends, right? One of our friends always says listen, I understand that you want to do what you think is the right thing, but that’s really not the right thing here and let me tell you why. It does you a credit that you said you want to do the right thing, but the really righter thing would be to do the wrong thing. And the question is, having had the problem restated to him, having understood what the problem is and having had the problem restated to him, he’s now given an out, what’s he going to do? That’s when he has to make a decision that starts to get into the third act. As in any dramatic structure, the third act is really just a reiteration of the first act where the terms are clarified.

So personal responsibility is the bunny rabbit? Yeah, maybe that’s the bunny rabbit.

How did you keep the exposition to a minimum? That’s the fun of it. Anybody can write a script that has “Jim, how were things since you were elected governor of Minnesota? How’s your albino daughter?” “As of course you know, Mr. Smith, your son has myopia. It’s amazing that having that myopia that he was winning the national spelling bee.” That’s easy, that’s not challenging. The trick is to take a story that might be complex and make it simple enough that people will want to catch up with it rather than stopping them and explaining to them why they should be interested. Because then they might understand, but they won’t care. What makes them interested is to make them catch up. What's happening here? Who is this guy? What crime was committed? Who was taken? Why is she important? Why are all these government people running around? And how is he going to get her back? They want to see what's he going to do next? That's all that moviemaking comes down to, what happens next?

How was your experience with Val Kilmer, because we hear he can be difficult? Well, I always loved Val. I’ve always loved his work. We’ve been talking about working together for years and Art Linson who produced the movie, and I were having lunch one day. I said, “You know, man, we just couldn’t get the money for this movie.” And there was Val literally at the next table. Val came over, we talked about oh, we’re going to do something together. Art and I looked at each other. Just like Lana Turner.

Does this movie represent any anger about what’s going on today in politics? Well, everything’s about what’s going on today because everybody is affected by the environment in which they live. But I don't know if the environment in which we live is worse than the environment in which we lived five years ago or better. I think it’s by human nature. This is a movie about a guy who’s faced with the choice of giving up absolutely everything in order to maintain the one thing which he said is the most important thing in the world. Basically, he has to die, in this case spiritually. See, here’s a guy who’s willing to risk death. The question is yes, we knew that. Are you also willing to risk sorrow? Are you willing to change your belief system? What’s more important to you? To hold onto your feeling of purpose, or to hold onto a sense of honor which transcends that? And so of course he’s gonna go kicking and screaming. Who wouldn’t?

Do you remember when The Simpsons made a joke about your plays? No.

[cine]

She's missing.

What the fuck is that?

A tagline.

[Henry Hill]

ebert and roeper were jerking off to mamet and Spartan on sundays show.

[Ghostboy]

ebert and roeper were jerking off to mamet and Spartan on sundays show.

I'll tell you why: it's good.

[MacGuffin]

The many faces of Mamet
Playwright, screenwriter, author, director and actor takes on a political thriller with 'Spartan'



Is there a project involving Joan of Arc's dog in David Mamet's future?

William H. Macy, a longtime friend and former student of Mamet's, says there is, that he and the screenwriter/director/playwright have had a meeting about it. Mamet has mentioned a "Joan of Bark" project during publicity for his new film, "Spartan."

Then again, given that this is Mamet we're talking about, something that oddball-sounding could be a con.

"He is generous and expressive and really wonderfully mischievous," says Chris Smith, artistic director at San Francisco's Magic Theatre, where the world premiere of Mamet's latest play, "Dr. Faustus," recently opened. "It wouldn't surprise me."

Mamet, an often reclusive interview subject, is at a Century City hotel to talk about "Spartan," a political thriller starring Val Kilmer, Derek Luke, Ed O'Neill and Macy. The film, about a secret operative's attempt to rescue the kidnapped president's daughter, opens this weekend.

In person, the bearded and crew-cut-wearing Mamet, 56, is polite, never coy or evasive. He doesn't laugh easily and seems genuinely surprised that he carries a reputation for being not the easiest celebrity to cozy up to.

But he is David Mamet, two-time Oscar nominee, Pulitzer Prize winner and the much imitated creator of such contemporary classics as "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "American Buffalo." So on a Tuesday afternoon, we threw some questions at him and let him get to work.

Q: Where did the idea for "Spartan" come from?
A: I just made it up.

Q: That's it?
A: I just was thinking about it one day and made it up. I always think it's like going to a restaurant. People say, "What are you doing in a Mexican restaurant tonight?" I say, "Well, I just thought I'd do it." They say, "Why didn't you want to go to a Ukrainian restaurant?" I don't know. One would start to feel a responsibility to have a good rationale for every decision which is basically impetuous or impulsive.

Q: Could the scenario presented in "Spartan" actually happen?
A: I hope it could happen. Not in real life, but I hope it's sufficiently consistent and plausible that people say, "Oh my God, that could happen," if only for the purposes of being entertained.

Q: How'd you happen on Val Kilmer to play the agent?
A: I wrote the thing and Art Linson produced the movie. He and I were having lunch in Hollywood and there was Val literally at the next table. Art and I looked at each other and (later) we sent him the script and that was it.

Q: What do you like about his work?
A: He's very intelligent and very honest. It's just you looking at him playing the part rather than looking at him bringing his ideas to the part.

Q: You wrote a chapter on "Acting" in your "Writing in Restaurants" collection that says, "It's not a very good time for the arts. And it is an especially !ital!bad!off! time for the art of acting." That was 1986. Is this still the case today?

A: There's always terrific actors. There are terrific actors in our day and age. I believe what I was referring to was the disappearance of theater where, like any art, you've got to do it a lot to get better at it. If you have a lot of people doing it a lot, it's going to produce some remarkable talent.

It's like someone said, one of the reasons why you have more and more foreign talent playing baseball in the United States is that sandlot games have disappeared. There used to be a lot of kids playing baseball and if you got 20 million kids playing baseball for 20 hours a week, you'll have a bigger pool of talent, and superstars are going to emerge, than if you've got 200,000 kids playing baseball two hours a year.

It's the same about acting. If you've got 50 shows on Broadway, and they're going to change five or 10 times a year, plus regional theaters all over the country, you're going to have a much wider talent pool than if you have three theaters on Broadway.

Q: Does that mean acting is a profession you can get good at if you work at it long enough?
A: No. If you do something long enough, you'll probably get better at it, but if you've got enough people doing something long enough, more talent's going to emerge. You have to have a fairly wide base and you have to have real kinds of apprenticeship.

Q: You're renowned for working with the same actors over and over again.
A: I like 'em. Why would I want to work with someone else?

Q: Have we seen William H. Macy's best work?
A: Macy's great. Look at the stuff he's done. Look at what he did in "Door to Door" and "Oleanna." Look at the turn he did in "Seabiscuit" He's just a great actor. I think he can do anything.

Q: Have you seen "The Cooler"?
A: I've got to see it. Everyone says it's great.

Q: It's been compared to your style of writing.
A: Oh yeah? Oh good. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Q: What do you make of phrases like "Mamet-esque" or "Mamet-speak" when people compare other people's work to yours?
A: Well, it's a compliment that people like my work enough to either endeavor to emulate it or endeavor to surpass it. Both are a compliment.

Q: Theater or film: Which one is the bigger rush?
A: I love doing both. Filmmaking is great fun. You ever been on a movie set? Do people look like they're having fun? Because they are.

I always wanted to do everything. I was in New York writing a lot of plays, and Bob Rafelson gave me a job writing a movie. It was such fun. I always liked the communal aspect of the entertainment, whether Macy and I were forming a theater company together as we did when we were kids or in New York when we were a little bit older or making a movie together. I just directed an episode of "The Shield," and I had the best time.

Q: Back to "Spartan." Given the twists and turns of your previous movies, I expected more double-crosses and cons.
A: I'd say it's a political thriller, right down the middle. There's a secret operative and there's the government. There you go.

Q: Where does your interest in con games and intrigue come from?
A: I lived in that world for many, many years. I was a poker player, a habitue of gambling dens, and I also spent much time among criminals. I spent a lot of time on the edges of society trying to make a living, and I was fascinated with what was going on there.
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While doing an interview for U-Daily News, Spartan writer/director David Mamet revealed that he had just directed the 11th episode of the third season's "THE SHIELD."

"I love doing both. Filmmaking is great fun. You ever been on a movie set? Do people look like they're having fun? Because they are. I always wanted to do everything. I was in New York writing a lot of plays, and Bob Rafelson gave me a job writing a movie. It was such fun. I always liked the communal aspect of the entertainment, whether Macy and I were forming a theater company together as we did when we were kids or in New York when we were a little bit older or making a movie together. I just directed an episode of "The Shield," and I had the best time."

[Henry Hill]

i dont know much about david mamet. i have only seen The Untouchables, which i LOVED and Hannibal. of course he only wrote those films, whereas Spartan he wrote and directed. i hadnt heard of the film until ebert and roeper reviewed it on their show. i have been a fan of val kilmer for a long time (Willow, Tombstone...yes, even as iceman in Top Gun   ) i had nothing else to do, had seen all the movies that are out that i wanted to see..so i decided to take a chance on Spartan. now i have heard good things about mamet, and i have heard bad things. i am also a big believer and fan of films that are written and directed by the same person. only in these such films is the vision of the writer truly done justice, i think. and as i said i like val kilmer. i really, really enjoyed this film. ebert mentioned that two minutes into the film he recognized it was a mamet film without even knowing it was done by him. i didnt know such things, but i did think that the dialogue in the film was very original and never faltered for a second. it just kept an up-tempo the whole time. it was a lot of military dialogue, but not like i had heard before. from the opening shot of the film i was hooked. it didnt bother with opening credits, just the title Spartan as the action was unfolding. the whole film i was on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next. val kilmer has not had a role like this since Tombstone i.e. bad mother fucker. i was very surprised that i liked this film so much, seeing as how i had no expectations whatsoever. wow. i give it    

[MacGuffin]

i dont know much about david mamet. i have only seen The Untouchables, which i LOVED and Hannibal. of course he only wrote those films, whereas Spartan he wrote and directed.

Technically, they threw out Mamet's script for Hannibal and the version onscreen is Steven Zaillian's, but because of WGA rules, Mamet's name is still attached to it.

[godardian]

i dont know much about david mamet. i have only seen The Untouchables, which i LOVED and Hannibal. of course he only wrote those films, whereas Spartan he wrote and directed.

Technically, they threw out Mamet's script for Hannibal and the version onscreen is Steven Zaillian's, but because of WGA rules, Mamet's name is still attached to it.

I sensed a few scattered Mametian lines, though... "additional dialogue," perhaps?