Background
Mamet was born on November 30, 1947 in Chicago to Jewish parents, Lenore June (née Silver), a teacher, and Bernard Morris Mamet, an attorney.
( A classic tragedy, American Buffalo is a story of three...)
A classic tragedy, American Buffalo is a story of three men struggling in the pursuit of their distorted vision of the American Dream. By turns touching and cynical, poignant and violent, American Buffalo is a piercing story of how people can be corrupted into betraying their ideals and those they love.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802150578/?tag=2022091-20
(David Mamet has been a controversial, defining force in n...)
David Mamet has been a controversial, defining force in nearly every creative endeavor-now he turns his attention to politics. In recent years, David Mamet realized that the so-called mainstream media outlets he relied on were irredeemably biased, peddling a hypocritical and deeply flawed worldview. In 2008 Mamet wrote a hugely controversial op-ed for the Village Voice, "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'", in which he methodically attacked liberal beliefs, eviscerating them as efficiently as he did Method acting in his bestselling book True and False. Now Mamet employs his trademark intellectual force and vigor to take on all the key political issues of our times, from religion to political correctness to global warming. The legendary playwright, author, director, and filmmaker pulls no punches in his art or in his politics. And as a former liberal who woke up, Mamet will win over an entirely new audience of others who have grown irate over America's current direction.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595230971/?tag=2022091-20
( ?Intellectually salacious?Deep in its gut, Mamets grip...)
?Intellectually salacious?Deep in its gut, Mamets gripping play argues everything in America is still about race. ?Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune ?Tasty dialogue, spiky confrontations and more than occasionally biting observations?RACE riffs artfully on the subtleties of discrimination and guilt, resentment and shame, and its ambiguities appear designed to stir audiences into testy debates. ?David Rooney, Variety ?Edgily compelling?Few writers can grip an audience like David Mamet. He tackles urgent themes head on, and often writes with the brutality of a sawn-off shotgun held at the spectators head. ?Telegraph (UK) ?Fascinating and dramatically charged, Mamets provocative, hot-topic play is anything but simple. The questions and answers posed add up to an intriguing study of perception. ?Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press When a rich white man is accused of raping a younger African American woman, he looks to a multicultural law firm for his defense. But even as his lawyers?one of them white, another black? begin to strategize, they must confront their own biases and assumptions about race relations in America. David Mamet is a playwright, essayist and screenwriter who directs for both the stage and film. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Glengarry Glen Ross. His plays include China Doll, Race, The Anarchist, American Buffalo, Speed-the-Plow, November, The Cryptogram, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Lakeboat, The Water Engine, The Duck Variations, Reunion, The Blue Hour, The Shawl, Bobby gould in Hell, Edmond, Romance, The Old Neighborhood and his adaptation of The Voysey Inheritance.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1559363827/?tag=2022091-20
( Winner of the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, David Mametâs scal...)
Winner of the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, David Mametâs scalding comedy is about small-time, cutthroat real estate salesmen trying to grind out a living by pushing plots of land on reluctant buyers in a never-ending scramble for their fair share of the American dream. Here is Mamet at his very best, writing with brutal power about the tough life of tough characters who cajole, connive, wheedle, and wheel and deal for a piece of the actionwhere closing a sale can mean a brand new Cadillac but losing one can mean losing it all. This masterpiece of American drama is now a major motion picture starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin, Jonathan Pryce, Ed Harris, and Kevin Spacey.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802130917/?tag=2022091-20
director essayist playwright screenwriter
Mamet was born on November 30, 1947 in Chicago to Jewish parents, Lenore June (née Silver), a teacher, and Bernard Morris Mamet, an attorney.
He studied at Goddard College in Vermont and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York.
Mamet has also taught at Goddard College, The Yale Drama School, and New York University.
Mamet began writing plays while attending Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont (B. A. 1969). Returning to Chicago, where many of his plays were first staged, he worked at various factory jobs, at a real-estate agency, and as a taxi driver; all these experiences provided background for his plays. In 1973 he cofounded a theatre company in Chicago. He also taught drama at several American colleges and universities.
Mamet’s early plays include Duck Variations (produced 1972), in which two elderly Jewish men sit on a park bench and trade misinformation on various subjects. In Sexual Perversity in Chicago (produced 1974; filmed as About Last Night… [1986]), a couple’s budding sexual and emotional relationship is destroyed by their friends’ interference. Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974), examines confusion and misconceptions surrounding relationships between men and women.
While some reviewers found this work offensive and misogynistic, Julius Novick contended that the play "is a compassionate, rueful comedy about how difficult it is . .. for men to give themselves to women, and for women to give themselves to men.
It suggests that the only thing to fear, sexually, is fear itself. "
This play was adapted for film as About Last Night. .. .
American Buffalo (produced 1975; film 1996) for which Mamet received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, is set in a junk shop where three men plot to steal a valuable coin, concerns dishonest business practices. In Reunion (1977), a woman and her alcoholic father come to terms with their twenty-year separation; in Dark Pony (1977), a father relates a story to his young daughter as they drive home late at night; and The Sanctity of Marriage (1979) concerns the separation of a married couple. A Life in the Theatre (produced 1977) explores the teacher-student relationship; and Speed-the-Plow (produced 1988) is a black comedy about avaricious Hollywood scriptwriters.
Glengarry Glen Ross (produced 1983; film 1992), a drama of desperate real-estate salesmen, won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Oleanna (produced 1992; film 1994) probes the definition of sexual harassment through the interactions between a professor and his female student. Mamet attempted to address the accusations of chauvinism frequently directed at his work with Boston Marriage (produced 1999), a drawing-room comedy about two lesbians. Dr. Faustus (produced 2004) puts a contemporary spin on the German Faust legend, and Romance (produced 2005) comically skewers the prejudices of a Jewish man and his Protestant lawyer. Later plays include November (produced 2008), a farcical portrait of a U. S. president running for reelection; Race (produced 2009), a legal drama that explores racial attitudes and tensions; and The Anarchist (produced 2012), which depicts a charged meeting between a women’s prison official and an inmate seeking parole. In all these works, Mamet used the rhythms and rhetoric of everyday speech to delineate character, describe intricate relationships, and drive dramatic development.
Mamet wrote screenplays for a number of motion pictures, including The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981); The Verdict (1982), for which he received an Academy Award nomination; Rising Sun (1993); Wag the Dog (1997), for which he received another Academy Award nomination; and Hannibal (2001), all adaptations of novels. He both wrote and directed the motion pictures House of Games (1987), Homicide (1991), and The Spanish Prisoner (1998). In 1999 he directed The Winslow Boy, which he had adapted from a play by Terence Rattigan. State and Main (2000), a well-received ensemble piece written and directed by Mamet, depicts the trials and tribulations of a film crew shooting in a small town. He also applied his dual talents to Heist (2001), a crime thriller; Redbelt (2008), a latter-day samurai film about the misadventures of a martial arts instructor; and Phil Spector (2013), an HBO docudrama set during the notorious record producer’s first murder trial. Mamet created and wrote The Unit (2006–09), a television drama that centred on the activities of a secret U. S. Army unit.
Mamet also wrote fiction, including The Village (1994); The Old Religion (1997), a novelization of an actual anti-Semitic lynching in the American South; and Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources (2000), which speculates on the havoc that might be caused by a crash of the Internet. He published several volumes articulating his stance on various aspects of theatre and film, including On Directing Film (1992), Three Uses of the Knife (1996), and True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor (1999). Compilations of his essays and experiences include Writing in Restaurants (1987), Make-Believe Town (1996), and Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business (2007). Mamet addressed the topic of anti-Semitism in The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews (2006) and challenged American liberal orthodoxy in The Secret Knowledge: The Dismantling of American Culture (2011). He wrote several plays for children as well.
( Winner of the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, David Mametâs scal...)
( A classic tragedy, American Buffalo is a story of three...)
(David Mamet has been a controversial, defining force in n...)
( ?Intellectually salacious?Deep in its gut, Mamets grip...)
(A male college professor uses an interview with one of hi...)
(This book could be just what a collector is wanting. So v...)
Quotations:
"Before you can steal fire from the Gods you gotta be able to get coffee for the director. "
"We don't have to worry about making it interesting; all we have to worry about is getting rid of the pig. "
In 1977, he married Lindsay Crouse, an American actress with whom he had two children. The couple divorced in 1990.
In 1991 he married Rebecca Pidgeon, a British actress and songwriter and they have 2 children together.