Post by -|E|- on Jan 29, 2006 16:01:41 GMT -5
Mr. Mamet Has a Few Choice Words
By DAVE ITZKOFF
Published: January 29, 2006
SAUGUS, Calif.
NewYorkTimes.com
Photo Credit: Cliff Lipson/CBS
"Doing a television show is like
running until you die," says the
playwright and director.
There are many lessons about the craft of writing that David Mamet would like to share with the general public — pithy, sensible guidelines that any aspiring wordsmith could instantly benefit from — but alas, most of them are unprintable in this newspaper. What's the difference between a fairy tale and a war story? Why is studying to write a television screenplay like studying to be a prostitute? Until accepted standards of obscenity are relaxed or Mr. Mamet becomes more adept at censoring himself, these teachings must remain lost to history.
Still, the longtime author and director has one pearl of wisdom that can be safely conveyed. "Doing a movie or a play is like running a marathon," Mr. Mamet said in Saugus, about 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles, on the set of his new television drama, "The Unit." "Doing a television show is like running until you die."
At 58, the hardy Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright continues to turn out scripts for stage and film at a relentless pace, while still finding the time to train occasionally with an expert in knife combat, just to keep in shape. But until now, he had never seen a television series of his creation reach a network's schedule. To make that happen, he had to undergo an education of his own.
David Mamet, left, spoke with
Dennis Haysbert, an actor on
"The Unit," while on the set
filming an episode.
Mr. Mamet has had his share of experiences in the medium: As a teenager, he played the recurring role of a soda jerk in a Jewish-themed variety show broadcast in his hometown of Chicago, called "Kumzitz" (a Yiddish-derived term meaning "get-together" or "campfire"). His first produced television screenplay came more than two decades later, when he wrote an episode of "Hill Street Blues" that ran during that NBC drama's final season in 1987. In later years, he also developed new series for fellow Chicagoans Dennis Franz (a "Hill Street" alumnus who would find greater success in "NYPD Blue") and William Petersen (who went on to star in "CSI"), but neither program made it. "I would say my TV career was spotted," Mr. Mamet said, "except it was all failures."
While working on the film "Spartan," a 2004 military thriller, Mr. Mamet became an ardent admirer of the 2002 book "Inside Delta Force." Written by the film's technical adviser, Command Sgt. Maj. Eric L. Haney, retired, it is an account of his service as a founding member of the elite Army group and his combat missions in hotspots like Iran, Lebanon and Honduras. "We would sit around, and he would tell us his stories over bottles of rum," Mr. Mamet recalled, "and by the fourth or fifth bottle, you're going, I can't believe I'm talking to a guy who either was there, or can convince me he was there."
Mr. Mamet thought it was perfect source material for a television series but felt that he lacked the stature to get it made by himself. Then, while directing an episode of the FX police drama, "The Shield," he realized that the show's creator and executive producer, Shawn Ryan, could help him pitch the concept around Hollywood. As Mr. Mamet explained, "My attitude was always, 'I don't need your money, why don't you' " — and here he used a phrase deemed appropriate only by sailors and vice presidents. "Shawn pointed out this was perhaps not the most effective approach."
For Mr. Ryan, collaborating on "The Unit" represented not only a chance to work with one of his artistic idols, but also an opportunity to tell stories he felt were largely absent from television. "We're so accustomed to seeing war told through the eyes of soldiers who are far away and the families left behind," Mr. Ryan said in an interview at the production offices of "The Shield." "Delta Force guys live at home, get sent out on these missions, and they come back. They're almost commuter warriors, and you don't really see that portrayed much anywhere."
With Mr. Ryan's support, the studio division of 20th Century Fox (where he has a production deal) signed on to produce "The Unit." And at his suggestion, they proposed the series to broadcast networks, rather than to cable channels. "Shawn's point," said Sergeant Major Haney, "was that on cable you can say" a word that Mr. Mamet likes to say "and on the networks you make a lot more money. That answered it."
When it came time to meet with network executives, even Mr. Mamet, the author of "Glengarry Glen Ross," found he had much to learn about salesmanship. In the group's first meeting, with Fox Broadcasting, "we were just awful," said Mr. Ryan. "There really wasn't a flow." In a second meeting, with ABC, they proved no better. "I think we elevated the pitch up to mediocre," he said. "We got very polite nods."
By the group's third pitch, at CBS, "we had a section where Eric just talked about his real-life experiences, and he was just captivating," Mr. Ryan recalled. Les Moonves, the head of CBS, "looked around the room and said, 'We love it.' I loved the inclusion of 'we,' as if they'd had a psychic conversation with each other."
Skip to next paragraph
Forum: Television
As production began last year on "The Unit," Mr. Mamet devised motivational tools to encourage the show's writers to stay true to the spirit of Sergeant Major Haney's memoir. "We made up this big banner and put it in the writers' room on the first day," Mr. Mamet said. "It said, 'Only tell those stories which are told in the half-hour before closing time.' "
Mr. Ryan said that Mr. Mamet's most valuable instructions involved economical storytelling. "Dave's always saying: 'What is essential? And if it's not essential, throw it out,' " Mr. Ryan said. "Especially in a 'Desperate Housewives' kind of universe, there seem to be a lot of style points given out these days, and Dave isn't a style-points kind of guy. He came in one day and said: 'You know who's really brilliant? The people who write up the call sheets.' "
For the actors who worked with Mr. Mamet, who helped to cast the show and directed 2 of its 13 episodes, "The Unit" offered a crash course in an idiosyncratic talent who sometimes speaks his own language, and is fond of short, nonsensical phrases like "bibbidi bobbidi boo" and "yada, yada, yada."
"He's so specific in his directions, in such a bizarre way, that it can take a moment to sink in," said Scott Foley, the actor playing Bob Brown, the newest recruit in "The Unit." "I'll say: 'David, this line doesn't sound right. I'd like to say this.' He says: 'Yeah, that's got two too many syllables. Try something else.' And I'll think, 'How the hell do you know that?' "
MR. MAMET'S plays and films are full of staccato beats and willful obfuscation — a style of dialogue so consistent and so distinctive that it's easy to recognize, or to parody. But even its greatest fans might wonder how that style translates to the small screen, and whether it can compete on a prime-time schedule teeming with by-the-book crime dramas.
No one on "The Unit" would accuse Mr. Mamet of muffling his distinctive voice, but his colleagues found him much more open to compromise than they expected. "How do you tell David Mamet that his idea for a scene there is wrong, and you've got a better one?" Mr. Ryan asked. "What you learn, and what any good television writer learns, is that you should take the best idea, wherever it comes from. But you have to defend your idea and be able to explain why it is the best."
Streamlined scenes and punchy dialogue do not necessarily add up to a television series that is simple to follow; by the end of the first season, "The Unit" has woven a web of intersecting plotlines about military intrigue, marital infidelity and — of course — shady real-estate deals that can only be described as Mametian.
This narrative strategy created its own dramatic tension, between a team of iconoclastic storytellers and a television network with a mission to deliver the largest viewing audience possible. "A guy like David Mamet makes people at CBS nervous, because he's his own man and he has his own ideas," said Mr. Ryan, who often acted as a mediator between the two sides. But in reviewing some focus-group testing for "The Unit," Mr. Ryan said, he found encouraging results: "The sense was, strangely, that people who were confused actually enjoyed the episode more than the people who weren't. And what I took that to mean was they weren't actually confused — they were curious."
Though his own leftward political leanings are hardly a secret, Mr. Mamet said that it was his curiosity about clandestine organizations, rather than his ideological convictions, that drew him to "The Unit." "You can't have a closed system without having secrets, whether it's a family or a church group or an Army platoon," he said. "We're not trying to pass judgment. The show is not prowar, it's not antiwar. It's very much pro-military. We're trying to take you backstage and show you stuff you wouldn't have imagined about the real lives of these people."
Sergeant Major Haney agreed, adding that all he had learned from war is that it's "the stupidest, most horrible thing mankind does," and as opposed to how combat is usually depicted in popular culture, "the reality is much less gory, but it's much more shocking and much more dramatic." And with a Mamet-like aphorism, he noted that he was starting to see parallels between the set of a television series and the battlefields on which he once fought: "You can say you're going to do whatever in a given situation. But once the shooting starts, all plans are off."
Here endeth the lesson.
By DAVE ITZKOFF
Published: January 29, 2006
SAUGUS, Calif.
NewYorkTimes.com
Photo Credit: Cliff Lipson/CBS
"Doing a television show is like
running until you die," says the
playwright and director.
There are many lessons about the craft of writing that David Mamet would like to share with the general public — pithy, sensible guidelines that any aspiring wordsmith could instantly benefit from — but alas, most of them are unprintable in this newspaper. What's the difference between a fairy tale and a war story? Why is studying to write a television screenplay like studying to be a prostitute? Until accepted standards of obscenity are relaxed or Mr. Mamet becomes more adept at censoring himself, these teachings must remain lost to history.
Still, the longtime author and director has one pearl of wisdom that can be safely conveyed. "Doing a movie or a play is like running a marathon," Mr. Mamet said in Saugus, about 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles, on the set of his new television drama, "The Unit." "Doing a television show is like running until you die."
At 58, the hardy Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright continues to turn out scripts for stage and film at a relentless pace, while still finding the time to train occasionally with an expert in knife combat, just to keep in shape. But until now, he had never seen a television series of his creation reach a network's schedule. To make that happen, he had to undergo an education of his own.
David Mamet, left, spoke with
Dennis Haysbert, an actor on
"The Unit," while on the set
filming an episode.
Mr. Mamet has had his share of experiences in the medium: As a teenager, he played the recurring role of a soda jerk in a Jewish-themed variety show broadcast in his hometown of Chicago, called "Kumzitz" (a Yiddish-derived term meaning "get-together" or "campfire"). His first produced television screenplay came more than two decades later, when he wrote an episode of "Hill Street Blues" that ran during that NBC drama's final season in 1987. In later years, he also developed new series for fellow Chicagoans Dennis Franz (a "Hill Street" alumnus who would find greater success in "NYPD Blue") and William Petersen (who went on to star in "CSI"), but neither program made it. "I would say my TV career was spotted," Mr. Mamet said, "except it was all failures."
While working on the film "Spartan," a 2004 military thriller, Mr. Mamet became an ardent admirer of the 2002 book "Inside Delta Force." Written by the film's technical adviser, Command Sgt. Maj. Eric L. Haney, retired, it is an account of his service as a founding member of the elite Army group and his combat missions in hotspots like Iran, Lebanon and Honduras. "We would sit around, and he would tell us his stories over bottles of rum," Mr. Mamet recalled, "and by the fourth or fifth bottle, you're going, I can't believe I'm talking to a guy who either was there, or can convince me he was there."
Mr. Mamet thought it was perfect source material for a television series but felt that he lacked the stature to get it made by himself. Then, while directing an episode of the FX police drama, "The Shield," he realized that the show's creator and executive producer, Shawn Ryan, could help him pitch the concept around Hollywood. As Mr. Mamet explained, "My attitude was always, 'I don't need your money, why don't you' " — and here he used a phrase deemed appropriate only by sailors and vice presidents. "Shawn pointed out this was perhaps not the most effective approach."
For Mr. Ryan, collaborating on "The Unit" represented not only a chance to work with one of his artistic idols, but also an opportunity to tell stories he felt were largely absent from television. "We're so accustomed to seeing war told through the eyes of soldiers who are far away and the families left behind," Mr. Ryan said in an interview at the production offices of "The Shield." "Delta Force guys live at home, get sent out on these missions, and they come back. They're almost commuter warriors, and you don't really see that portrayed much anywhere."
With Mr. Ryan's support, the studio division of 20th Century Fox (where he has a production deal) signed on to produce "The Unit." And at his suggestion, they proposed the series to broadcast networks, rather than to cable channels. "Shawn's point," said Sergeant Major Haney, "was that on cable you can say" a word that Mr. Mamet likes to say "and on the networks you make a lot more money. That answered it."
When it came time to meet with network executives, even Mr. Mamet, the author of "Glengarry Glen Ross," found he had much to learn about salesmanship. In the group's first meeting, with Fox Broadcasting, "we were just awful," said Mr. Ryan. "There really wasn't a flow." In a second meeting, with ABC, they proved no better. "I think we elevated the pitch up to mediocre," he said. "We got very polite nods."
By the group's third pitch, at CBS, "we had a section where Eric just talked about his real-life experiences, and he was just captivating," Mr. Ryan recalled. Les Moonves, the head of CBS, "looked around the room and said, 'We love it.' I loved the inclusion of 'we,' as if they'd had a psychic conversation with each other."
Skip to next paragraph
Forum: Television
As production began last year on "The Unit," Mr. Mamet devised motivational tools to encourage the show's writers to stay true to the spirit of Sergeant Major Haney's memoir. "We made up this big banner and put it in the writers' room on the first day," Mr. Mamet said. "It said, 'Only tell those stories which are told in the half-hour before closing time.' "
Mr. Ryan said that Mr. Mamet's most valuable instructions involved economical storytelling. "Dave's always saying: 'What is essential? And if it's not essential, throw it out,' " Mr. Ryan said. "Especially in a 'Desperate Housewives' kind of universe, there seem to be a lot of style points given out these days, and Dave isn't a style-points kind of guy. He came in one day and said: 'You know who's really brilliant? The people who write up the call sheets.' "
For the actors who worked with Mr. Mamet, who helped to cast the show and directed 2 of its 13 episodes, "The Unit" offered a crash course in an idiosyncratic talent who sometimes speaks his own language, and is fond of short, nonsensical phrases like "bibbidi bobbidi boo" and "yada, yada, yada."
"He's so specific in his directions, in such a bizarre way, that it can take a moment to sink in," said Scott Foley, the actor playing Bob Brown, the newest recruit in "The Unit." "I'll say: 'David, this line doesn't sound right. I'd like to say this.' He says: 'Yeah, that's got two too many syllables. Try something else.' And I'll think, 'How the hell do you know that?' "
MR. MAMET'S plays and films are full of staccato beats and willful obfuscation — a style of dialogue so consistent and so distinctive that it's easy to recognize, or to parody. But even its greatest fans might wonder how that style translates to the small screen, and whether it can compete on a prime-time schedule teeming with by-the-book crime dramas.
No one on "The Unit" would accuse Mr. Mamet of muffling his distinctive voice, but his colleagues found him much more open to compromise than they expected. "How do you tell David Mamet that his idea for a scene there is wrong, and you've got a better one?" Mr. Ryan asked. "What you learn, and what any good television writer learns, is that you should take the best idea, wherever it comes from. But you have to defend your idea and be able to explain why it is the best."
Streamlined scenes and punchy dialogue do not necessarily add up to a television series that is simple to follow; by the end of the first season, "The Unit" has woven a web of intersecting plotlines about military intrigue, marital infidelity and — of course — shady real-estate deals that can only be described as Mametian.
This narrative strategy created its own dramatic tension, between a team of iconoclastic storytellers and a television network with a mission to deliver the largest viewing audience possible. "A guy like David Mamet makes people at CBS nervous, because he's his own man and he has his own ideas," said Mr. Ryan, who often acted as a mediator between the two sides. But in reviewing some focus-group testing for "The Unit," Mr. Ryan said, he found encouraging results: "The sense was, strangely, that people who were confused actually enjoyed the episode more than the people who weren't. And what I took that to mean was they weren't actually confused — they were curious."
Though his own leftward political leanings are hardly a secret, Mr. Mamet said that it was his curiosity about clandestine organizations, rather than his ideological convictions, that drew him to "The Unit." "You can't have a closed system without having secrets, whether it's a family or a church group or an Army platoon," he said. "We're not trying to pass judgment. The show is not prowar, it's not antiwar. It's very much pro-military. We're trying to take you backstage and show you stuff you wouldn't have imagined about the real lives of these people."
Sergeant Major Haney agreed, adding that all he had learned from war is that it's "the stupidest, most horrible thing mankind does," and as opposed to how combat is usually depicted in popular culture, "the reality is much less gory, but it's much more shocking and much more dramatic." And with a Mamet-like aphorism, he noted that he was starting to see parallels between the set of a television series and the battlefields on which he once fought: "You can say you're going to do whatever in a given situation. But once the shooting starts, all plans are off."
Here endeth the lesson.