David Mamet | JCCSF

David Mamet is the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of twenty-three plays including Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow, and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter of eighteen films including The Verdict and The Untouchables. He is best known for rapid-fire dialogue and explorations of power relationships, masculinity, and corporate corruption. Mamet returns to the JCCSF for a conversation about Chicago, his new, big-shouldered thriller set in mobbed-up 1920s Chicago. Moving at a careening pace, and suffused with his trademark "Mamet Speak," Chicago is the book he has been building to his whole career. Mixing some of Mamet’s most brilliant fictional creations with actual figures of the era, it explores honor, deceit, revenge and devotion. Chicago is that rarest of literary creations, combining spectacular elegance of craft with a kinetic wallop as fierce as the February wind gusting off Lake Michigan.
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[@danlarkin]

I was fortunate enough to have been in the audience. Most entertaining evening.

[@ralphromeo7066]

I"ve played in four of his magnificent plays and have yet to see his writing matched anywhere in the modern American theater. Mamet is head and shoulders over anyone who's embarked on his chosen endeavor.

[@kevinlynch523]

Always love listening to Mamet tell stories. I really enjoyed the one about the screenwriter and the elves at 59:27.

[@LOGICZOMBIE]

Thank you for your contribution.

[@thomassimmons1950]

David takes being fullashit and turns it into ART... that's why Iove'em..!

[@SMacCuUladh]

Being full of shit is the human condition. It's being honest with yourself that's the real work.

[@dianjane]

18:08 “...somebody breaks into your house and you should definitely give them a leaflet.” PS David please do a mini series on the Book. That Book.

[@lessevdoolbretsim]

I love how the PC crowd just couldn’t let themselves laugh at “I’m a crazy Jew.”

[@A_M_P_]

PC crowds are literally the worst.

[@kevinhornbuckle]

Illuminating.

[@carrion_man3700]

I love Mamet, but The Catcher in the Rye is great.

[@wildbird5150]

Wow

[@iraseiden]

at about 52:00 he names three comedians as 'the conversos'. Any thoughts about that anyone? By the way.... Mamet is great, brilliant, iconclast, pot stirrer and genius of potboiler made in heaven. Wonderful. Who is the Interviewer? He is gifted too and tolerant, compassionate and understanding and erudite.

[@mares3841]

💛

[@Popcorncedar]

Seems like a sweet guy. Good lord.

[@lessevdoolbretsim]

“Guy couldn’t find his couch the living room!” GGGR

[@williambyer4442]

I feel the need for speed

[@poboysix4]

This interviewer is horrible. He responds to none of the answers to his questions... he’s dead pan and silent when Mamet makes very funny aphorism jokes or comparisons. Like most interviewers, he’s just waiting his turn to speak

[@kevinlynch523]

Waiting for his turn to speak. You nailed it. Mamet is set to end the show with the perfect joke about the elves, and the very next thing the interviewer does is tell his cannibal joke, which has nothing to do with anything that's been said during the hour-long interview. Why does he do it? The interviewer tells you: "David, you prompted me to tell a joke of my own. Some of you may know it. It's from my book 'Let There Be Laughter.'..... Ugh.

[@donTeo136]

I'm wondering if i framed my existance around my genetic history what would be the result? Or if I were to work from looser definition. His definition seem to almost exclusively come from 'i am a jew' A limitation can be a comfort, but it's still a limitation . Hence not free.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

" Victimhood " is almost a prerequisite for any kind of artistic success today. Talent is an optional extra . Unfortunately if you are a White male of European decent that particular avenue is closed to you. You have nothing of any relevance to contribute..

[@wickfields]

Did the writer of Oleana just accuse other writers of sounding written?

[@theexpresidents]

Oooo, snap.

[@hastinmy]

invite me for your next films-- good morning

[@poboysix4]

*in Eric the midget voice, “JCCSF.”

[@chrisc3697]

good one

[@felixcat4346]

Alfred Hitchcock was a Jew no way

[@finncullen]

His parents were Roman Catholics, he was himself educated at a Jesuit run school. His fiancee was a Protestant who converted to Catholicism on marrying him.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

Even more astonishing : Rod Steiger ( he of the Pawnbroker ) was not Jewish !?!?

[@theexpresidents]

​@@2msvalkyrie529The Mexican from _Duck, You Sucker!_ ?

[@cashed-out2192]

I don't follow theater all that much. Never heard or cared about Mamet

[@stockbag]

He said Trump was 'a great president' and voted for his re-election.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

Hmm.....he DOES have some good points then..?

[@theexpresidents]

Trump defended Jews. Mamet's basically got to.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

Over rated one trick pony. Not as talentless as Beckett or Pinter I admit.....

[@theexpresidents]

I like Pinter.