While I’m a fan of David Mamet’s play, Glengarry Glen Ross (which won a Pulitzer Prize) and his screenplays for The Verdict and Wag the Dog, it’s sad to see a bright guy like Mamet drink the Trump Kool-Aid and join the MAGA movement.
Back in 2022 Mamet’s decline started with Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch (you can read my review here). Then in 2024, there was EVERYWHERE AN OINK OINK (you can read my review here). The Disenlightenment: Politics, Horror, and Entertainment (2025) completes the trip to the darkest rings of Hell for Mamet.
But amid the ranting about the dangers of Liberal America and how great Trump is, Mamet includes nuggets like this: “To excuse his invasion of Poland in 1939, Hitler dressed a company German convicts in Polish uniforms, trucked them to the border, shot them, and announced that Poland had tried to invade Germany. With our knowledge of his subsequent monstrosities, we might see this charade as quaint. ” (p. 113)
Mamet comments on college protestors for Gaza this way: “But the gays for Hamas would be killed in Hamas-controlled territory, and the feminists doing so would be killed, as would any Westerners. What, then are the enlightened voting for? For representatives to offer them the thrill of social protest. If this isn’t entertainment, I miss my guess. But it is a costly entertainment.” (p. 89)
When Mamet occasionally writes about the theater in The Disenlightenment some of his assertions can be thought-provoking: “A play benefits from an intermission. All young directors want to improve an evening by doing away with the intermission. (Other directorial apercus are limited to ‘do it in street clothes,’ ‘on a bare stage,’ ‘in a different period,’ or ‘change the gender of the roles.’ All these are moot, as the audience cares as little of these as for change the hat of the campfire storyteller). But the audience benefits from an intermission. They are allowed a chance to wonder and prognosticate the progress of the next act.” (p. 95)
Reading about how all our problems are the result of Biden’s policies and Democratic/Liberal thinking while Trump is the only one who can save us gets tedious fast. I’m done with reading Mamet’s essays on politics. GRADE: D (for dismal)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Open City—an Introduction — 1
- Box Jumper — 5
- The Kennedys — 9
- The Shill — 19
- The Springbok — 24
- The Bally and the Tip — 32
- No Coups in England — 36
- “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” — 42
- Road Trip — 49
- Hypothermia — 53
- Decision Height — 57
- Dese Dem Dose — 62
- Come Smoke a Coca-Cola — 65
- The Temp Score and the Look Back — 70
- The Generation of the Desert — 73
- Intersectionality — 77
- “The Poor Are Always with Us” Explained — 84
- The Zero Point — 90
- Woody Allen and the IDF — 101
- Armageddon –105
- Firewall — 111
- Upstage of the Couch — 115
- The Hangman’s Rope — 121
- Failing Up and Down — 128
- The Benjamins — 137
- Lesbians and Whaling — 140
- Some Maxims of Napoleon — 144
- Stonewall — 155
- Herman Melville and the Jews — 158
- Motherless Children — 162
- Song of Praise — 165
- Bartenders’ Guide: The Shirley Temple and the Molotov — 168
- Munchausen by Proxy — 171
- My Romance — 177
- Oklahoma — 182
- What Shall We Give the Sun God? — 187
- Maverick — 192
- Carmen Miranda and the Panama Canal — 196
- The Farmhouse — 207
- The Wheel — 213
- The Bus Station — 217
- Gandhi N’ Me — 221
- Inherit the Wind — 224
- The New Zealander — 228
- The Long Way Around the Barn — 234
- Acknowledgments — 239
I do agree with the usefulness of an intermission. Other than that, bah.
Patti, Mamet is a skilled scriptwriter and playwright. But his politics is toxic.
I can’t believe you read this crap.
Does he not see all the Wag the Dog moments in everything Trump does?
Jeff, exactly! This whole farce of meeting Putin in Alaska is just a diversion from the Epstein controversy.
He actually said Russia, twice if I remember correctly. That makes me wonder if when Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her porch, that she meant looking down at her feet. Or maybe he’s wanting to return Alaska to Russia, or selling it. Anything is possible with him.
Maggie, anything BAD is possible with him!
I really liked “House of Games”, but I think Mamet has probably always been this way (take a look at how women—if they are present at all—are treated in his work: manipulative harpies, seductive sexpots, life-force-sucking vampires); it’s just that now he just has a movement and a leader that embodies all of his beliefs. Everyone has a blind spot—and his is a mile wide.
Deb, make that 10 miles wide! I remember seeing Madonna as “Karen” in Speed-the-Plow and all of your characterizations–manipulative harpies, seductive sexpots, life-force-sucking vampires–apply.
Yeah, I thought Speed-the-Plow too.
I got creep vibes from Mamet from day one (largely from his attitude toward women but also the tiresome macho guy crap). It doesn’t surprise me at all that he’d go off the deepend. Like so many of his stripe, he doesn’t have even the most half-baked of political convictions-it’s all just about supporting the monster who pisses off liberals the most.
Byron, you analysis of Mamet is spot on. Over the years, he’s gotten more and more sucked into the conspiracy theories and the “reality” of Trump World.
THE DISENLIGHTENMENT is an apt description for the age of Trump and his Klown Kar of con artists, opportunists, deniers, misfits, and flat-out crazies, but I assume that isn’t what Mamet meant. By the way, Mamet also wrote the ridiculous screenplay for the 1986 version of THE UNTOUCHABLES.
Fred, Mamet has written some great scripts…and some duds. THE UNTOUCHABLES of 1986 is certainly a dud. One aspect of both Trump Administrations is the turnover in top staff. I was just reading about that doofus, Billy Long, who Trump had running the IRS. Now Trump fired Long after TWO MONTHS! And what about the goofy Republican Senators who voted to confirm Billy Long! He was totally incompetent and unqualified…like most of the members of Trump’s cabinet.
Ann and I watched The Untouchables on tv, so we were free to talk about it. We knew nothing about the true story, but we kept looking at each other and saying, “That can’t be right.” Nowadays we’d be looking up stuff on our tablets as we watched. Back then, we waited until it was over, then went upstairs to the computer to confirm that it was bullshit.
Well made bullshit, though.
Jeff, UNTOUCHABLES purists hate Mamet’s version.
Having endured the politics and pronouncements of John Wayne, Janine Turner, Frank Sinatra, my relatives, and even Kelsey Grammer, I won’t be troubled revisiting some old favorites, from a gifted writer.
Dan, Mamet’s politics are suspect, but he is a gifted writer.
I haven’t been all that impressed at any point with Mamet’s craft, and at least pebbles in the tapioca were evident before he started blatantly goose-stepping.
Particularly, WAG THE DOG was a very annoying example, to me, of a scriptwriter congratulating himself for how incredibly Clever and Insightful he is, piercing the veils the chumps never could…when it was Satire 101 at best.
That he might prattle on about “gays” and “feminists” for Hamas (as opposed to those abused by both Hamas and the current Likud+ admins) is clearly the same kind of mind, to me, who was dog-wagging a few decades ago. (It’s been almost 30 years now since the film’s release, and presumably 30 since he wrote it. Damn. Half my life ago.)