TSPDT

Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Drama, Crime, Thriller, Post-Noir (Modern Noir), Crime Thriller, Comedy, Action, Adventure, Mystery
Key Collaborators: Barbara Tulliver (Editor), Ricky Jay (Character Actor), Rebecca Pidgeon (Leading Character Actress), William H. Macy (Character Actor), Alaric Jans (Composer), Joe Mantegna (Leading Actor), Michael Hausman (Producer), Juan Ruiz Anchía (Cinematographer), Michael Merritt (Production Designer), Gemma Jackson (Production Designer), Willo Hausman (Character Actor), Sarah Green (Producer)

"Prolific, hooked on the Ping-Pong of idiomatic dialogue that sometimes rules entire plays, Mamet has not established a character in movies as more than a cold, skilled mechanic. The films he has directed are games, or intrigues, but neither playful nor absorbing: the flamboyantly shallow Joe Mantegna seems like Mamet’s ideal actor, grabbing attention but warding off scrutiny. Mamet’s work has more power in the theatre—American Buffalo, especially—where he seems more comfortable trapped in time and space." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2010)

"From stage playwright to screenwriter is a common enough jump, but relatively few playwrights have gone on to become directors. And none, with the exception of Marcel Pagnol, has done so as successfully as David Mamet. Like Pagnol, Mamet has been able to use his theatrical prestige to resist crass commercial pressures. His films as writer-director are unmistakably personal, made without interference or compromise… Clear thematic preoccupations run through all his film work, whether as writer or as director. The characters that fascinate him are those on the precarious margins of society: conmen, salesmen and hucksters, cops and petty criminals. He is concerned with the codes these fringe people live by, and those they break. Matters of trust and betrayal, illusion and deception, confidence bestowed and confidence betrayed, loom large in his work." - Philip Kemp (Film Reference)

"Although his plays tend to be static affairs, in his original screenplays Mamet clings to the principle that action speaks louder than even his finely honed (and frequently unprintable) words. "Film, as opposed to theatre, is intrinsically a melodramatic medium", he has said, and there is an echo of Graham Greene's distinction between his serious novels and his "entertainments" in Mamet's slightly condescending approach to cinema. He has a propensity for clever, twisty thrillers like Heist (2001) and The Spanish Prisoner (1997), although it is worth noting that his plots repeatedly hinge on elaborate charades, stings designed to con the audience." - Tom Charity (The Rough Guide to Film,. 2007)

"Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet is one of a handful of American playwrights whose work has found almost as much success on the screen as it has on the stage. Noted for his spare, gritty work that reflects the hardened attitudes of his native Chicago and often revolves around domineering male characters and their macho posturing, Mamet has time and again spurred both discussion and controversy, inciting particularly angry reactions from feminists." - Allmovie

"Pulitzer-prize winning playwright has devoted an increasing amount of time and energy to film scripts and filmmaking. While his films rarely capture the profane, highly theatrical dialogue that distinguishes his stage work ("Mametspeak"), his intelligence and sense of irony often come through undiluted." - Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia, 1995

"There are some directors who are visual masters - who bring to moviemaking a great visual acuity, a brilliant visual sense. I am not one of them." - David Mamet