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David Mamet on Hollywood, Hamas and Donald Trump Hollywood is dead — and so is the American Left

'Hollywood is dead.' Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images

'Hollywood is dead.' Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images


January 22, 2024   5 mins

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and director David Mamet has, in his own words, gone from a Hollywood veteran to “the hermit of Santa Monica”. Celebrated for his plays American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Speed-the-Plow, Mamet has dedicated his formidable energy to the culture war raging in La La Land.

To mark the release of his memoir, Everywhere an Oink Oink, Florence Read spoke to Mamet about the death of storytelling, antisemitism in America and his zeal for Donald Trump. Here is a selection of his comments.

 

ON THEATRE:

In addition to having a Director, they have a Managing Director, and the Director is now called the Artistic Director. What was he before, if it wasn’t artistic? […] The theatre is not only dead, it stinks. […] It’s “culture”, right? Nobody likes culture. It’s nonsense. Now we have political commissars who say, in addition to the Artistic Director, in addition to the Managing Director, we have to have a Director of Diversity, who’s on top of everything. And we’re all going to pay attention to this person who tells us, you don’t have enough black women in the play, or you don’t have enough trans people. Whether you’re black, or trans, or gay, you have the right to hear a story. If somebody’s not telling you a story, then that theatre stinks.

ON AUDIENCES:

Broadway had a huge audience that was largely middle class and Jewish. And they were people who worked and lived in the city. So the only plays that were put on were those that reflected their experience. They only endorsed the plays that reflected their experience. But all those people have moved away. There is no more audience in New York. So who comes? People from out of town. So the two things that they can see are either trash or filth. They can see pageants. I don’t want to go to Disneyland to see a thoughtful roller coaster. Right? I want to go to Disneyland for a thrill. So New York is now Disneyland. I don’t want to see a play which is thought provoking. What the hell do I care? I want to have either a thrill or a dog-treat. And the dog-treat is diversity. Please, tell me I’m not a racist. I’m not a transphobe. These people are shaking the audience down.

ON CRITICS:

Critics have always been a bunch of brainless whores.

The national press is completely co-opted — it’s Pravda. It’s absolutely Pravda. No one’s going to put on a play that’s not going to be approved by the press. And the press is there to approve the play. Right? What they’re doing is the equivalent of the Stalinist plays “Me and My Tractor”. One doesn’t have to worry about criticism, because nobody is going to put on a play which is not going to get a good review. And so what happens is the people on the Left enjoy having differences about minor points of doctrine. Because that makes them feel that they’re intellectually independent.

ON POLITICS:

In America, there’s no such thing as an independent voter. An independent voter is a liberal speech defect.

Western culture is completely bifurcated. What’s happening now is that the conservative side has said, “wait a second, what’s wrong with the Judeo-Christian ethic? What’s wrong with the laws? What’s wrong with judging people?” Martin Luther King said he had a dream that people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the colour of their skin. It was his dream and that dream came true to the largest extent. And then the wokists came in and said “no, we must judge people by the colour of their skin”. And the conservatives said, “you know what, I’d rather vote with Dr King”. The conservatives are done with the Left. We’re not looking for anything from the Left because there’s nothing there.

ON CANCEL CULTURE:

It’s called fascism. It’s my way or the highway. And cowardice is contagious, because we’re herd creatures. […] So if everyone is saying “Jesus Christ, x, y, or z might limit my ability to get ahead, I’m gonna hold my tongue”, we start limiting the things we can say. And then because we don’t want to feel like hypocrites, we start limiting the things we think.

Relationships are broken off in Hollywood, people lose your number. Your manager, your agent, they just go away. That’s unfortunate. Hollywood is dead.

ON HOLLYWOOD:

It’s a phoney-baloney business. The movies have always been about putting images up on a bedsheet and selling popcorn. Right? The whole idea that there’s any sagacity in the movies is nonsense. There were a few magnificent works of art made in a hundred years, a whole bunch of really good movies and a lot of crap.

ON FILM SCHOOL:

Film school is warehousing. You learn nothing in film school. The only thing it fits you to do is to be an executive. Which is to say somebody who doesn’t know anything, hoping rather than to make a good movie to get the job that some other executive has. Because that’s what bureaucrats do.

ON ISRAEL:

If Hamas had not been voted in, Gaza would be the richest city in the world. It would be Singapore. What are the Jews doing to Gaza? Nothing. They said, take it. PS, they said, if you need medical help come across the border. PS, if you guys are gay, go to Tel Aviv, we’ll welcome you. We aren’t going to kill you, we’re glad to have your business. Gaza is at the end of the Mediterranean, and it’s right off the Suez Canal. It’s the most valuable real estate in the world. And they want to kill the Jews. It doesn’t make sense. The Jews are, and have always been, so happy to say: “For God’s sake, let’s be partners.” […] The most diverse country in the world is Israel. And they want to kill it. Because it works. The answer is “from the river to the sea”. You all have to die.

ON JUDAISM IN AMERICA:

We were second-class citizens. We always existed at the mercy of the country. […] So our answer was always to work harder. […] We had to figure out a way to do the thing that nobody wanted to do, because that was the only thing that was left. A good example is family law. And a good example is the movies. Jews have always been outsiders. What always happens, going back to the fall of Jerusalem, is that when things get tough, people turn on the Jews. It’s the equivalent of kicking the cat or screaming at the secretary.

I don’t see the Jewish culture anymore. People got into the habit of going to the temple the same way they went to the dentist. […] Go to an evangelical church, or go to a black Baptist church. Those people are praying to God ecstatically and with their whole hearts. So when you go back to these assimilated Jewish synagogues, it’s like taking a bath with your socks on and no water. They’ve got so effing woke. We don’t need some rabbi to tell us to be kind to black people.

ON DONALD TRUMP:

Trump was the best president since Abraham Lincoln. […] He brought peace to the Middle East. He closed the border. He made us an energy exporter. He had the best rating among African Americans of any president ever. And the country was at peace and prosperous in the world. All of a sudden, he gets kicked out. And the world is a mess. But because the liberals cannot defend their position, all they can do is indict Trump. He’s not generating anger. He’s talking to reason.

He’s got a big mouth, so do I. The question is, who do you like in a fair fight with your back to the wall? Who would you rather have: Joe Biden, who’s a senile old bag-man, or Donald Trump, who’s a scrapper and loves his country.

ON FREE SPEECH:

I don’t think any speech should be banned. […] And it’s my right to make up my mind about what you say. […] The question is, who gets to say what counts as hate speech? That’s where the power is. […] The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?

If you gave me all the fame and power, it’s still poison, it’s tainted. In return for what? In return for my conscience, in return for my soul, in return for whatever it has pleased God to give me as a gift for making up stories. I say thank you. I’ll play these.


is UnHerd’s Senior Producer and Presenter for UnHerd TV.


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J Bryant
J Bryant
10 months ago

I agree with him that Hollywood appears to be dead. The rot seems to be so deep I doubt it can reverse its current trend. I’m still amazed that, in the name of “progressivism”, studios continue to sink so much money into boring, ideologically-driven movies people don’t want to watch.
As an aside, Mamet might be a distinguished playwright but he is certainly also a loudmouth, and not always in a good way. He happily trashed small theatre groups and the people who write for them. I wonder if he knew that Flo Read is (or was) a playwright and had at least one play performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. Perhaps he’d also deride that festival.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
10 months ago
Reply to  J Bryant

He’s definitely a loud mouth, no question about that. I thought it was kind of humorous, but I can see how he could rub people the wrong way. One thing is certain – you will always know his opinion.

Tom More
Tom More
10 months ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

I didn’t find him loud. I found him clear and lucid. Sanity.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
10 months ago
Reply to  J Bryant

I agree with a lot of his rants and I hate that, because he’s clearly an artistically dead, grumpy old man who can’t go gracefully into obscurity so he does the one thing his breed can do: rail against everything and everyone.
Even if he’s right, it moves the world not an iota forward.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

You seem pretty curmodgeonly yourself, given that you agree with him but manage to hate that anyway,

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
10 months ago
Reply to  J Bryant

Perhaps he’d also deride that festival.

Hopefully. The ‘theahtre’ is more narrow, exclusivist, pretentious and censorious here even than in the US. And Edinburgh is even worse than that.

Matt Sylvestre
Matt Sylvestre
10 months ago

Damn!!! But Trump – come on…

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago
Reply to  Matt Sylvestre

Maybe not best president since Lincoln, but a damn good one, esp. compared to the current one.

Liakoura
Liakoura
10 months ago

“Trump was the best president since Abraham Lincoln”
And FDR, what was he, a loud mouthed, lying, self obsessed nobody?

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
10 months ago
Reply to  Liakoura

FDR was one of if not the person that started the rot and is a candidate for worst President.
Just like JFK he has been mythologised by the left
However, Trump is only the best President since Nixon

P N
P N
10 months ago
Reply to  Liakoura

FDR was one of the worst. His economic policies for the New Deal and to handle the depression made things much worse and his increase in the level of state intervention had long term political repercussions still felt today.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
10 months ago
Reply to  P N

My husband’s Lithuanian parents despised FDR for handing the Baltics over to the Soviet gulags.

Mrs R
Mrs R
10 months ago

Who could blame them – what a fate.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago

Except he didn’t do that. The Soviets took over the Baltics in 1940, before the U.S. was even in the war. By war’s end in 1945, they were already deeply entrenched. Nothing the U.S. could have done at that point, short of initiating another war in Europe that they could quite possibly lose.

A D Kent
A D Kent
10 months ago

One more time for the hard of thinking: PMC Liberals are not the Left.

A D Kent
A D Kent
10 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

 Having said that I’ll give him that the US Left is small and marginalised. But you can find it if you look. Try Jimmy Dore, Glen Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Whitney Webb, Katie Halper (and her many guestes). It’s at outlets like NakedCapitalism, ConsortiumNews, The Grayzone, ScheerPost, CommonDreams, the WSWS and Jacobin. None of these outlets are perfect, none idiologically pure, but they’re not slaves to the Laptop Class – and that’s who Mamet is railing against here.
ost of all, the Left are the small groups of workers across the country attempting to Unionise caring not whether their co-workers voted Trump, Biden or not at all (the latter being the largest group in that increasingly disfunctional country of theirs). 

Chris Whybrow
Chris Whybrow
10 months ago

The Singapore of the Middle East? Does Malaysia impose a naval blockade on Singapore and control all food and medical supplies that go in? If a Singaporean terrorist group murdered and abducted a thousand Malaysians, would Malaysia respond by dropping millions of dollars worth of unguided munitions on Singapore and kill ten thousand children? You know what? Whatever. At least he has enough brain cells to tell the Gaza Strip and the West Bank apart.

Dermot O'Sullivan
Dermot O'Sullivan
10 months ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

Yes, that was the only part of the interview that struck me as simplistic, but I guess blood is thicker than water.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago

Of course it was.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
10 months ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

If a Singaporean terrorist group murdered and abducted a thousand Malaysians, would Malaysia respond by dropping millions of dollars worth of unguided munitions on Singapore and kill ten thousand children?

You betcha. Worse probably.

P N
P N
10 months ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

How would you have Malaysia respond?
Ten thousand children? Did Hamas tell you that?

John Taylor
John Taylor
10 months ago
Reply to  P N

Pn, yes. Because on the one hand we are told Gaza has no electricity etc, yet Hamas manages to come up with precise figures at the drop of the hat. When the Israel’s were falsely accused of dropping bombs on that hospital, in less than an hour, Hamas came up with a figure of 500 people killed, women and children, bla, bla.The real figure was less than a hundred. So I think we should divide the Hamas figures by five to come up with an approximate number

Ron Kean
Ron Kean
10 months ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

A wise man once said things really become bad when the obvious needs to be explained. There was a time when Jews were hoping to live together with Arabs in peace. Jews lived in Gaza for decades and the weather was so right they grew crops and made millions exporting them. But Arab violence became bothersome and international pressure was great so Israel okayed a land-for-peace experiment and forced every Jew to leave.
Soon after a group of Arabs came from Ramallah to help govern but they were killed. Hamas won control and won an election. 70% voted for them. Immediately they wrote a charter which included a mandate to kill Jews like genocide. It’s online somewhere. Jews took this threat seriously, started inspecting boats and discovered weapons. After a few discoveries like this, everything going into Gaza that Israel could see was inspected for weapons.
That’s why Hamas went underground. Because of all the Jew haters out there the international community gave Hamas millions of dollars and euros, cement, pipes and other construction materials to build their new state. They could have built electric plants and water works but rather they used the money for tunnels and Israel was coerced into supplying electricity and water to them. The cement and pipes went to build tunnels and rockets. Israel has just discovered rocket making factories and Hamas has been launching rockets at Jews for years. Israel was very good to them.

David Yetter
David Yetter
10 months ago
Reply to  Ron Kean

The Hamas charter is older than their governance of Gaza, dating to the 1980’s. The people of Gaza chose an organization with a charter, a large section of which sounds like it was originally written in German circa 1935 and translated into Arabic, as their government in preference to the Palestinian Authority.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
10 months ago
Reply to  Ron Kean

I love this…..”A wise man once said things really become bad when the obvious needs to be explained.”
However, in today’s social media-driven dystopia both sides cling to what is obvious to them only, as they are being given completely different information.

Roger le Clercq
Roger le Clercq
10 months ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

I think he said “If they had not elected Hamas”. So your point is.. er.. pointless

David Yetter
David Yetter
10 months ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

The point was the contrafactual of a Gaza run since 2005 by people looking out for the welfare of those living there, rather than devoting all their resources their hatred of Jews (yes, Jews qua Jews, not Israelis, not Zionists, Jews. Read the Hamas Charter if you doubt me). Had all the aid given Gaza for economic development been used to build desalination plants, greenhouses, tourism infrastructure, a tech sector instead of tunnels and rockets, the Singapore of the Middle East is what would have resulted.

R.I. Loquitur
R.I. Loquitur
10 months ago
Reply to  David Yetter

Singapore has an average IQ of 108, one of the highest in the world. Gaza mid-80s per numerous studies. Gaza was never going to become another Singapore unless Israelis built it for them.

Paul
Paul
10 months ago
Reply to  R.I. Loquitur

David Yetter’s comment assumed that Gazans might have made the same choices as Singaporeans. Why they didn’t or couldn’t do so is a separate question.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago
Reply to  R.I. Loquitur

That’s another story, true though.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

Exaggerate a little why don’t you. And yes, they would.

Marcus Glass
Marcus Glass
6 months ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

You are joking. If the Singaporean government, (Hamas is the government in Gaza, not a terrorist group) killed over a thousand Malaysians, Singapore would be wiped off the face of the earth. But no one, absolutely no one, would say much of anything, because they are not Jews. Don’t be an idiot.

Anthony Roe
Anthony Roe
10 months ago

Good to have some red meat thrown into the cage now and then. Too many commentators run around the walls like a cat when you turn on the hoover, then produce a rabbit droping.
Also he has the medals and scars of a true soldier.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 months ago
Reply to  Anthony Roe

I like red meat and my favorite takeaway is Mamet’s comment on “cancel culture”. It makes us limit our thoughts because we don’t want to be hypocrites. The final stage of self-censorship.

Alan Gore
Alan Gore
10 months ago
Reply to  Anthony Roe

I love this guy! My candidate flamed out in the primaries last week, but Mamet makes me feel a little better about Donald Trump. If only he had the vision that Mamet credits him with.

Steven Targett
Steven Targett
10 months ago

I’d have to say I agree with everything he says. The woke left is a poisonous cancer on our society.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
10 months ago

“But because the liberals cannot defend their position, all they can do is indict Trump. He’s not generating anger. He’s talking to reason.”
First prize in today’s competition for sentences that start off with common sense and then plunge into absurdity at lightening speed.
How is Trump not generating anger? He’s like a red rag to a bull to so many people.
Trump talking reason? He might have a point about some stuff, but the crass and often incoherent way in which he communicates makes it exceedingly hard to use the word “reason” in connection with him.

Graham Strugnell
Graham Strugnell
10 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Yes. Trump thought drinking detergent might be a good way to treat COVID.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
10 months ago

No, he didn’t, but congratulations for glomming onto to yet another talking point. Is it time for your latest booster yet?

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

He literally said that.
How does it feel to be part of a cult that worships a moron?

Peter Lee
Peter Lee
10 months ago

here are Pres. Trump’s words verbatim.
“A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. (To Bryan) And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting, right?”
One needs to read to whole conversation to understand it completely.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter Lee

Is that all he said, Petey?!?! Really? He didn’t say anything about disinfectant?
You may be able to fool your right wing buddies but you can’t fool me!

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago

You’ve been fooled from the get-go.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago

How does it feel to be one?

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Yes that one is right up there with the “good people on both sides” canard.

Peter Lee
Peter Lee
10 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

KE – I suspect it is realised that people like yourself are never going to go back to the actual transcript, so they can lie and deceive and get believed. Perhaps you could give me a couple of cases where that is not the case. See above for the ‘drinking detergent’ quote.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter Lee

But that’s not the whole quote, is it Petey?!?!?
You want me to post the rest of your clown prince’s quote? It really is spectacularly stupid – but what else would you expect from an idiot like Trump?

Peter Lee
Peter Lee
10 months ago

Actually I do. I’m interest in the truth. I just wonder how it compares with most of your comments. All I do know is that Biden’s comments on Trump discussion were 4 pinocchios’ by fact checkers.
ps You are of course aware that disinfectants are used in drinking water?

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter Lee

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning”
I wonder how many Trump cult members actually tried injecting themselves with bleach after this? You know that some did! They are that dumb, just like their cult leader!

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago

Dimbo and his fellow dimbos appear to believe that the only type of disinfectant is bleach. What they did was use a most toxic disinfectant to alter his words, as they routinely do. Nobody drank bleach because Trump said something about disinfectant, not that he was giving medical advice anyway. Too stupid.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Actions far more important than words.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
10 months ago

The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes.
Once you start to politicize crime, it’s a short to politicizing speech, which is where we are. What used to be called political correctness has morphed into the far more strident woke movement which is more likely to double down in the face of resistance than back off.
There is no hate speech, either, just speech that some folks may not like or disagree with or find offensive. And this is where Mamet is dead accurate about cancel culture. The new Jacobins/brown shirts are no different than the old. They’ve just not reached the next stage of either preceding movement.

Mrs R
Mrs R
10 months ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Blair’s so called Hate Crimes Bill signalled the lurch in a very wrong direction.

Ardath Blauvelt
Ardath Blauvelt
10 months ago

A precious breath of fresh air.
Thank you.

David Yetter
David Yetter
10 months ago

Actually, I just read an account of a love crime: that committed by George Pickering II, the father who, correctly intuiting that the physicians declaration that his son was brain-dead was wrong, pulled a gun and held off the medical staff to prevent them from disconnecting life-support. He did manage to prevent the withdrawal of life-support, served 11 months for his crime and was reunited with his son, who came out of his coma and fully recovered.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago
Reply to  David Yetter

That’s some story.

Tom More
Tom More
10 months ago

As a Catholic.. (messianic Jew?) I found this interview just beautiful and I recall the words of Pope Benedict XVI, that the Jews are “our spiritual older brothers”. Beautiful. Thanks.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago

Old man yells at clouds. No one cares.

Peter Lee
Peter Lee
10 months ago

Apparently you do!

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter Lee

What makes you think that, old timer?
Don’t mistake me choosing to laugh at Mamet with me caring in the slightest about his rantings.

Peter Lee
Peter Lee
10 months ago

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”
Why the (attempted) insult, do you think the commenters will think better of you?

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter Lee

Don’t be so sensitive, gramps!
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”
You don’t seem to know what that means. Do you need me to explain it to you?

Darwin K Godwin
Darwin K Godwin
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter Lee

He samples his own product.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago

You mean you don’t care, and nobody cares what an idiot cares about.

A D Kent
A D Kent
10 months ago

“What are the Jews doing to Gaza? Nothing. They said, take it.” – yes Dave that’s what happened, the guards left the prison, but they took all the keys.

Jason Rose
Jason Rose
10 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

I think that’s a mischaracterization. Let’s run with your prison analogy. It’s not uncommon for a violent offender to be put on day release or parole etc. before being granted full freedom. That’s intended to ensure they are effectively monitored and integrate peacefully back into society. After the years of enmity and violence between Jews and Arabs, it was reasonable for Israel to maintain a degree of security control over Gaza once they pulled their troops out. What did the Gazans do? They voted in Hamas that decided to turn Gaza into arguably the world’s largest terrorist base (next to South Lebanon). They could have built civil infrastructure, rather than terrorist infrastructure. October 7 highlighted, if anything, that the security controls Israel put in place were insufficient.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

Except there was no prison, and there were no keys.

Alex Colchester
Alex Colchester
10 months ago

It’s interesting hearing Mamet talk about how he despises the woke cult of victimhood- how it is fascist in its oppression of dissenters- whilst simultaneously demanding that we acknowledge that Jews have been ‘The Main Character’ victim for all of history. Victims seem unable to comprehend that they can become Tyrants.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago

You’re right, when they aren’t tyrants they can’t understand why people call them tyrants.

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
10 months ago

Just wow, but then one forgets he made tough sometimes cynical plays and films.

harry storm
harry storm
10 months ago

Can’t find anything to disagree with at all.

Jules Anjim
Jules Anjim
10 months ago

Yes, wokeness is a serious cultural problem, and I too look forward to its influence being substantially diluted. On all other counts, though, Mamet is just high on his own supply.