"Get them to sign on the line which is dotted" · 6:46pm Apr 12th, 2015
(Note: I accidentally posted this before it was complete. If you read it and it didn't make sense in parts, or seemed to end abruptly, please re-read it. I've probably fixed what was bugging you)
The Alec Baldwin scene from Glengarry, Glen Ross--you've probably seen it. If you haven't I can't link to it because of NSFW language, but you can Google it pretty easily. David Mamet wrote it specifically for the movie: it's not in his play. Though we never hear the last name of Baldwin's character it's in the script as McGuffin because that's exactly what he is--something introduced to move the plot along.
A lot's been said about that scene. You can see pretty easily that a) McGuffin is a sadist, but b) he's speaking certain harsh truths about the world of work and c) he's saying them as vividly as he needs to in order to get and hold his audience's attention.
But I see one more thing, something I don't think anyone's said anything about.
McGuffin is Mamet, saying everything he's wanted to say to all the students in all the workshops he's ever had to teach.
Because think about it: what is the truth that McGuffin is speaking? In the world of work it doesn't matter how nice you are: what matters is that you close the deal. Isn't that pretty much what writing plays--or movies, or other fiction--is like? There are plenty of wonderful books by awful people--Dickens was a shit to his wife and kids, the author of the Aubrey Maturin series deserted his dying wife and their son in the middle of the Blitz--but people go on reading their books because they have something to say and they say it well. Because they get and hold your attention. Because those sons-of-bitches could close.
And who is McGuffin saying it to? A bunch of middle-class guys who're thinking I've put in my time, I've followed the rules, I deserve some credit for that. And maybe they do, but they're not going to get it in the world of work--at least not in this line of work.
Now think about the kind of kids who are most likely to get into writing programs--especially those taught by a Pulitzer-winning playwright. What do you think they're like? Which ones would you choose to participate? Students who could get the most out of the experience, students who wouldn't be disruptive, students who wouldn't disgrace your college or high school in front of David Mamet.
In short, students who did their homework, got good grades, pleased their elders and behaved in class, and who think--because no one has told them otherwise--that this qualifies them to write things worth reading.
But of course it is otherwise. Someone like Mamet would see it right away. And he'd go on seeing it, day after day, confronting those shining eager faces with empty heads attached. Perfect grammar and composition, nothing that professors Strunk and White could object to--and nothing to say and nothing interesting about the way they say it. Nothing that could seal the deal with an audience. Nothing that could close.
And I'm sure that more than once he'd want to scream Nice kid? I don't give a shit. Good student? Fuck you! Go home and work on your term paper. You wanna write - close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you little punk? You can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get from the critics? You don't like it, leave.
Of course he couldn't do it. He'd never get a gig teaching workshops again (and he seems to like the work). And maybe he wouldn't do it if he could. Let's credit him with the decency to know that a teacher should not be sadistic. But the knowledge would be there, the emotions would be there, constantly reinforced and constantly bottled up until someone calls him from Hollywood and says hey Dave, we need you to write a scene where an alpha dog bawls out a bunch of underperformers.
And all the spleenfelt words just flow.
That's what I think Mamet is saying. Do I think it's true? Sure, and even a little trite--what gets my attention is the way he says it. But the thing itself seems obvious enough.
Except, of course, to the folks who conduct and attend writers' workshops.
I was generally speaking a good (ish?) student, and can, perhaps, in the right light be described as 'nice.' No source of light, however, artificial or natural, can make someone describe me as a good writer. So I do feel sort of called out by Mamet. Rightfully so, perhaps.
I do think I like your reading, though. I'd say it was spot on. I mean, of course, such sadistic self-conceited asshats do exist and they do stalk the world, and so writing one makes for good cinematography, certainly, but that it might be informed by Mamet's frustration[1], yes. That seems likely. And certainly interesting.
[1] All good teachers are frustrated, I think. The bad ones just don't care.
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I don't know what makes a writer "good" in your eyes, but in mine you're a writer that I read with interest and pleasure, and one whose next work I always look forward to.
Curse you. I just wanted to do a quick check of FiMFic and then get on with the project I'm working on. But, nooooooo... now I've got this to think about.
My wife occasionally teaches seminars in play writing. She's not in Mamet's league, but she's had several critical successes, and this gets her the cred to claim that she knows what she's talking about. I've sat in on a couple of her courses, I've seen the phenomenon you describe, and I can well imaging Mamet writing that scene for the reasons you mention.
With that said, I'd like to see how he actually teaches his course, because the McGuffin approach is poisonous for more reasons than the self-interested one you've described. I've seen students come in with the worst sort of crap... D&D games in script form, barely disguise political rants, meandering memoirs of deadly boring lives, and out-and-out incoherent word-jumbles. And while it would be satisfying to throw those apparently hopeless students out of the class as complete wastes of time, it would be a huge mistake.
I've seen my wife turn around utter garbage. She is insanely patient and can see the kernel of a good story in the most (apparently) hopeless drivel. Admittedly, her success rate is only slightly more than 50%, but that's still success. People can be taught to be closers, and it works much better than trying to bully them into it. Giving up on them because they aren't closers when they walk through the door is a mistake, particularly if your goal is to produce more closers. Her students have gone on to get productions on... I think it's up to three continents now. I wonder what Mamet's "success" rate is?
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Thank you. You are kind to say so.
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Well, of course I don't mean to imply that Mamet addresses his students the way McGuffin does the salesmen. In fact I've said that I think he doesn't--because he wouldn't keep getting teaching gigs if he did.
But I believe he does think these things and that they formed the basis of the McGuffin scene. That's why it works: they're true and impassioned, even though they're vilely stated. That truth and passion keep McGuffin from being a two-dimensional character, a cardboard Herod, even though he's only in one scene for one purpose.
And your wife has earned herself a place among the blessed martyrs for her work
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What I mean is, you close the deal. That's not me being kind, that's me being McGuffin.
So cheer up and have some coffee, kid.
A damned good interpretation of a damned good scene.
I've never seen the scene in question...I don't think...but on the whole, yeah, the world tends not to reward honorable behavior, it tends to do the opposite. There are reasons for this of course, but the fact remains that this occurs, and all the hopes and dreams in the world aren't going to grant a writer the recognition and accomplishments he/she desires. Neither will always hard work and perseverance. After all, how many thousands upon thousands of kids graduate colleges with some form of a literary degree and yet never will go much of anywhere as a writer?
However, it is my firm belief that everyone has something meaningful to say. The problem is that most don't recognize what that thing is, because they've been accidentally taught to overlook it. Everyone is the main character in the story of their own lives, and when they realize this and begin to pay attention to the plot of their life and its themes, to themselves and their struggles and those closest to them, then I think they'll begin to see what it is that they have to say which no one else can.
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After thinking about it, I feel I ought to point out three things:
1) I don't admire McGuffin.
I admire the way Mamet writes him and the way Baldwin plays him, but McGuffin himself is a dick. He has a point with what he says but a dick with a point is still a dick.
2) And anyway his point doesn't apply in this case.
If you watch the movie all the way through you'll see that the deck is stacked against the salesmen McGuffin's talking to, by the very people McGuffin represents: management. The leads are, in fact, weak. There's no way these guys can succeed with the materials they're being given.
They're already on the way out the door, they just don't know it for certain yet. McGuffin's been sent there (whether he knows it or not--I think he does) just to make them feel like it's their fault when it happens--a number that's been run on me by more than one employer.
3) Mamet's not preaching us a sermon, he's just giving a villain some great lines.
This is not like Atlas Shrugged, or countless other novels (usually Russian--like Atlas Shrugged) where the action stops so the author can tell us
what we're supposed to thinkwhat he really thinks. Though I can see how Mamet might play off that expectation. No, this is Mamet giving his villain lines that have some truth and conviction to them (like "Now is the winter of our discontent") because that's one good way to keep a villain from becoming a strawman.But I said that I think Mamet thinks these things and feels these things. Yes, he does, but I assume he never says them out loud (unless, I guess, he's drunk or hungry or sleep-deprived--like all of us do) because he also recognizes that they come from a really shitty side of himself. So it's a courageous act to put them out there in a play, but it's also a moral act because he does, after all, put them in the mouth of a villain. Yet it is above all an act of craft, because giving your villain good lines keeps your audience from getting too comfortable and checking out, attention-wise: it keeps them engaged with the problem of evil that the villain represents.
(As well it is an act of generosity, because as a playwright he realizes that every actor wants to take pride in his or her craft, even the ones that walk on stage to act the villain. So you give your villains good lines to make up for them having to act the bad guy. )
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McGuffin is a wonderful character, of that there's no doubt. Ask any actor and they'll tell you that villains are almost always the most fun to play. I love your analysis of his possible motivation; that's the sort of thing that good actors do when preparing for a part.
As for Mamet himself... well there's no telling. If he really has that sort of attitude toward unpromising neophytes, it's actually fairly understandable, but I'm sure he still wouldn't go all McGuffin on them. Yet, with that sort of underlying attitude, his efforts might not be as productive as they might be. No way to really tell, I suppose.
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I wouldn't be surprised if Mamet both believes and disbelieves the things Mcguffin says, to be honest. Unless you truly are a pure cynic or have been really beaten by life, I think you tend to hold onto some sort of secret belief or at the very least hope that even the 'harsh truths' of life aren't always true. At least, that's what I find when I look at myself.