David Mamet was in town last night for a chat before a screening of The Spanish Prisoner. His connection to Austin is that last year he donated his papers to the Harry Ransom Center, where they will be available for study starting this spring. The discussion was moderated by UT's President, and the early portion of the talk was pretty tough to pay attention to much. The prez wasn't much of a conversationalist, so his version of a discussion was nervously fumbling over his words.
When Mamet got rolling answering questions from the audience, that's when the magic started.
At one point, when asked about the role of the director and the actors in contributing to a script, he called bullshit on the idea they had anything to do but perform the script true to its intent rather than act as though they know better than the writer. Choice comments about "commies" and how much like totalitarianism subsidized theatres are were particularly enjoyable.
He said the moment the audience is being force-fed "people running around the stage dressed like ferrets" is the moment "you start calling the audience stupid. I've met a lot of stupid people in my life, but never a stupid audience. The audience knows." His inference was that it's someone else who is afraid of the audience.
One of the highlights for me was hearing John Pierson laugh from the back of the auditorium every time Mamet said something that the more conservative people didn't necessarily expect or found shocking.
One guy asked if the recent impeachment of Rod Blagojevich had inspired him, to which Mamet said, "I would if it hadn't already happened four times in my lifetime."
The most precise and cutting thing he said had to do with the current economic crisis (paraphrased from hastily-written notes):
"I don't understand this term, 'predatory lending.' I don't mean that I don't think people should borrow money when they have no choice, but they do when they don't need it, or for things they can't afford. Now who is really at fault here? Who is the criminal? Is it the banks that loaned this money out? That's their job. That's what bankers do, is make money and loan it to people. That's what they've always done. Or is it the people who made it legal for them to do what they've done to people?"