State and Main (2000)

Who payed the critics

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is a brief review of "State and Main" and "Oleander", two films by David Mamet.The better of the two, "State" takes Mamet's usual tale of con-men and hucksters and places it in the quiet town of Waterford, Vermont. Here the con-men are not gangsters or card players, but a group of Hollywood filmmakers who wish to spend several weeks filming in the sleepy town.For a Mamet flick, "State" is surprisingly cute. Much of the film watches as slick big-city filmmakers try to exploit cuddly small towners, only to find that the country folk aren't as simpleminded as they first seemed. By the film's end everyone is taking advantage of everyone else, money constantly shifting hands and deals hastily being made.Like Altman's "The Player", "State" also satirizes various Hollywood types and Tinseltown customs, poking fun at actors, lawyers, producers, cinematographers, writers, assistants, nudity clauses and amateur theatre productions. Unlike Altman's film, however, Mamet's going for charm and whimsy. It's a light-hearted comedy, though it does contain one dark subplot about clashing egos, the instability of values (see Mamet's "Redbelt), artistic integrity and the corrosive power of money. It also gives Mamet a chance to indulge in his love for miscommunication and misdirection - for Mamet, all language is a con - and allows Alec Baldwin to sink his teeth in one of his best roles since "Glengarry Glen Ross"."Oleanna", also directed by David Mamet, is a claustrophobic film which mostly takes place in a single room. The film's first half consists of a Professor having a long discussion with one of his female students. Later we learn that she is failing his class and that she blames this on his "inability to clearly communicate". She then accuses him of using his "power" as a Professor to engage in a sort of "word rape", stating that she dislikes the way that he constantly uses pretentious words and convoluted metaphors to belittle his students. The second half of the film then shows the balance of power shifting between the Professor and the Student. She now speaks with confidence, whilst he continually stammers. She is now dressed with authority, whilst he is dishevelled. As this stage of the film progresses, she accuses him of sexual assault and threatens to have him fired and arrested. He, meanwhile, accuses her of misinterpreting his words and actions.Though overly theatrical (the film was based on one of Mamet's stage plays), "Oleanna" is endlessly fascinating. Primarily a backlash against the American political correctness movement of the early 1990s, the film takes political correctness to absurd lengths, the point being that if taken to its logical extreme, social sensitivity could become so invasive, so overpowering, that every interpersonal act could be construed as being sexual or punishable in nature.The film also offers a clever critique of educational systems (and their hierarchies of power), and allows Mamet to indulge in his love for word games (syntax as violence). Indeed, the film is one big semantic argument, the characters constantly battling over the "meaning" of words, "Oleanna" highlighting both the power and absurdity of language (Mamet has his characters speak in such a fashion as to highlight the very artificiality, arbitrariness and vagueness of words and/or meaning) and the way language leaves us vulnerable to misdirection.In typical Mamet fashion, the film eventually reveals itself to be a giant con game. Here it is explained that the female student was part of a "Group" which is plotting to remove the Professor from the school's faculty. 8/10 - Worth one viewing.

I have, for seven years, been waiting to see this film. I always tell the story about the time I went with some friends to the cinema and convinced everyone to watch this film and once inside the theater everyone wanted to go because they didn't like what they were watching but I wanted to stay because I liked it very much. And because I think there's a time for movies and that they arrive when they arrive, I have just found David Mamet's "State and Main" and, luckily, I've liked it very much. Of course, it's a special movie, but not in the sense that it's not for everyone. It's an easy-going movie, with a clear and simple plot line, nice sceneries and a cinematography that doesn't take any risks; but I could merely recommend, with enthusiasm, that everyone who watches assume a commitment. What do I mean by this? Well, that if you pay more attention than usual you should really enjoy it. The thing is that "State and Main" is a movie about a movie, and it's written by David Mamet, fact that naturally makes it not 'any' movie about a movie. I'll take a risk and say that this is based on one of Mamet's plays (I don't know that for a fact), because it looks very theatrical, but with the exceptional cast (by genius Avy Kaufman) and Theodore Shapiro's shifting score, we quickly forget about it. We don't forget, however, what may originally have come from a play; and that's Mamet's use of language. From scene one, where a doctor encounters a patient on the street and Walt (William H. Macy) argues with his team about the place they've ended up in, the writer/director establishes a style in his screenplay that we feel throughout the whole ride and contains certain characteristics: sharp, witty, direct, humorous and, at surprising times, reflexive and profound. Walt is a director who comes to shoot a film to Waterford, Vermont; the place they've ended up in: the middle of nowhere. The fact that Waterford is a little town where everyone has a big smile on their faces and don't seem to have problems (Julia Stiles' perfect working teenager; Rebecca Pidgeon's kind and loving Annie; Charles Durning's mayor), helps to establish a contrast with the neurotic director and his Hollywood crew: the manipulative and unstoppable producer Marty (a wonderful David Paymer); the popular star with a 'thing' for minors Bob (the role Alec Baldwin knows by heart); the pretty and stupid popular actress (Sarah Jessica Parker, in the role that suits her quite well); and the character with which you should implement my recommendation of paying attention: the creative, insecure writer of the film, Joe, played by the Great Philip Seymour Hoffman. Stereotypes? Why not some of them? But Manet is so gifted that, instead of assuming a character is stereotyped, he gives them lines for us to recognize, through their personality, the stereotype they represent. This sound simple, but it's not. It's the same I try to say about "State and Main": it looks simple, and it can be; but it doesn't have to be if you want it to. If you want, you can put yourselves in Joe the writer's position and try to figure out the truth, whatever it may be. If you want, you can enter as an outsider to the world of making a film and what it has to offer; to the political aspirations and perspectives of a little town; to the tradition and the stories and the sense of home of a little town. Mamet knows all of these things, and here sometimes he takes a stand; he sometimes mocks, other times he praises, most of the time he makes no sense at all, but all the time he's showing these things to us, in any form you may want to take them. And what's what cinema essentially does?

The first hour is quite entertaining so it's quite a pity that Mamet chose to ruin the movie with the totally lame last third. (He also half-ruined "Homicide" with an illogical ending.) Instead of continuing the movie with the sort of fun satiric tone established by that point, he tries to moralize in a most pathetic old-school-Hollywood way.Hoffman is having second thoughts about how he will testify, just because he cares so much about the truth and because a sudden rush of patriotism devours him! Even worse: Hoffman is supposed to be a likable character, but in fact he loses all MY sympathy when he decides to betray the entire film crew for some very skewed moral Americana reasons. Mamet has his morality all wrong, to say the least: he expects the viewer to identify with Hoffman's childish impulse to "be honest" and "tell the truth" even if doing so would only serve to ruin a whole bunch of people who are simply trying to get a film made, while at the same time promoting the career of a jealous, unsympathetic, ambitious politician! Of course, doing so would also ruin his own career, making him some kind of super-principled, likable martyr. Yeah, right... Pidgeon, who once again plays in a Mamet movie because no one else besides her husband would hire her (for obvious lack of talent), even encourages her boyfriend Hoffman to tell the truth; this makes HER unsympathetic, as well. So what have we got? The movie's love-couple is made up of two unlikable characters and the viewer is supposed to feel good about their happiness. Mamet also employs too many plot-devices that rely on coincidences, so much so that they eventually get annoying.The first hour is fun. The characters of the director, the producer, the main male star, and the main female star, are all well thought-out and amusing. Baldwin plays the typical male moron star who thinks with his penis, and it is a very amusing, clever premise that he has a weakness for under-aged girls. (Though, as I find out later, Mamet used it only because he wanted to create that legal nonsense in the last part of the movie.) Parker plays the typical, over-sensitive, spoiled bimbo actress who causes a ruckus about showing her breasts in a scene. In fact, the best scene in the movie is when the producer (a very likable character) roasts Parker about her contractual obligations. Then again, maybe Mamet - in his infinite lack of moral vision - expects us to dislike the producer and the director, who are, ironically, presented more sympathetically than probably 95% of all real-life producers and directors.This is no "Living In Oblivion". Well, apart from the fact that Mamet seems to live in a moral oblivion. Instead of finishing the movie the way he started it, Mamet opts for trite plot-twists that offer little comedy and make little sense. The casting is also a problem to an extent. Hoffman is far too unsympathetic and uncharismatic to play a likable lead character - especially when the character ironically isn't even likable thanks to Mamet's idiotic sense of what is morally right - and his love-interest is played by a Pidgeon who, though having improved on her acting somewhat, hasn't got much charisma. (She was far worse in "The Spanish Prisoner".) Parker, though a solid actress, is simply too unattractive to play a Hollywood star. (Then again, considering how many female 90s stars are ugly (Diaz, Barrymore, Roberts) maybe she isn't that ugly, after all.) The rest of the casting is good. In the end-titles the voice behind "Dr.Katz" can be heard (David Mamet was a guest on the show in an episode).

It took quite a bit of negotiation to get the family to see "State and Main," but the cast of William Macy, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alec Baldwin, etc. finally convinced them. My husband was leery that David Mamet could be funny, but we all thought it was hysterical and laughed heartily.It's a much more mordant take on movie-making than Truffaut's "Day For Night" where a love for the magic of the movies still shows through. This has much more of a "Larry Sanders Show" sensibility of total cynicism about the internal and external goings on as a movie company takes over a quaint New England town.While the writer is poked fun at as much as anyone, Mamet's wife Rebecca Pigeon of course gets to play a nice, bright, if manipulative, lady.I'm pretty sure we were the only ones at the audience in Houston who got the Yiddish jokes and references.Stay for all the credits; the jokes continue through the very last frame.(originally written 2/4/2001)