Cybergosh Learns About Himself Through New Mamet Book

by Chris December 23, 2006

In his new Pantheon book, “Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business,” Mamet doesn’t mention many of Hollywood’s lower life forms by name – apparently wary of jeopardizing his movie career. But he does tell delightful tales of the town’s excess.

“Asperger’s syndrome helped make the movies,” writes Mamet. “The symptoms of this developmental disorder include early precocity, a great ability to maintain masses of information, a lack of ability to mix with groups in age-appropriate aways, ignorance of or indifference to social norms, high intelligence, and difficulty with transitions married to a preternatural ability to concentrate on the minutiae of the task at hand.”

From The NY Daily News —

“Hollywood is like cocaine,” says David Mamet. “You cannot understand its attraction until you are doing it. And when you are doing it, you are insane.”Mamet hasn’t quite kicked the habit. The playwright, who won a Pulitzer for “Glengarry Glen Ross,” has written over 30 screenplays – including “The Verdict” and “Wag the Dog” – and directed a dozen movies, such as “The Spanish Prisoner” and “Heist.” Despite the torment of being a serious artist in the studio bordello, he continues to produce and write “The Unit” for CBS, among other projects.

He recalls once speaking to a prop master about “an ill-behaved star who, to lighten the mood or in a transport of jollity, took to dancing in combat boots on the roof of a brand-new Mercedes. ‘He did about 10 thousand dollars’ worth of damage,’ said [the prop master].”

For all the breast-beating by celebrity PETA members, the director of the forthcoming “Joan of Bark: The Dog That Saved France” believes “supervision of the rights of animals – and children, for that matter – on movie sets is largely hypothetical.”

He rates Paul Newman as “the most beautiful man ever to grace the screen.” But “I can’t stand Laurence Olivier’s acting. He is stiff, self-conscious, grudging, coy, and ungenerous.â€¦ In ‘That Hamilton Woman,’ he whispers and turns his face from the camera throughout; in ’49th Parallel,’ who knows what the deuce he is doing.” He also presents the daring theory that Hollywood’s creators suffered from a form of autism.

“This sounds to me like a job description for a movie director. Let me also note that Asperger’s syndrome has its highest prevalence among Ashkenazi Jews and their descendants.â€¦ This group constitutesâ€¦ the bulk of America’s movie directors.”