The SmarK DVD Rant for Glengarry Glen Ross
“What’s your name?”
“Fuck you! That’s my name.”
– David Mamet can, admittedly, be an acquired taste. If you can desensitize yourself to all the swearing, however, you are often left with brilliant character studies filled with people who fling dialogue and insults at each other like soldiers shoot bullets at the enemy. The more bitter and petty the people involved, the more cutting the dialogue, and there is no more bitter, small and petty group of people than the failed salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross
The Film
Filled with a dream team of actors (Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin in a role created just for the movie), Glengarry Glen Ross is a screen adaptation of David Mamet’s play of the same name. The plot, such as it is, is fairly straightforward: A group of loser salesmen, peddling useless swampland in Florida, are visited by a rep from “downtown”, who introduces them to the newest “contest” to stimulate sales. First place is a car, second place is steak knives, third place is you’re fired. This produces the above quote, as Alec Baldwin (in an electric and completely abrasive performance) strips each of the failed salemen bare and reveals what a bunch of mooks they really are. “I made $970,000 last year, how much did you make?” he asks tough-guy Ed Harris, while flashing a Rolex in his face. No answer is forthcoming. Sadly, this is Baldwin’s only scene in the movie.
Armed with desperation as their motivation, we see the principles begin to work their magic with the crappy leads provided by the office. The good leads — the fabled Glengarry Leads — are wrapped in a gold ribbon and locked in the boss’s office. What they are, in real terms, doesn’t matter. It’s just a McGuffin, a plot device to motivate the characters. The characters begin scheming with and against each other to either sell enough to win the car, or circumvent the contest by stealing the Glengarry Leads in one form or another. We see their selling methods, from Shelly “The Machine” Levine’s laid-back approach (which became the basis for the Gil character in the Simpsons) to office bigshot Ricky Roma’s near-seduction of a latently homosexual businessman in a bar. By the end of the night, someone has indeed broken into the office, leaving the desperate salesmen fighting amongst themselves and talking unwillingly to the police about who might have the leads. Who did it doesn’t even matter, the glorious part is watching the verbal duels that result. Ed Harris charges in like a mad bull and Al Pacino skillfully steers him aside like a matador. Kevin Spacey, as the boss Williamson, blows Pacino’s big sale and gets taken on the carpet as a result. “You cost me $6000!” Pacino yells, as though this fairly paltry amount of money made him a high-roller. One of the most masterful exchanges is between Harris and Alan Arkin in the bar, as Harris uses his selling talents to slowly seduce Arkin to his way of thinking and convince him to break into the office while he goes to the movies as an alibi. Later, Arkin’s guilt over the plan leads him into another classic exchange with Spacey, as he rants about “Gestapo tactics” by the police while Spacey tries to get him to shut up and go to lunch.
Ultimately this is a movie about low-grade conmen who make their living at convincing nurses to sink their life savings into money pits and only get 10% commission from it. The movie takes place on a rainy night in a claustrophobic office building where they can’t escape, and their only escape is to launch verbal assaults on each other and dream of selling real estate like the REAL pros do, in New York. The dialogue here is the star, as the actors spar with each other like boxers, each one searching for the knockout punch that the right line can deliver. In the end, you feel sorry for no one and realize how sad their lives truly are. A classic film that’s probably a bit too “talky” for newer Mamet watchers, and will probably offend more than a few people with the constant swearing, but is worth the multiple viewing required to catch all the verbal nuances within.
The Video:
Remastered by Artisan in fine fashion, Glengarry Glen Ross comes in both its intended 2.35:1 widescreen on one disc, and the usual hacked up pan-and-scam on the other disc. Sadly, the special features are spread across the discs, so I was unable to use the full screen disc as a drink holder like I normally do. The movie is very dark (visually speaking) and starkly lit, and the DVD handles it well, with only a bit of dirt and age showing on the print and the contrast and colors otherwise looking great for a 1993 low-budget film. There was some compression artifacting here and there, but nothing you’d notice without looking. An excellent treatment by Artisan.
The Audio:
Oddly enough, the soundtrack was redone into DTS 5.1 for this release, which is a complete waste considering that the entire movie is dialogue. There’s some nice ambient rain sounds going on in the background, but other than that I don’t even know why they bothered. You don’t need anything more than plain stereo for this movie, but it’s nice that they made the effort anyway. The dialogue is CRYSTAL clear, however, so at least the center channel gets a good workout.
The Extras:
Quite the assortment of stuff here.
Disc one:
– Audio commentary by director James Foley. Didn’t listen to much of it, but he keeps up nicely with the rapid-fire dialogue, although he doesn’t seem to have much to say.
– A Tribute to Jack Lemmon. A 30-minute feature with various people talking about the deceased star of the movie against a stark white background. Most moving is Chris Lemmon’s story of Jack dying in his arms.
Disc Two:
– ABC, Always Be Closing. A 30-minute documentary featuring interviews with various salesmen about the movie and real-life sales techniques. Interesting stuff.
– A 10-minute short about Braddock salesman “Diamond” Jimmy Roy, who ran a flea market there for years. Oddball stuff, to be sure.
– Bonus audio commentaries, featuring Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, the cinematographer and the production designer talking over various scenes from the movie, totaling about an hour. This is great stuff, as everyone has really great insight to add to the making of the movie, especially Alec Baldwin, who talks about the various methods of acting and compares Lemmon to Pacino in a fascinating bit.
– Clip of Jack Lemmon on the Charlie Rose show in 1993.
– Clip of Kevin Spacey on “Inside the Actor’s Studio” doing the “Go to lunch!” scene with an acting student.
– The usual cast/crew biographies.
Ratings:
The Film: *****
The Video: ****
The Audio: ***
The Extras: ***
