Speed-the-Plow Notes on the Production
“...ANOTHER TONE POEM BY OUR NATION’S FOREMOST MASTER OF THE LANGUAGE OF MORAL EPILEPSY” - Jack Kroll, Newsweek
Speed-the-Plow’s main conflict can be reduced to a very old, very universal trope: a
man torn between two moral opposites. Bobby Gould is in a position to either succeed financially at the expense of quality or to succeed artistically at the expense of prosperity. Mamet indicates this moral question by quoting William Thackeray’s 19th century novel Pendennis before the text of the play in published editions. The quotation casts Speed-the-Plow as a modern morality play, placing Bobby Gould as an Everyman torn between art and money, as opposed to sin and virtue. Thackeray presents a moral dialectic that can easily be applied to the play itself: “Who does his duty best: he who stands aloof from the struggle of life, calmly contemplating it, or he who descends to the ground, and takes his part in the contest.”(1) This quotation frames the central intellectual dilemma of Speed-the-Plow, both for the audience and for Gould himself. In terms of the play, Gould is being pulled between Karen, who “stands aloof,” and Fox, who “descends to the ground.” Gould’s decision is further complicated by the way Karen barters her sexuality for influence, tilting the balance of power in her favor instead of Fox’s. When Karen describes the book he fully intended to reject, he starts to doubt the materialist approach he has taken to his life and his business thus far. He asks Thackeray’s question, because for the first time in his life, someone has presented him with a project that has real meaning. Gould’s worldview is shifted, and like the morality plays of the Middle Ages, the protagonist is torn between two conflicting ideals and moral codes (in this case, pragmatism and idealism instead of good and evil) and must contemplate the true purpose of his life.
Unlike its medieval antecedents, however, Speed-the-Plow never reaches the redemption of mankind – Bobby Gould falls, and stays fallen. This isn’t a play about the ability of man to be redeemed by divine grace; it’s a play about the inevitability of corruption. Even Karen, who appears to have a genuine, seemingly “naive” enthusiasm for the true artistic purpose of film, is revealed to have ulterior motives. Charlie Fox not only succeeds in winning the battle for Bobby’s integrity, but also overpowers Karen to such a degree that she becomes just as corrupt as any other member of the film making bureaucracy. It is fitting, then, that the title of Speed-the-Plow is a phrase with medieval roots – a prayer for prosperity that has taken over Fox and Gould’s very lives.
“WHEN THE CHARACTER OF A MAN IS NOT CLEAR TO YOU, LOOK AT HIS FRIENDS.” - Japanese proverb
Although the play can be framed as a modern version of an examination of right and wrong, the question of ethics in Speed-the-Plow doesn’t center upon abstract, traditional ideas of good and evil. Instead, the driving ethical force behind the play is the idea of personal loyalty. Throughout the play, Fox and Gould judge each other based on the loyalty and friendship that they owe to one another. Making a good film or the correct artistic choice is not nearly as important as the give-and-take of their remarkably businesslike friendship. This kind of peculiarly unfriendly friendship is not unique in the Mamet canon – many of the characters in his “men-at-work plays” struggle with the definition of themselves as men, and, by extension, theirrelationships with other men. In particular, the distinction between business and personal lives blur to the degree that they are one and the same. Although Fox and Gould ostensibly have a relationship outside of work, they are unable to stop working. They are constantly reminding one another of their friendship in order to maintain it, and it becomes clear that their friendship is entirely contingent upon their mutual ability to advance the other in the movie business.(2) It is more of a transaction than a relationship. When Gould appears to “betray” Fox, it is mainly offensive because of the money and prestige that will be lost.
In spite of the tenuous nature of Fox and Gould’s friendship, it remains their ethical
foundation, expressing “Mamet’s belief in personal loyalty as the only cement in an
unstuck public world.”(1) They must fall back on this idea of loyalty because, if they truly live in an “unstuck public world,” there is no stable, abstract idea of right or wrong. The emphasis shifts from philosophy and ideals to actions. It does not matter whether Gould greenlights a film due to its artistic potential or its monetary potential. All that matters is that he has fulfilled his debt of friendship to Fox. This is the world he lives in: climbing the Hollywood corporate ladder is a matter of honing the skill of extortion, not of money, but of favors.
This use of moral currency appears to be the accepted code of behavior in the film industry as depicted in Speed-the-Plow. Everyone in this play has something they want from the others as well as something they can give, creating a constant pattern of give-and-take. Business runs smoothly when people fulfill their obligations, and when they don’t, any supposed friendship becomes a moot point in the face of possible commercial failure. Fox and Gould’s friendly commercial relationship has been going along smoothly and is about to enter a new phase of give-and-take, but Karen’s appearance interrupts the process. Her true transgression is not that she is trying to manipulate Gould, but that in doing so, she throws a wrench into the system of moral currency that the two men have established. She brings in a variable other loyalty owed – attraction and idealism. Karen is ultimately unsuccessful, however, because she is not playing by Fox and Gould’s rules. The appeal of her earnestness is initially very strong to the meaning-starved Gould, but in the end, in order to get ahead in this business, one must deal in actions, not ideals. As David Mamet said of Glengarry Glen Ross, another play in which he explores the business world, “we know that we will hold judgment of some one’s character until we see how they act.”(3) The world of Speed-the-Plow is brutally utilitarian – hence, the relative worthlessness of art in an ostensibly artistic field. If all art is quite useless, it has no place in the film business.
“THE ONLY ‘ISM’ HOLLYWOOD BELIEVES IN IS PLAGIARISM” - Dorothy Parker
This cynical depiction of the movie business is not simply a work of fiction. Mamet himself is well acquainted with Hollywood, having written and directed several films, and has made his frank opinions regarding the business end of the industry abundantly clear. In several essays, he has described how he feels that the business of film making
destroys the art of film making. In particular, he lampoons the phenomenon he has called “learning to make nothing at all.”(4) Essentially, the role of the producer is to analyze the most financially successful films in order to rearrange and repackage them. The quest for commercial success has eliminated the artistic process, and creativity has been replaced by bureaucracy. Mamet describes the technique of producers “going into a room” in order to create a successful film. This process is exactly what Fox and Gould go through when Fox is describing the prison script to Gould -- throwing as many elements that have proven profitable into the mix as possible. As Gould says, he is there to “make the [same movie] everyone made last year.” It’s a strange idea to an artist – deliberating how to combine elements of already-produced films in the most cost-effective way, while simultaneously ensuring that nothing new and shocking finds its way into the final product. Producers are so divorced from the artistic process that this technique is not a product of a deliberate attempt to restrict art, but rather a product of total ignorance of what the artistic process should actually entail. Gould and Fox are both members of this misguided class, clearly in the business, if not also the friendship, only for the money. When Karen tries to ask about the quality of the film that Gould is about to greenlight, he comes right out and says, “I’m not an artist. Never said I was, and nobody who sits in this chair can be. I’m a businessman.” He is extremely frank about what his job entails – making money for the studio by building and exchanging the same kind of moral currency that defines his and Fox’s friendship. Gould is a businessman in all areas of his life. Somewhere inside him lies a desire for meaning and idealism, as evidenced by the fact that he accepts Karen’s point of view for a while, but it is proven to be merely a pipe dream when he discovers that she, too, is able to manipulate her way to a business deal. His world does not have room for the meaning that he did not even know he was seeking.
“I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE REAL VIOLENCE IN HOLLYWOOD ISN’T WHAT’S ON THE SCREEN. IT’S WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO RAISE THE MONEY.” - David Mamet
To place the fictional world of Speed-the-Plow in context, look at the Hollywood studio system today. The three highest-paid producers (really, the highest paid men in the entirety of Hollywood) between June 2008 and June 2009 were George Lucas ($170 million), Steven Spielberg ($150 million), and Jerry Bruckheimer ($100 million).(5) Looking at all of their work over the past few years, it’s clear that their enormous profits come from trademarked products from decades past, such as Star Wars, and sequels that, though poorly reviewed, rake in millions at the box office. These three men are masters at making exactly the same thing they made last year, or twenty years ago. David Mamet’s observations, both in his nonfiction writing and in Speed-The-Plow, are keen – all we have to do is look at the films that make the most money every year to know that the people in charge are devoted to relentlessly pushing the repetitive, tried-and-true formulas, and are doing so quite successfully.
Where, then, does Speed-The-Plow leave us with regards to modern film? The end of the play has Fox and Gould, in spite of having been exposed to the possibility of artistic and inspiring work, exactly where they began – about to make an enormously profitable, likely terrible, film. In this world, the capacity for man to capitulate to the incredibly powerful lure of money and power at the expense of all abstract goodness is unlimited. Mamet appears to have very little faith in the possibility that art can thrive, or even exist, if the status quo of the film industry remains unchanged. While he doesn’t turn the play into a moralistic call for change, the way in which he chooses to portray what he sees as the corrupted reality of Hollywood is enough. If Fox, Gould, and their ilk are the men behind the machine that churn out our movies, what chance does true art have? If Speed-The-Plow is any indication, artistic and altruistic film making must find an entirely new system in order to have a place in modern American culture.
References:
1 Kane, Leslie. Weasels and Wisemen: Ethics and Ethnicity in the Work of David Mamet. St. Martin’s Press: New York, 1999.
2 AllMoviePhoto.com. <http://www.allmoviephoto.com/photo/david_mamet_heist_001.html>.
3 McDonough, Carla “Every Fear Hides a Wish: Unstable Masculinity in Mamet’s Drama.” J. Theatre Journal, Vol. 44, No. 2,
American Scenes. Johns Hopkins University Press; May 1992. pp. 195-205.
4 Mamet, David. Bambi vs. Godzilla: On The Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business. Random House: New York, 2007.
5 Pomerantz, Dorothy “Hollywood’s Highest-Paid Men.” Forbes.com. July 2009.
<http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/14/hollywoods-top-earning-men-business-entertainment-hollywood-men.html>.
Notes on the Production by Jessica Ernst