4 minute read
FILM REVIEW: Glengarry Glen Ross
It’s make or break for a group of salesmen in James Foley electrifying film adaption of David Mamet’s immortal play, Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
By TADHG CURTIN
To say Glengarry Glen Ross is notorious for its profanity is an understatement but man, does the script sing. Adapted from his own work for the big screen by David Mamet, the film depicts two days in the lives of four real estate salesmen who are supplied with leads — the names and phone numbers of prospects — and use deceitful and dubious sales tactics. After they are threatened with job termination for the individuals with the lowest sales, their tactics become more extreme in the desperation to keep their jobs.
This movie has one of the great ensemble casts put together for a movie. Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Jonathan Price, Kevin Spacey, and in its most iconic scene, Alec Baldwin. Interesting about that scene is that Baldwin’s character issuing the group of salesmen the big ultimatum is not in the play. The character was added to the movie to ratchet up the stakes and show the pressure the men are under. Some have said that you don’t need it but I don’t think anyone who has seen both the play and the movie would argue for its exclusion. It’s electric and endlessly quotable (“A. B. C. - Always Be Closing“. “Coffee’s for closers”). In fact, a lot of its stage incarnations now include the scene. James Foley and his cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchía, manage to liven up what is a movie set in interiors with an array of colours and movement. And that incessant night-time rain is pathetic fallacy (the poetic practice of attributing human emotion or responses to nature, inanimate objects, or animals) at its best.
David Mamet is one of the greatest playwrights and screenwriters of the last fifty years. I talked about another of his works, The Verdict, in a previous issue. His style of dialogue is iconic, so much so it’s referred to as ‘Mamet speak’. It’s marked by a cynical, street-smart edge, precisely crafted for effect.
There are essentially no women in the movie. Glengarry is actually a great treatise on the male ego. Through the four salesmen, you can see the whole spectrum of it at work both good and bad. Roma (Pacino) is the office’s hotshot who is on a roll career wise, effortlessly seducing clients and securing a sale. George Aaranow (Arkin) is completely impotent, a nice guy in a dirty business in over his head. David Moss (Harris) is just impotent rage - furious at a system he wants to destroy but too cowardly to do so on his own. And then there’s Shelley ‘The Machine’ Levene (Lemmon), a once shining star whose light and heat has long faded. He’s now a man clinging on by his fingernails.
The title comes from the names of two legendary real estate developments being peddled by the salesmen. Today, men aren’t really calling to our door anymore to con us. They are doing it over the phone or the internet. Crypto currency and Bitcoin seems to be the new pitch. The meta verse seems to be the new real estate. Is it all a con? Hard to say. “The leads are weak”, is uttered throughout Glengarry however the movie is anything but. You hear me, you £$^^@”! %$”&**)%!!!
