David Mamet’s “Chicago”
“Man bites dog is too interesting to be news,” a Chicago Tribune editor barks at one of his callow, ruffian, inebriate charges in David Mamet’s 1920s-set double-cross thriller, “Chicago,” a title the playwright-screenwriter-director-scold huffs mightily to hoist upon his seventy-year-old shoulders. Some passages across the 352 pages sound out like a screenplay gone awry and shoved hand-and-fist into a handy whisky barrel, and other bits have the good garrulous sense to simply sing in extended high Mametese: “If one can afford it, but one has nothing to say, one should not write. That is not writer’s block but common courtesy.” The same editor observes, “I don’t understand writer’s block. I’m sure it’s very high-toned and thrilling, like these other psychological complaints. I, myself, could never afford it. As I had a Sainted Mother at home who, without my wages, would have been hard put to drink herself to death. Further: I think, if one can afford it, but one has nothing to say, one should not write. This is not writer’s block but common courtesy.” And what of the ministrations of the city editor, you may demand? “A newspaper is a joke. Existing at the pleasure of the advertisers, to mulct the public, gratifying their stupidity, and render some small advance on investment to the owners, offering putative employment to their etiolated, wastrel sons.” But the best passages, of course, are spat without hesitation or compunction, and would indeed sing onscreen: “‘The question is, then,’ Mike said, ‘what is evil?’ ‘Well, that is decided,’ Doyle said, ‘by the fellow holding the gun.’” (Ray Pride)
Best of Chicago 2018
