GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS
Directed by James Foley
Written by David Mamet
Starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin
Directed by James Foley
Written by David Mamet
Starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin
The addition of the Blake character to the script of the original play by David Mamet substantially alters the thrust of the movie Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). Audiences enjoy the Alec Baldwin role of Blake, as the guy sent by Mitch and Murray to come in and shake things up a bit in the sales room of the hokey real estate office. The character intensifies the motivation of desperate Shelley "The Machine" Levene (Jack Lemmon) and compounds the frustration of conniving Moss and confused Aaronow (Ed Harris and Alan Arkin). His impact on the coldly pragmatic and petty Williamson (Kevin Spacey), the office manager, is negligible, as it is on Ricky Roma (Al Pacino), the top producer and favored son in the shop. However, Blake changed forever the way the script would be experienced by audiences because the original Mamet script would never have been used as a training tool for salespeople in the way the movie has been. That such a brilliant appeal to the sensitivities of a system rigged against not only the customers but against the employees as well should turn out to be embraced by those employees says more about the sorry condition of the American workplace than it does about this movie, which is patently brilliant from start to finish.
I have attended championship boxing matches and viewed televised UFC competitions that were less masculine than the tenor of this film. Indeed, Tyson biting off part of Holyfield's ear rings rather soft compared to the penis-thumping and simultaneous emasculations that make up the day-to-day lives of these salesmen. "You think this is abuse?" screams Blake into the back of the head of Aaronow. "You cocksucker! If you think this is abuse, how are you going to handle abuse on a sit?" Later he points out that "It takes [brass balls] to sell real estate."
Audiences laugh at what they perceive to be the over-the-top outrage of the bully Blake, just as audiences chuckle nervously at the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. Marines in the crowds at the latter film knew better than to laugh. They'd experienced precisely the "abuse" the drilling instructor was dishing out, just as anyone who has survived his time selling time shares, alarm systems, home-based businesses or light bulbs has endured the emotional raping these men get as a send-off on their work day evenings.
The system is rigged, as Levene points out. How is a man supposed to rise above a certain level if he never gets the premium leads, the Glengarry leads? Ah, but those leads are only for closers. To give the good leads to a poor performer would be to waste them. The only way to rise above and get up to where the oxygen is kept, of course, is to cheat. And cheat they do. There are blocks of ten to fifteen minute segments in this film where absolutely nothing anyone says bears any resemblance to the truth. This carries on so adeptly that after a while we find ourselves actually pulling for these men--who after all, maintain the moral center of the film--and even hurt for the fate of the man who commits a crime that may, for a few seconds, imperil the entire office.
Glengarry Glen Ross is a school for actors. Each "star" plays many roles within roles throughout this motion picture and anyone of a certain age or older will be able to recognize someone he loves and hates.
I have attended championship boxing matches and viewed televised UFC competitions that were less masculine than the tenor of this film. Indeed, Tyson biting off part of Holyfield's ear rings rather soft compared to the penis-thumping and simultaneous emasculations that make up the day-to-day lives of these salesmen. "You think this is abuse?" screams Blake into the back of the head of Aaronow. "You cocksucker! If you think this is abuse, how are you going to handle abuse on a sit?" Later he points out that "It takes [brass balls] to sell real estate."
Audiences laugh at what they perceive to be the over-the-top outrage of the bully Blake, just as audiences chuckle nervously at the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. Marines in the crowds at the latter film knew better than to laugh. They'd experienced precisely the "abuse" the drilling instructor was dishing out, just as anyone who has survived his time selling time shares, alarm systems, home-based businesses or light bulbs has endured the emotional raping these men get as a send-off on their work day evenings.
The system is rigged, as Levene points out. How is a man supposed to rise above a certain level if he never gets the premium leads, the Glengarry leads? Ah, but those leads are only for closers. To give the good leads to a poor performer would be to waste them. The only way to rise above and get up to where the oxygen is kept, of course, is to cheat. And cheat they do. There are blocks of ten to fifteen minute segments in this film where absolutely nothing anyone says bears any resemblance to the truth. This carries on so adeptly that after a while we find ourselves actually pulling for these men--who after all, maintain the moral center of the film--and even hurt for the fate of the man who commits a crime that may, for a few seconds, imperil the entire office.
Glengarry Glen Ross is a school for actors. Each "star" plays many roles within roles throughout this motion picture and anyone of a certain age or older will be able to recognize someone he loves and hates.
