| Summary: | David Mamet's work as a dramatist has been studied in depth and been subject of great critical interest. But Mamet is a varied and prolific author who has worked in other fields, including poetry, novels, children's books and plays, and films. He started his career in cinema as a screenwriter but since 1987 he has written and directed eight films in a variety of genres and topics, from confidence men to adaptations of Terence Rattigan's plays. In contrast with his theatrical oeuvre, Mamet's work on film has received little systematic attention, and when analysed has always been compared to his plays. With my thesis I intend to redress the balance by studying his films, not only in the context of his work for the stage, but also in that of the film genre tradition. Although many of the themes he treats in his cinema are common to his plays also, his choice of classical filmic genres to express them creates a tension that questions both the themes and the generic conventions. I base my thesis on an auteurist concept, using interviews with the author, his own essays, and other works as complementary texts to the films (especially his theoretical writing on acting and directing films). My Inain emphasis is placed on close readings of certain scenes to illustrate Mamet's approach to genre, gender, his characteristic use of language, his favourite themes, his direction of actors, and his development of his own cinematic style. I also place the movies in the cinematic tradition by comparing them to other films of the same genre, or by directors who share similarities with Mamet (like Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock, or Preston Sturges). Mamet is not a dramatist who sometimes makes movies, but a dramatist/filmmaker and I hope my thesis contributes to a more complete understanding of his career
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