''Glengarry Glen Ross'' ...
''Οικόπεδα με θέα''
Απεγνωσμένοι πωλητές γης ...
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Ένα μερίδιο από το «αμερικάνικο όνειρο»;
«Ο πρώτος είναι τα πάντα, ο δεύτερος δεν είναι τίποτα».
«Ο πρώτος είναι τα πάντα, ο δεύτερος δεν είναι τίποτα».
Οικόπεδα με θέα από tvxorissinora
Τα «Οικόπεδα με Θέα» περιγράφουν τον τρόπο λειτουργίας ενός γραφείου πωλητών οικοπέδων αμφίβολης αξίας. Η ταινία συνιστά την κινηματογραφική μεταφορά του ομότιτλου θεατρικού έργου του συγγραφέα Ντέιβιντ Μάμετ (ο οποίος έκανε και τη σεναριακή προσαρμογή), με το οποίο κατέγραψε την προσωπική του εμπειρία από το σκληρό χώρο των μικρομεσαίων μεσιτικών επιχειρήσεων στις ΗΠΑ.
Μια βροχερή νύχτα σε ένα θλιβερό μεσιτικό γραφείο του Σικάγο, η διοίκηση δίνει τελεσίγραφο σε μια ομάδα απεγνωσμένων πωλητών να πουλήσουν μέχρι το πρωί της επόμενης ημέρας ακίνητα αμφίβολης αξίας, σε ανθρώπους που δεν έχουν κάποιο ιστορικό επενδύσεων σε οικόπεδα. Οι πληροφορίες για τους καλούς πελάτες θα δοθούν μόνο στους νικητές του διαγωνισμού. Ο πωλητής εκείνος που θα κλείσει τις περισσότερες πωλήσεις, θα ανταμειφθεί με μία Κάντιλακ, ο δεύτερος καλύτερος με ένα σετ μαχαιροπήρουνα, ενώ τους άλλους δύο περιμένει η απόλυση.
Η κριτική εγκωμίασε το θεατρικό κείμενο, για το οποίο ο Μάμετ κέρδισε το βραβείο Πούλιτζερ (1984), ενώ στο έργο αποδόθηκε άμεσα ο χαρακτηρισμός του «κλασικού». Ο σκηνοθέτης Τζέιμς Φόλεϊ, με ένα ανεπανάληπτο καστ (Τζακ Λέμον, Αλ Πατσίνο, Άλαν Άρκιν, Κέβιν Σπέισι, Άλεξ Μπόλντγουιν, κ.α.), μένει πιστός στο ύφος του θεατρικού κειμένου δίχως να συνθέτει μια στατική ταινία.
Πωλητές γης θα προσπαθήσουν μέχρι την τελευταία στιγμή να επιβιώσουν στο μερίδιο από το «αμερικάνικο όνειρο» που τους αναλογεί.
Πηγή
tvxs.gr
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ
Glengarry Glen Ross is a 1992 American drama film, adapted by David Mamet from his acclaimed 1984 Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning play of the same name. The film depicts two days in the lives of four real estate salesmen and how they become desperate when the corporate office sends a trainer to "motivate" them by announcing that, in one week, all except the top two salesmen will be fired. The film, like the play, is notorious for its use of profanity, leading the cast to jokingly refer to the film as "Death of a Fuckin' Salesman".[2] The title of the film comes from the names of two of the real estate developments being peddled by the salesmen characters (Glengarry Highlands and Glen Ross Farms).
The film depicts two days in the lives of four real estate salesmen who are supplied with names and phone numbers of leads (potential clients) and regularly use underhanded and dishonest tactics to make sales. Many of the leads rationed out by the office manager lack either the money or the desire to actually invest in land.
Blake (Baldwin) is sent by Mitch and Murray (the owners of the office in which the characters work) to motivate the salesmen. Blake unleashes a torrent of verbal abuse on the men and announces that only the top two sellers will be allowed access to the more promising Glengarry leads and the rest of them will be fired.Shelley "The Machine" Levene (Lemmon), a once-successful salesman now in a long-running slump and with a sick daughter, knows that he will lose his job soon if he cannot generate sales. He tries to convince office manager John Williamson (Spacey) to give him some of the Glengarry leads, but Williamson refuses. Levene tries first to charm Williamson, then to threaten him, and finally to bribe him. Williamson is willing to sell some of the prime leads, but demands cash in advance. Levene cannot come up with the cash and leaves without any good leads.
Dave Moss (Harris) and George Aaronow (Arkin) complain about Mitch and Murray, and Moss proposes that they strike back at the two by stealing all the Glengarry leads and selling them to a competing real estate agency. Moss's plan requires Aaronow to break into the office, stage a burglary and steal all of the prime leads. Aaronow wants no part of the plan, but Moss tries to coerce him, saying that Aaronow is already an accessory before the fact simply because he knows about the proposed burglary.
At a nearby bar, Ricky Roma (Pacino), the office's top "closer," delivers a long, disjointed but compelling monologue to a meek, middle-aged man named James Lingk (Pryce). Roma does not broach the subject of a real estate deal until he has completely won Lingk over with his speech. Framing it as being an opportunity rather than a purchase, Roma plays upon Lingk's feelings of insecurity.The salesmen come into the office the following morning to find that there has been a burglary and the Glengarry leads have been stolen. Williamson and the police question each of the salesmen in private. After his interrogation, Moss leaves in disgust, only after having one last shouting match with Roma. During the cycle of interrogations, Lingk arrives to tell Roma that his wife has told him to cancel the deal. Scrambling to salvage the deal, Roma tries to deceive Lingk by telling him that the check he wrote the night before has yet to be cashed, and that accordingly he has time to reason with his wife and reconsider.
Levene abets Roma by pretending to be a wealthy investor who just happens to be on his way to the airport. Williamson, unaware of Roma and Levene's stalling tactic, lies to Lingk, claiming that he already deposited his check in the bank. Upset, Lingk rushes out of the office, threatening to contact the state's attorney, and Roma berates Williamson for what he has done. Roma then enters Williamson's office to take his turn being interrogated by the police.
Levene, proud of an unlikely sale he made that morning, takes the opportunity to mock Williamson in private. In his zeal to get back at Williamson, Levene carelessly reveals that he knows Williamson left Lingk's check on his desk and did not make the bank run the previous night—something only the man who broke into the office would know. Williamson catches Levene's slip-of-the-tongue quickly and compels Levene to admit that he broke into the office. Levene eventually breaks down and admits that he and Moss conspired to steal the leads to sell to a competitor. Levene attempts to bribe Williamson to keep quiet about the burglary. Williamson scoffs at the suggestion and tells Levene that the buyers to whom he made his sale earlier that day, Bruce and Harriet Nyborg, are in fact bankrupt and delusional and just enjoy talking to salesmen. Levene, crushed by this revelation, asks Williamson why he seeks to ruin him. Williamson coldly responds, "Because I don't like you."Levene makes a last-ditch attempt at gaining sympathy from Williamson by mentioning his sick daughter, but Williamson cruelly rebuffs him and leaves to inform the detective about Levene's part in the burglary. Unaware of Levene's guilt, Roma walks out of the office for lunch and talks to Levene about forming a business partnership before the detective starts calling for Levene. The film ends as Levene walks, defeated, into Williamson's office.
| Directed by | James Foley |
|---|---|
| Produced by |
Jerry Tokofsky
Stanley R. Zupnik
|
| Screenplay by | David Mamet |
| Based on |
David Mamet
|
| Starring | |
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
| Cinematography | Juan Ruiz Anchía |
| Editing by | Howard E. Smith |
| Release date(s) |
|
| Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $12.5 million |
Cast
Al Pacino as Ricky Roma
Jack Lemmon as Shelley "The Machine" Levene
Alec Baldwin as Blake
Ed Harris as Dave Moss
Alan Arkin as George Aaronow
Kevin Spacey as John Williamson
Jonathan Pryce as James Lingk
Bruce Altman as Larry Spannel
Jude Ciccolella as Detective
''Times are tough in a Chicago real-estate office; the salesmen (Shelley Levene, Ricky Roma, Dave Moss, and George Aaronow) are given a strong incentive by Blake to succeed in a sales contest. The prizes? First prize is a Cadillac El Dorado, second prize is a set of steak knives, third prize is the sack! There is no room for losers in this dramatically masculine world; only "closers" will get the good sales leads. There is a lot of pressure to succeed, so a robbery is committed which has unforeseen consequences for all the characters.''Πηγή
1.
''The hustlers in _B_Glengarry Glen Ross_b_ talk too much. They have to; they make their sordid living selling bogus real estate with pseudopoetic names like Glengarry Highlands and Glen Pow Farms. They're musicless rappers, masters of a ripoff spiel that spins webs of deceit around the suckers who fall for their con games. David Mamet's screenplay, based on his 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, retains all the profane poetry of these desperate men, driven by their bosses to cutthroat competition in which the top salesmen win a Cadillac and the bottom ones get fired. IVs Mamet's vision of an American hen, a mutual trap for the chiselers and the chiseled.
Actors die to sink their capped teeth into dialogue like Mamet's. "Glengarry" assembles a powerhouse cast: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey and Jonathan Pryce. Director James Foley has orchestrated a crackling ensemble out of this high-voltage group. Pacino plays the ace huckster, Ricky Roma, like a gloomy cobra, targeting his hapless prey (Pryce) with his hooded eyes and spellbinding tongue. As the wornout Shelley Levene, Lemmon has the drowned eyes and scared smile of a loser, as he begs and bribes the heartless office manager (Spacey) for better "leads" (the data on prospects), he's like a latter-&y Winy Loman to whom no attention must be paid.
Baldwin is sleekly sinister in the role of Blake, a troubleshooter caned in to shake up the salesmen. He shakes them up, all right, but this character (not in the original play) also shakes up the movie's toned balance with his sheer noise and scatologilcal fury. Onstage, "Glengarry's" major wobble was a relatively conventional second act, a mini-whodunit that involved the theft of the precious "leads" from the real-estate office. That gory line works better on screen, but the movie is darker, the comic element somehow lessened. Foley soaks the screen with film noir tones, and Mamet's jackhammer rhythms lose some of their ricochet force in the editing process. Still, "Glengarry" is a compelling look at one of the closed-out items in the catalog of American dreams. Winy Laman believed his sales pitch, these guys are eaten away by the acid of their own con. The salesmen scrambling to save their cheesy jobs are no longer heroes of the American frontier. "There's no adventure to it," says Roma. "We're a dying breed." Maybe, all through our con-job culture, the buyers are wising up.''
Πηγή
2.
'' Is Glengarry Glen Ross really about salesmen, or is it about a bankrupt culture that produces and nurtures them? Certainly, it stands alongside Wall Street as one of the most unflinching views of a mindset that informed a generation of salesmen and stockbrokers during the 1980s and 1990s. Gordon Gecko might have said that "greed is good," but the men in Glengarry Glen Ross lived the mantra. The film focuses on a group of unpleasant characters, each more disreputable than the next, and uses them to provide compelling drama. As in Reservoir Dogs (which reached theaters the same year), it’s the complexity of the characters not their lack of virtue that commands our attention.
Al Pacino. Jack Lemmon. Ed Harris. Alan Arkin. Kevin Spacey. Alec Baldwin. Among them, they have amassed an astonishing 25 Oscar nominations and five victories, with each of them being nominated at least once (and Pacino and Lemmon both garnering eight apiece). No wonder Jack Lemmon considered this the most accomplished cast he ever worked with. It's hard to argue with him; I can't think of another movie so talent-heavy from top-to-bottom. Since Glengarry Glen Ross is a character/actor piece, it gives each of these performers an opportunity to shine, and they all take advantage of it.
What is it with plays about salesman that so capture the American interest? Arguably the two best American playwrights of the 20th century are Arthur Miller and David Mamet. Both have won Tony Awards and Pulitzer Prizes for their sad accounts about salesman. Millers' Death of a Salesman was one of the most often produced plays of the post-1949 period. (There has never been a definitive motion picture adaptation. The best known version is a 1985 made-for-TV edition starring Dustin Hoffman.) Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross has been a staple for local and national theater troupes since it premiered in 1984.
It took Mamet and director James Foley eight years to bring Glengarry Glen Ross to the screen. Considering the cast they accumulated, it was worth the wait. The two primary reasons for the delay were financing issues and the desire to have Al Pacino in the cast. Pacino wanted the part, but it was difficult finding an opening in his schedule. It was only when they decided to give up on him and cast Alec Baldwin in the part that Pacino became available. Baldwin was subsequently given a role that Mamet specifically wrote for the movie. And, as good as everyone is in this movie, Baldwin upstages them all - and he's only on screen for about ten minutes. (He should have but did not get an Oscar nomination for this performance).
There are four salesmen working in a New York City real estate office: hot-shot Ricky Roma (Al Pacino), who's raking in commissions by the fistful; old-timer Shelley Levine (Jack Lemmon), who has lost his touch; tough-talker Dave Moss (Ed Harris), who's looking for a way to screw management; and nervous George Aaronow (Alan Arkin), who's in almost as bad a shape as Shelly. Enter Blake (Alec Baldwin), a suit from uptown who's sent into the trenches to give a Patton-like pep talk. This month's sales contest, he informs them, will have new rules. First prize is a car. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize - you're fired. So two of the four salesmen in the office are about to get pink slips. The guy who runs the office, John Williamson (Kevin Spacey), couldn't be happier. He doesn't like any of them, least of all Levine, who constantly berates him. What follows is a perfect example of how people can turn on each other with their livelihood on the line. I'm reminded of the following line uttered by Sigourney Weaver in Aliens: "I don't know which species is worse. You don't see [the aliens] fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage!"
It strikes me as inexplicable and inexcusable that one of the best acted and best written films of 1992 received only one Oscar nomination: Al Pacino for Best Supporting Actor. The writing was ignored, even though Mamet's screenplay was arguably superior to his Tony winning/Pulitzer Prize winning script for the play. And, while Pacino's performance was the most fiery, it was not as deep or moving a portrayal as Lemmon's. Levine is a dislikeable rat, yet Lemmon humanizes him to the point where we feel pity, if not sympathy, for him. (Lemmon has stated in interviews that he did everything in his power not to soften the character. If that was his objective, it didn't work.)
Blake's profanity laced tirade near the beginning is one of Glengarry Glen Ross' highlights. Listening to it, I flashed back on George C. Scott's memorable opening monologue in Patton, so it came as no surprise to hear Alec Baldwin state that Scott's six-minute "pep talk" was his inspiration. To get a flavor of Blake's speech, here's a random line: "You can't close the leads you're given, you can't close shit, you are shit. Hit the bricks pal, and beat it, 'cause you are going out." Watching the verbal abuse he doles out will leave the average viewer a little stunned. Even today, with profanity in movies more common that it was 15 years ago, Blake's diatribe remains corrosive.
After Blake leaves the office, the salesmen turn on one another. The exception is Roma. He's far enough out in the lead in the sales contest that the only target of his contempt is Williamson, the clueless "secretary" who lords it over the salesman even though he's never walked a mile in their shoes. Moss makes a deal with another agency, then plays off Levine against Aaronow. There is a robbery of the office, and the presence of a police detective further sours an already pungent mood.
Since Mamet did not direct (only wrote) Glengarry Glen Ross, the dialogue is not delivered with the precise staccato style he has become known for, but it still snaps, crackles, and pops. The single greatest pleasure of watching this film is seeing great actors reciting Mamet's lines. It's rumored that members of the cast came to the set on days when they weren't scheduled to film so they could watch their fellow stars perform. For anyone who loves sharp dialogue, compelling characters, and a stinging social rebuke, Glengarry Glen Ross is not to be missed. It's as unique a motion picture today as it was in 1992, and it has lost none of its power or relevance. ''
© 2006 James Berardinelli
Πηγή
David Mamet
3.''The hustlers in _B_Glengarry Glen Ross_b_ talk too much. They have to; they make their sordid living selling bogus real estate with pseudopoetic names like Glengarry Highlands and Glen Pow Farms. They're musicless rappers, masters of a ripoff spiel that spins webs of deceit around the suckers who fall for their con games. David Mamet's screenplay, based on his 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, retains all the profane poetry of these desperate men, driven by their bosses to cutthroat competition in which the top salesmen win a Cadillac and the bottom ones get fired. IVs Mamet's vision of an American hen, a mutual trap for the chiselers and the chiseled.
Actors die to sink their capped teeth into dialogue like Mamet's. "Glengarry" assembles a powerhouse cast: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey and Jonathan Pryce. Director James Foley has orchestrated a crackling ensemble out of this high-voltage group. Pacino plays the ace huckster, Ricky Roma, like a gloomy cobra, targeting his hapless prey (Pryce) with his hooded eyes and spellbinding tongue. As the wornout Shelley Levene, Lemmon has the drowned eyes and scared smile of a loser, as he begs and bribes the heartless office manager (Spacey) for better "leads" (the data on prospects), he's like a latter-&y Winy Loman to whom no attention must be paid.
Baldwin is sleekly sinister in the role of Blake, a troubleshooter caned in to shake up the salesmen. He shakes them up, all right, but this character (not in the original play) also shakes up the movie's toned balance with his sheer noise and scatologilcal fury. Onstage, "Glengarry's" major wobble was a relatively conventional second act, a mini-whodunit that involved the theft of the precious "leads" from the real-estate office. That gory line works better on screen, but the movie is darker, the comic element somehow lessened. Foley soaks the screen with film noir tones, and Mamet's jackhammer rhythms lose some of their ricochet force in the editing process. Still, "Glengarry" is a compelling look at one of the closed-out items in the catalog of American dreams. Winy Laman believed his sales pitch, these guys are eaten away by the acid of their own con. The salesmen scrambling to save their cheesy jobs are no longer heroes of the American frontier. "There's no adventure to it," says Roma. "We're a dying breed." Maybe, all through our con-job culture, the buyers are wising up.''
Πηγή
2.
'' Is Glengarry Glen Ross really about salesmen, or is it about a bankrupt culture that produces and nurtures them? Certainly, it stands alongside Wall Street as one of the most unflinching views of a mindset that informed a generation of salesmen and stockbrokers during the 1980s and 1990s. Gordon Gecko might have said that "greed is good," but the men in Glengarry Glen Ross lived the mantra. The film focuses on a group of unpleasant characters, each more disreputable than the next, and uses them to provide compelling drama. As in Reservoir Dogs (which reached theaters the same year), it’s the complexity of the characters not their lack of virtue that commands our attention.
Al Pacino. Jack Lemmon. Ed Harris. Alan Arkin. Kevin Spacey. Alec Baldwin. Among them, they have amassed an astonishing 25 Oscar nominations and five victories, with each of them being nominated at least once (and Pacino and Lemmon both garnering eight apiece). No wonder Jack Lemmon considered this the most accomplished cast he ever worked with. It's hard to argue with him; I can't think of another movie so talent-heavy from top-to-bottom. Since Glengarry Glen Ross is a character/actor piece, it gives each of these performers an opportunity to shine, and they all take advantage of it.
What is it with plays about salesman that so capture the American interest? Arguably the two best American playwrights of the 20th century are Arthur Miller and David Mamet. Both have won Tony Awards and Pulitzer Prizes for their sad accounts about salesman. Millers' Death of a Salesman was one of the most often produced plays of the post-1949 period. (There has never been a definitive motion picture adaptation. The best known version is a 1985 made-for-TV edition starring Dustin Hoffman.) Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross has been a staple for local and national theater troupes since it premiered in 1984.
It took Mamet and director James Foley eight years to bring Glengarry Glen Ross to the screen. Considering the cast they accumulated, it was worth the wait. The two primary reasons for the delay were financing issues and the desire to have Al Pacino in the cast. Pacino wanted the part, but it was difficult finding an opening in his schedule. It was only when they decided to give up on him and cast Alec Baldwin in the part that Pacino became available. Baldwin was subsequently given a role that Mamet specifically wrote for the movie. And, as good as everyone is in this movie, Baldwin upstages them all - and he's only on screen for about ten minutes. (He should have but did not get an Oscar nomination for this performance).
There are four salesmen working in a New York City real estate office: hot-shot Ricky Roma (Al Pacino), who's raking in commissions by the fistful; old-timer Shelley Levine (Jack Lemmon), who has lost his touch; tough-talker Dave Moss (Ed Harris), who's looking for a way to screw management; and nervous George Aaronow (Alan Arkin), who's in almost as bad a shape as Shelly. Enter Blake (Alec Baldwin), a suit from uptown who's sent into the trenches to give a Patton-like pep talk. This month's sales contest, he informs them, will have new rules. First prize is a car. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize - you're fired. So two of the four salesmen in the office are about to get pink slips. The guy who runs the office, John Williamson (Kevin Spacey), couldn't be happier. He doesn't like any of them, least of all Levine, who constantly berates him. What follows is a perfect example of how people can turn on each other with their livelihood on the line. I'm reminded of the following line uttered by Sigourney Weaver in Aliens: "I don't know which species is worse. You don't see [the aliens] fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage!"
It strikes me as inexplicable and inexcusable that one of the best acted and best written films of 1992 received only one Oscar nomination: Al Pacino for Best Supporting Actor. The writing was ignored, even though Mamet's screenplay was arguably superior to his Tony winning/Pulitzer Prize winning script for the play. And, while Pacino's performance was the most fiery, it was not as deep or moving a portrayal as Lemmon's. Levine is a dislikeable rat, yet Lemmon humanizes him to the point where we feel pity, if not sympathy, for him. (Lemmon has stated in interviews that he did everything in his power not to soften the character. If that was his objective, it didn't work.)
Blake's profanity laced tirade near the beginning is one of Glengarry Glen Ross' highlights. Listening to it, I flashed back on George C. Scott's memorable opening monologue in Patton, so it came as no surprise to hear Alec Baldwin state that Scott's six-minute "pep talk" was his inspiration. To get a flavor of Blake's speech, here's a random line: "You can't close the leads you're given, you can't close shit, you are shit. Hit the bricks pal, and beat it, 'cause you are going out." Watching the verbal abuse he doles out will leave the average viewer a little stunned. Even today, with profanity in movies more common that it was 15 years ago, Blake's diatribe remains corrosive.
After Blake leaves the office, the salesmen turn on one another. The exception is Roma. He's far enough out in the lead in the sales contest that the only target of his contempt is Williamson, the clueless "secretary" who lords it over the salesman even though he's never walked a mile in their shoes. Moss makes a deal with another agency, then plays off Levine against Aaronow. There is a robbery of the office, and the presence of a police detective further sours an already pungent mood.
Since Mamet did not direct (only wrote) Glengarry Glen Ross, the dialogue is not delivered with the precise staccato style he has become known for, but it still snaps, crackles, and pops. The single greatest pleasure of watching this film is seeing great actors reciting Mamet's lines. It's rumored that members of the cast came to the set on days when they weren't scheduled to film so they could watch their fellow stars perform. For anyone who loves sharp dialogue, compelling characters, and a stinging social rebuke, Glengarry Glen Ross is not to be missed. It's as unique a motion picture today as it was in 1992, and it has lost none of its power or relevance. ''
© 2006 James Berardinelli
Πηγή
James Foley
Glengarry Glen Ross (film)
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