Heroic Profiles in David Mamet’s Filmography

Abstract

David Mamet’s fictional worlds can be defined as bleak spaces. Relationships are basedon self-interest, which provokes different kinds of deception, manipulation and violence.Nevertheless, this somber image of human nature does not play down the value andnecessity of an ethical behavior. In fact, an important number of Mamet’s films can beanalyzed in the light of this dichotomy between a perverse social context and thepossibility of a moral behavior incarnated by their characters. This article aims to analyzethis type of characters that bring light into those dark worlds. The article is divided in threeparts. The usual traits of Mamet’s “negative spaces” are explained in the first one. Thesecond one is focused on the characters that show the possibility of an ethical integrity inthose contexts. And in the last section, “Espartanos y samuráis”, I study the fully heroic traitsof the protagonists of the last Mamet’s fictions: Spartan (2004), Redbelt (2008) and The Unit(2006-09). These stories have a similar atmosphere, based on a heroic composition inspiredby moral codes of the past, which could be termed, as Mamet points out about Redbelt,as a “modern stoicism”.