By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
On David Mamet's Diary of Anne Frank
I ask you, can this not be genius? Writing and directing a coming-of-age tale based on Anne Frank’s diary fifty years after the last Hollywood adaptation, the Broadway play, and his own concerns for Walt Disney Pictures: Does Mr. Mamet have Mr. Roth rolling in his hammock already? Some references Mamet has made in the past: In 1992, “Oleanna” premiered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1993 Independent profile: “With typical combativeness, Mamet commented that playing Oleanna there was ‘like doing The Diary of Anne Frank at Dachau.'” A passage cited in a Jerusalem Post review of Mamet’s book of essays, “The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred and the Jews”: “To the Jews who, in the sixties, envied the Black Power Movement; who in the nineties, envied the Palestinians who weep at Exodus but jeer at the Israel Defense Forces; who nod when Tevye praises tradition but fidget through the seder; who might take your curiosity to a dogfight, to a bordello or an opium den, but find ludicrous the notion of a visit to the synagogue; whose favorite Jew is Anne Frank and whose second-favorite does not exist; who are humble in their desire to learn about Kwanzaa and proud of their ignorance of Tu Bishvat; who dread endogamy more than incest; who bow their head reverently at a baptism and have never attended a bris – to you, who find your religion and race repulsive, your ignorance of your history a satisfaction, here is a book from your brother.” Plus: Frank Rich’s 1997 essay, “Anne Frank Now.” And, not least, Mr. Mamet discusses gags in movies via a scene in the 1959 film, beginning with this memorable lede: “I spent a sleepless night, recently, thinking about the cat in The Diary of Anne Frank.”
