Oleanna

This film is basically about a student who cannot accept she's failing class and decides to ruin her teacher's life by framing him. Around this basis, a quite witty dialogue is unfolded, which makes the movie intellectually stimulating and powerful. Additionally, it depicts the invalidity of some axioms of both professor and student community and portraits how people manipulate the truth to serve their personal interests. A very strong point is how pompous and cliche arguments about void pseudo-liberties alienate people from truly disastrous and desperate situations. As I see from other reviews, the play was much better, but unfortunately we didn't have the chance to see it here in Greece yet, so my first impression of Mamet's work was from this movie.

This is a movie not without faults -- the dialog at the beginning is stilted, William H. Macy's performance is not without its weak spots -- but in spite of those quibbles, is a compelling, intriguing film.

The movie centers on the relationship between a student and a professor at an unnamed university. She goes to him for extra help in his class (but she may be just trying to set him up for a sexual harrassment lawsuit). He tries to help her with her studies (but may be trying to dominate and have innappropriate relations with her at the same time). As the relationship turns into a struggle, the viewer finds him/herself switching sides early and often. The tension in the film becomes the viewer's tension; during the final scenes you'll barely breathe.

The tagline is right -- whatever side you choose, you're wrong. I've seen this movie lambasted as being anti-feminist, lauded for being pro-feminist, hated for being anti-establishment, pro-establishment, racist, sexist, etc. In reality, it is all and none of these things. Oleanna is a mirror that forces us to examine and discuss our own convictions. That it accomplishes this while still being an exciting film makes it worth seeing more than once.

David Mamet can write a play! This one made me writhe with anger at the P.C. crowd in our universities (not that all PC is bad--I am a linguist)who are watering down the national education. What's wrong with saying what you mean? I am a woman and I cannot actually believe that there are two sides on this issue...a pat on the back cannot possibly be seen (alone) as sexual harassment, nor can writing a very bad essay merit an "A" in my idealistic mind. A poor writer is a poor writer, no matter what the background. Many of out best American writers have come from the working class. Should education be modified yet again to accommodate those who do not care to work for their merits? Just a thought. Would love to hear more from others...

One writer perceptively suggests that the term "Oleanna" was used to describe swampland being sold as prime real estate.

I think the primary context in which the title "Oleanna" is to be understood appears in a "folk" stanza preceding Mamet's published edition of the play:

"Oh to be in 'Oleanna,'/ That's where I would rather be,/ Than be bound in Norway/ And drag the chains of slavery."

And so, Oleanna is a version of a Utopian promised land, and in the context of the play, the gateway to this better tomorrow is through the halls of Academia. Susan, the victim of her own false expectations of how the university is to transform her existence, repeatedly mentions the struggle she had to endure in order to get into college. For her, academic success is central to her vision of a better life. John, the pedantic professor, also sees Academia as the means to a comfortable, upper middle class existence with his new house, wife, and son. All he needs to do is make tenure, and his future is secured.

However, John presents himself as an academic bad-boy who debunks the very Academia with which he is trying to secure his comfortable future. This ridicule of the academic process strikes at the heart of Carol's dreams of a better future through education. She quite rightly sees that the professor is trying to have it both ways--playing the academic outsider while trying to kiss-up to the tenure committee in order to ensure his cushy new home in the suburbs. When someone's dreams are threatened, they become angry and strike out, however they can.

This is a brilliant movie. Anyone working in a high school or university, and anyone contemplating an academic career, needs to watch it, and allow it to soak deep into the structure of the brain. Perhaps that academic career isn't such a good idea, after all. Maybe that utopian real estate is really swampland. At any rate, one needs to be very, very careful when dealing with students.

William H. Macy plays a professor, and Debra Eisenstadt plays a student who needs an A in the class she is taking from him. They argue as to why she should or shouldn't get an A. In the course of their arguing, the student finds cause to charge the professor, who is up for tenure, with sexual harassment and takes her case to the tenure committee.

The movie runs about an hour and a half. It was slow going, but as I was about to flip away from it (watching it on cable), I checked how long it had to go, and it was about half-way through. I figured, oh well, there's still some Canadian Club I need to get rid of, and tomorrow's a holiday, so I stuck with it. And I'm glad I did.

It is not a good movie, and maybe not even a very good play. Mamet's direction is ultra-stagy, even more declamatory than live theater would normally allow for, let alone a movie. For about an hour and a half, the actors hurl complete sentences and big chunks of paragraphs at one another.

Are Mamet and the actors really that insensitive to the conventions of film? Not likely. I think he chose that artificial manner in order to distance the audience from the characters and bring the ideas to the fore–perhaps in the same vein as Bertolt Brecht's notion of "epic theater".

This is not so much a movie or a play as it is a staged philosophical dialogue. It examines the power relationships between man and woman, teacher and student. When the student comes to the professor to reveal the case she has built against him, it shows how words and deeds in one context can be given a whole different thrust and meaning when used to "build a case". Or are they really that different? Perhaps her case focuses and explicates the real underlying relationship of those words and deeds. Those are the kinds of questions Mamet raises, and I think it is a masterful exploration.

But is it a movie? Well, it is certainly dramatic, if stilted, and the dénoument is devastating. It may not be a good movie, but Mamet knew exactly what he was doing, and I'd watch it again.