Post by sciwriter on Jan 29, 2006 18:23:47 GMT -7
Please describe the United States elite special forces unit known as Delta Force (see article below) and/or its counterpart of any other country, e.g., Poland's GROM, which you may be aware of.
Are members of the unit “commuter warriors” who live at home, are sent abroad to carry out their mission, then return home after completing the mission?
Thanks.
Carl
___________________________
www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/arts/television/29itzk.html?pagewanted=print
NY TIMES
January 29, 2006
Television
Mr. Mamet Has a Few Choice Words
By DAVE ITZKOFF
SAUGUS, Calif.
THERE are many lessons about the craft of writing that David Mamet would like to
share with the general public - pithy, sensible guidelines that any aspiring
wordsmith could instantly benefit from - but alas, most of them are unprintable
in this newspaper. What's the difference between a fairy tale and a war story?
Why is studying to write a television screenplay like studying to be a
prostitute? Until accepted standards of obscenity are relaxed or Mr. Mamet
becomes more adept at censoring himself, these teachings must remain lost to
history.
Still, the author and director has one pearl of wisdom that can be
safely conveyed. "Doing a movie or a play is like running a marathon," Mr. Mamet
said in Saugus, about 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles, on the set of his new
television drama, "The Unit." "Doing a television show is like running until you
die."
At 58, the hardy Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright continues to turn out scripts
for stage and film at a relentless pace, while still finding the time to train
occasionally with an expert in knife combat, just to keep in shape. But until
now, he had never seen a television series of his creation reach a network's
schedule. To make that happen, he had to undergo an education of his own.
Mr. Mamet has had his share of experiences in the medium: As a teenager, he
played the recurring role of a soda jerk in a Jewish-themed variety show
broadcast in his hometown of Chicago, called "Kumzitz" (a Yiddish-derived term
meaning "get-together" or "campfire"). His first produced television screenplay
came more than two decades later, when he wrote an episode of "Hill Street
Blues" that ran during that NBC drama's final season in 1987. In later years, he
also developed new series for fellow Chicagoans Dennis Franz (a "Hill Street"
alumnus who would find greater success in "NYPD Blue") and William Petersen (who
went on to star in "CSI"), but neither program made it. "I would say my TV
career was spotted," Mr. Mamet said, "except it was all failures."
While working on the film "Spartan," a 2004 military thriller, Mr. Mamet became
an ardent admirer of the 2002 book "Inside Delta Force." Written by the film's
technical adviser, Command Sgt. Maj. Eric L. Haney, retired, it is an account of
his service as a founding member of the elite Army group and his combat missions
in hotspots like Iran, Lebanon and Honduras. "We would sit around, and he would
tell us his stories over bottles of rum," Mr. Mamet recalled, "and by the fourth
or fifth bottle, you're going, I can't believe I'm talking to a guy who either
was there, or can convince me he was there."
Mr. Mamet thought it was perfect source material for a television series but
felt that he lacked the stature to get it made by himself. Then, while directing
an episode of the FX police drama, "The Shield," he realized that the show's
creator and executive producer, Shawn Ryan, could help him pitch the concept
around Hollywood. As Mr. Mamet explained, "My attitude was always, 'I don't need
your money, why don't you' " - and here he used a phrase deemed appropriate only
by sailors and vice presidents. "Shawn pointed out this was perhaps not the most
effective approach."
For Mr. Ryan, collaborating on "The Unit" represented not only a chance to work
with one of his artistic idols, but also an opportunity to tell stories he felt
were largely absent from television. "We're so accustomed to seeing war told
through the eyes of soldiers who are far away and the families left behind," Mr.
Ryan said in an interview at the production offices of "The Shield." "Delta
Force guys live at home, get sent out on these missions, and they come back.
They're almost commuter warriors, and you don't really see that portrayed much
anywhere."
With Mr. Ryan's support, the studio division of 20th Century Fox (where he has a
production deal) signed on to produce "The Unit." And at his suggestion, they
proposed the series to broadcast networks, rather than to cable channels.
"Shawn's point," said Sergeant Major Haney, "was that on cable you can say" a
word that Mr. Mamet likes to say "and on the networks you make a lot more money.
That answered it."
When it came time to meet with network executives, even Mr. Mamet, the author of
"Glengarry Glen Ross," found he had much to learn about salesmanship. In the
group's first meeting, with Fox Broadcasting, "we were just awful," said Mr.
Ryan. "There really wasn't a flow." In a second meeting, with ABC, they proved
no better. "I think we elevated the pitch up to mediocre," he said. "We got very
polite nods."
By the group's third pitch, at CBS, "we had a section where Eric just talked
about his real-life experiences, and he was just captivating," Mr. Ryan
recalled. Les Moonves, the head of CBS, "looked around the room and said, 'We
love it.' I loved the inclusion of 'we,' as if they'd had a psychic conversation
with each other."
As production began last year on "The Unit," Mr. Mamet devised motivational
tools to encourage the show's writers to stay true to the spirit of Sergeant
Major Haney's memoir. "We made up this big banner and put it in the writers'
room on the first day," Mr. Mamet said. "It said, 'Only tell those stories which
are told in the half-hour before closing time.' "
Mr. Ryan said that Mr. Mamet's most valuable instructions involved economical
storytelling. "Dave's always saying: 'What is essential? And if it's not
essential, throw it out,' " Mr. Ryan said. "Especially in a 'Desperate
Housewives' kind of universe, there seem to be a lot of style points given out
these days, and Dave isn't a style-points kind of guy. He came in one day and
said: 'You know who's really brilliant? The people who write up the call
sheets.' "
For the actors who worked with Mr. Mamet, who helped to cast the show and
directed 2 of its 13 episodes, "The Unit" offered a crash course in an
idiosyncratic talent who sometimes speaks his own language, and is fond of
short, nonsensical phrases like "bibbidi bobbidi boo" and "yada, yada, yada."
"He's so specific in his directions, in such a bizarre way, that it can take a
moment to sink in," said Scott Foley, the actor playing Bob Brown, the newest
recruit in "The Unit." "I'll say: 'David, this line doesn't sound right. I'd
like to say this.' He says: 'Yeah, that's got two too many syllables. Try
something else.' And I'll think, 'How the hell do you know that?' "
MR. MAMET'S plays and films are full of staccato beats and willful obfuscation -
a style of dialogue so consistent and so distinctive that it's easy to
recognize, or to parody. But even its greatest fans might wonder how that style
translates to the small screen, and whether it can compete on a prime-time
schedule teeming with by-the-book crime dramas.
No one on "The Unit" would accuse Mr. Mamet of muffling his distinctive voice,
but his colleagues found him much more open to compromise than they expected.
"How do you tell David Mamet that his idea for a scene there is wrong, and
you've got a better one?" Mr. Ryan asked. "What you learn, and what any good
television writer learns, is that you should take the best idea, wherever it
comes from. But you have to defend your idea and be able to explain why it is
the best."
Streamlined scenes and punchy dialogue do not necessarily add up to a television
series that is simple to follow; by the end of the first season, "The Unit" has
woven a web of intersecting plotlines about military intrigue, marital
infidelity and - of course - shady real-estate deals that can only be described
as Mametian.
This narrative strategy created its own dramatic tension, between a team of
iconoclastic storytellers and a television network with a mission to deliver the
largest viewing audience possible. "A guy like David Mamet makes people at CBS
nervous, because he's his own man and he has his own ideas," said Mr. Ryan, who
often acted as a mediator between the two sides. But in reviewing some
focus-group testing for "The Unit," Mr. Ryan said, he found encouraging results:
"The sense was, strangely, that people who were confused actually enjoyed the
episode more than the people who weren't. And what I took that to mean was they
weren't actually confused - they were curious."
Though his own leftward political leanings are hardly a secret, Mr. Mamet said
that it was his curiosity about clandestine organizations, rather than his
ideological convictions, that drew him to "The Unit." "You can't have a closed
system without having secrets, whether it's a family or a church group or an
Army platoon," he said. "We're not trying to pass judgment. The show is not
prowar, it's not antiwar. It's very much pro-military. We're trying to take you
backstage and show you stuff you wouldn't have imagined about the real lives of
these people."
Sergeant Major Haney agreed, adding that all he had learned from war is that
it's "the stupidest, most horrible thing mankind does," and as opposed to how
combat is usually depicted in popular culture, "the reality is much less gory,
but it's much more shocking and much more dramatic." And with a Mamet-like
aphorism, he noted that he was starting to see parallels between the set of a
television series and the battlefields on which he once fought: "You can say
you're going to do whatever in a given situation. But once the shooting starts,
all plans are off."
Here endeth the lesson.
Are members of the unit “commuter warriors” who live at home, are sent abroad to carry out their mission, then return home after completing the mission?
Thanks.
Carl
___________________________
www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/arts/television/29itzk.html?pagewanted=print
NY TIMES
January 29, 2006
Television
Mr. Mamet Has a Few Choice Words
By DAVE ITZKOFF
SAUGUS, Calif.
THERE are many lessons about the craft of writing that David Mamet would like to
share with the general public - pithy, sensible guidelines that any aspiring
wordsmith could instantly benefit from - but alas, most of them are unprintable
in this newspaper. What's the difference between a fairy tale and a war story?
Why is studying to write a television screenplay like studying to be a
prostitute? Until accepted standards of obscenity are relaxed or Mr. Mamet
becomes more adept at censoring himself, these teachings must remain lost to
history.
Still, the author and director has one pearl of wisdom that can be
safely conveyed. "Doing a movie or a play is like running a marathon," Mr. Mamet
said in Saugus, about 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles, on the set of his new
television drama, "The Unit." "Doing a television show is like running until you
die."
At 58, the hardy Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright continues to turn out scripts
for stage and film at a relentless pace, while still finding the time to train
occasionally with an expert in knife combat, just to keep in shape. But until
now, he had never seen a television series of his creation reach a network's
schedule. To make that happen, he had to undergo an education of his own.
Mr. Mamet has had his share of experiences in the medium: As a teenager, he
played the recurring role of a soda jerk in a Jewish-themed variety show
broadcast in his hometown of Chicago, called "Kumzitz" (a Yiddish-derived term
meaning "get-together" or "campfire"). His first produced television screenplay
came more than two decades later, when he wrote an episode of "Hill Street
Blues" that ran during that NBC drama's final season in 1987. In later years, he
also developed new series for fellow Chicagoans Dennis Franz (a "Hill Street"
alumnus who would find greater success in "NYPD Blue") and William Petersen (who
went on to star in "CSI"), but neither program made it. "I would say my TV
career was spotted," Mr. Mamet said, "except it was all failures."
While working on the film "Spartan," a 2004 military thriller, Mr. Mamet became
an ardent admirer of the 2002 book "Inside Delta Force." Written by the film's
technical adviser, Command Sgt. Maj. Eric L. Haney, retired, it is an account of
his service as a founding member of the elite Army group and his combat missions
in hotspots like Iran, Lebanon and Honduras. "We would sit around, and he would
tell us his stories over bottles of rum," Mr. Mamet recalled, "and by the fourth
or fifth bottle, you're going, I can't believe I'm talking to a guy who either
was there, or can convince me he was there."
Mr. Mamet thought it was perfect source material for a television series but
felt that he lacked the stature to get it made by himself. Then, while directing
an episode of the FX police drama, "The Shield," he realized that the show's
creator and executive producer, Shawn Ryan, could help him pitch the concept
around Hollywood. As Mr. Mamet explained, "My attitude was always, 'I don't need
your money, why don't you' " - and here he used a phrase deemed appropriate only
by sailors and vice presidents. "Shawn pointed out this was perhaps not the most
effective approach."
For Mr. Ryan, collaborating on "The Unit" represented not only a chance to work
with one of his artistic idols, but also an opportunity to tell stories he felt
were largely absent from television. "We're so accustomed to seeing war told
through the eyes of soldiers who are far away and the families left behind," Mr.
Ryan said in an interview at the production offices of "The Shield." "Delta
Force guys live at home, get sent out on these missions, and they come back.
They're almost commuter warriors, and you don't really see that portrayed much
anywhere."
With Mr. Ryan's support, the studio division of 20th Century Fox (where he has a
production deal) signed on to produce "The Unit." And at his suggestion, they
proposed the series to broadcast networks, rather than to cable channels.
"Shawn's point," said Sergeant Major Haney, "was that on cable you can say" a
word that Mr. Mamet likes to say "and on the networks you make a lot more money.
That answered it."
When it came time to meet with network executives, even Mr. Mamet, the author of
"Glengarry Glen Ross," found he had much to learn about salesmanship. In the
group's first meeting, with Fox Broadcasting, "we were just awful," said Mr.
Ryan. "There really wasn't a flow." In a second meeting, with ABC, they proved
no better. "I think we elevated the pitch up to mediocre," he said. "We got very
polite nods."
By the group's third pitch, at CBS, "we had a section where Eric just talked
about his real-life experiences, and he was just captivating," Mr. Ryan
recalled. Les Moonves, the head of CBS, "looked around the room and said, 'We
love it.' I loved the inclusion of 'we,' as if they'd had a psychic conversation
with each other."
As production began last year on "The Unit," Mr. Mamet devised motivational
tools to encourage the show's writers to stay true to the spirit of Sergeant
Major Haney's memoir. "We made up this big banner and put it in the writers'
room on the first day," Mr. Mamet said. "It said, 'Only tell those stories which
are told in the half-hour before closing time.' "
Mr. Ryan said that Mr. Mamet's most valuable instructions involved economical
storytelling. "Dave's always saying: 'What is essential? And if it's not
essential, throw it out,' " Mr. Ryan said. "Especially in a 'Desperate
Housewives' kind of universe, there seem to be a lot of style points given out
these days, and Dave isn't a style-points kind of guy. He came in one day and
said: 'You know who's really brilliant? The people who write up the call
sheets.' "
For the actors who worked with Mr. Mamet, who helped to cast the show and
directed 2 of its 13 episodes, "The Unit" offered a crash course in an
idiosyncratic talent who sometimes speaks his own language, and is fond of
short, nonsensical phrases like "bibbidi bobbidi boo" and "yada, yada, yada."
"He's so specific in his directions, in such a bizarre way, that it can take a
moment to sink in," said Scott Foley, the actor playing Bob Brown, the newest
recruit in "The Unit." "I'll say: 'David, this line doesn't sound right. I'd
like to say this.' He says: 'Yeah, that's got two too many syllables. Try
something else.' And I'll think, 'How the hell do you know that?' "
MR. MAMET'S plays and films are full of staccato beats and willful obfuscation -
a style of dialogue so consistent and so distinctive that it's easy to
recognize, or to parody. But even its greatest fans might wonder how that style
translates to the small screen, and whether it can compete on a prime-time
schedule teeming with by-the-book crime dramas.
No one on "The Unit" would accuse Mr. Mamet of muffling his distinctive voice,
but his colleagues found him much more open to compromise than they expected.
"How do you tell David Mamet that his idea for a scene there is wrong, and
you've got a better one?" Mr. Ryan asked. "What you learn, and what any good
television writer learns, is that you should take the best idea, wherever it
comes from. But you have to defend your idea and be able to explain why it is
the best."
Streamlined scenes and punchy dialogue do not necessarily add up to a television
series that is simple to follow; by the end of the first season, "The Unit" has
woven a web of intersecting plotlines about military intrigue, marital
infidelity and - of course - shady real-estate deals that can only be described
as Mametian.
This narrative strategy created its own dramatic tension, between a team of
iconoclastic storytellers and a television network with a mission to deliver the
largest viewing audience possible. "A guy like David Mamet makes people at CBS
nervous, because he's his own man and he has his own ideas," said Mr. Ryan, who
often acted as a mediator between the two sides. But in reviewing some
focus-group testing for "The Unit," Mr. Ryan said, he found encouraging results:
"The sense was, strangely, that people who were confused actually enjoyed the
episode more than the people who weren't. And what I took that to mean was they
weren't actually confused - they were curious."
Though his own leftward political leanings are hardly a secret, Mr. Mamet said
that it was his curiosity about clandestine organizations, rather than his
ideological convictions, that drew him to "The Unit." "You can't have a closed
system without having secrets, whether it's a family or a church group or an
Army platoon," he said. "We're not trying to pass judgment. The show is not
prowar, it's not antiwar. It's very much pro-military. We're trying to take you
backstage and show you stuff you wouldn't have imagined about the real lives of
these people."
Sergeant Major Haney agreed, adding that all he had learned from war is that
it's "the stupidest, most horrible thing mankind does," and as opposed to how
combat is usually depicted in popular culture, "the reality is much less gory,
but it's much more shocking and much more dramatic." And with a Mamet-like
aphorism, he noted that he was starting to see parallels between the set of a
television series and the battlefields on which he once fought: "You can say
you're going to do whatever in a given situation. But once the shooting starts,
all plans are off."
Here endeth the lesson.
