Histoire d'un lac

I came upon this movie while channel surfing. I missed the opening but I was drawn in immediately. I loved the dialogue. A scene happens, there is no "action" but the characters are changed by each other. And the characters are so strange and hectic. But you fall into them and their foibles. I also loved the 'jewishness' of Dale. Mamet's dialogue is my best. I always have a sense that he is writing and then I have to come and check. It's heightened dialogue. Almost super-real. Peter Faulk and Denis Leary are also an absolute treat in this movie. I knew that Joe Mantegna was a favorite actor of Mamet's but I didn't know that he directed as well. Very well I thought. I don't remember ever hearing about this movie before so I'm glad I caught it.

Several things about this movie turned me off. I am Great Lakes Merchant Marine and was excited to hear a movie about a Great Lakes crew was being produced. They picked a Great Vessel (the Canadian flagged Seaway Queen). But although you can't blame the actors (they were working with poor material) Lakeboat gives an unrealistic stereotypical view of merchant seaman. Not only that but there are several inaccuracies in the props. For example one character makes a ship to shore call on the inter ship phone system. While the ship was being unloaded they show crew members using hand trucks to unload boxed cargo, the majority of the ships on the lakes carry bulk cargo. This ignorance to realistic detail bothered me but so did the fact that they painted every sailor as foul mouthed know nothings. I honestly have heard worse language from Jr. High School students then my shipmates. It is just so painfully inaccurate.

Lakeboat doesn't have a plot, so I guess it's more of a character sketch. Like a series of disconnected skits, various characters walk in, fire off some non-sequiturs, and leave. Unfortunately, it's not funny -- at all -- and the pace is slow and boring. Frankly, I couldn't get through it. The lines are somewhat funny but the pacing and the portrayal and the music is all serious.

Speaking of music, it's awful -- I assume it's more nepotism by writer David Mamet since the composer is "Bob Mamet". The film isn't awful, it's more of a "bad"... the only reason I'm upset is that I expect so much more from David Mamet. Maybe I should stop that.

Who should see this film:

-- Nobody, even if you think you might want to. See Bottle Rocket instead, or better yet, The Royal Tenenbaums.

I'll give Lakeboat a disappointing 4 out of 10.

Haven't seen the movie, but saw the play at the Goodman in Chicago years ago. Mamet was uncannily on target; I felt he knew my old crew mates inside and out. Other comments seem to evaluate the movie as entertainment or what they expect of Mamet, or some other side issue. How about evaluating it as TRUTH?! The lakeboats are all gone now. The Mesabi iron ore range in Minnesota is played out and South American steel has virtually killed the US steel industry. The ore boats no longer ply the lakes, and the last one, the Mather, is now a floating museum docked at Cleveland.

So the play catches a piece of American history recorded nowhere else. All that foul language; yep, it's right on! Don't like it? Then you don't like telling it like it is! (Pardon -- like it WAS!). Perhaps the movie has it's faults; I hear they forgot the delay between an engine room signal and the reply/confirmation. But reviewers who focus on the entertainment quality of the movie miss the point: it should be viewed as LIVING HISTORY!! (Alas, of an era now totally dead and gone).

In the Summer of 1950, fresh out of high school, I shipped out as a deckhand on the Samuel F. B. Morse one of the last wooden hatch boats, but got fired the next week because I was to weak to handle the huge wooden hatches. Later I shipped out September 6, 1950, on the Presque Isle, on a run from Cleveland to Escanaba, and stayed for the Fall months. The next Summer is was deckwatch on the James A Farrell.

It's all gone now, and David Mamet's play is the only record I've ever seen of what crew life was really like. Found the movie/play boring? crude? tedious? Right; now you know what life on the lakeboats was really like!!!

One would think that having worked with David Mamet for so many years, Joe Mantegna would have a superb understanding of Mamet-speak. Mamet's dialog requires a certain rhythm, or cadence to make it work, and despite the high caliber actors involved in this project, I didn't feel that many of them pulled it off very well. Denis Leary and Robert Forster seemed to get it, but everyone else around them seemed very stilted, and the dialog seemed truly forced. Mamet is fascinated by the dance of dialog, and if the cast won't dance, it doesn't work.