What's with Mamet's dialogue style?

If one watches a David Mamet written and directed film, such as Heist (2001), Spartan (2004), or House of Games (1987), it will quickly become apparent that the dialogue is, well, different. Often times very jarringly so.

According to the wiki page, "Mamet speak" is cynical, street-smart edge, precisely crafted for effect."

Why do some of his movies tend to take the Mamet style over the top? The dialogue should flow, and like in real life, parts speak over each other, yet in the movies listed, when that happens it's like the director says "now speak over him and make it OBVIOUS you are."

I'm hoping there is a real Mamet fan here who can maybe shed some light on how better to 'get' Mamet.

dialogue david-mamet

Best Answer

Wikipedia seems to cover this quite well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet#.22Mamet_speak.22

The specific quote directly from Mamet:

When asked how he developed his style for writing dialogue, Mamet said, "In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, based solely on our ability to speak the language viciously. That's probably where my ability was honed."

That's simply Mamet's style. It's how he likes to write dialog.