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The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always, 'What does the protagonist want?' That's what drama is. It comes down to that. It's not about theme, it's not about ideas, it's not about setting, but what the protagonist wants.

David Mamet

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David Mamet
Age: 76
Born: 1947
Born: November 30
Actor
Author
Film Director
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Television Producer
Theatrical Director
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
David Alen Mamet
David Alan Mamet
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Always
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Protagonists

More quotes by David Mamet

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They have a desire to put on plays and to fulfill that traditional role of a theater in a community: to be the place where people go to hear the truth.
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The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual's greed for power and the electorates' desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.
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Every fear hides a wish.
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Every scene should be able to answer three questions: Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?
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A play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have a pretty good play. We know this because we see plays in translation. Not many people speak Norwegian or Danish or whatever guys like Ibsen spoke, or Russian - yet we understand Chekhov and the others.
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Hitchcock denigrated American films, saying they were all 'pictures of people talking' - as, indeed, most of them are.
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Obama is a tyrant the same way FDR was a tyrant. He has a view of presidential power that states: the government is in control of the country, and the president is in charge of the government. He's taken an imperial view of the presidency.
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I'm not the guy to ask about politics. I'm a gag writer.
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The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection.
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I'm entitled to my political opinions, and I get to vote because I'm an American.
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Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it.
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Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it's full of surprises, and you're constantly getting f***ed.
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I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old.
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Film is a collaborative business: bend over.
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When you come into the theatre, you have to be willing to say, 'We're all here to undergo a communion, to find out what the hell is going on in this world.' If you're not willing to say that, what you get is entertainment instead of art, and poor entertainment at that.
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American football seems to resemble soccer in that one scores by putting the ball through the opponent's goal but football, truly is about land. The Settlers want to move the line of scrimmage Westward, the Native Americans want to move it East.
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The study of acting consists in the main of getting out of one’s own way, and in learning to deal with uncertainty and being comfortable being uncomfortable.
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I go out there. I'm out there every day. [Pause] There is nothing out there.
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A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.
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Movies were never an art form, they were entertainment. It just evolved into an art form from there, and it's still evolving in different ways.
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