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If you find that a point cannot be made without narration, it is virtually certain that the point is unimportant to the story (which is to say, to the audience).
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
Without
Virtually
Made
Audience
Story
Point
Cannot
Stories
Certain
Narration
Find
Unimportant
More quotes by David Mamet
It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.
David Mamet
Based on a true story is a come-on, the aesthetic equivalent of no loan request refused. For, at best, the creator has fashioned a film based on his understanding of, interpretation of, and reduction of the report of an actual occurrence.
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If you're writing an opinion piece, it's your job to write your opinion. If, on the other hand, you wrote a novel, as Virginia Woolf tells us, it would be inappropriate if you let your novel be influenced by your political opinions.
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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
Being a writer in Hollywood is like going to Hitler's Eagle Nest with a great idea for a bar mitzvah.
David Mamet
Characters on stage, like people in what we refer to as real life, do not speak to reveal themselves. They do not speak to conceal themselves. They speak to get whatever it is that they want. It is the only reason they speak.
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It is the writer’s job to make the play interesting. It is the actor’s job to make the performance truthful.
David Mamet
People ask me, 'What do you do?' And I tell them I'm a writer, but always with the silent reservation, 'I am, of course, not really a writer. Hemingway was a writer.'
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I tend to write a lot, which I think is the secret to being prolific.
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A novel it's different. It's kind of exhilarating not to have to cut to the bone constantly. Oh, well I can go over here for a moment. I can say what I think the guy was thinking or what the day looked like or what the bird was doing. If you do that as a playwright, you're dead.
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I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old.
David Mamet
Always do things the least interesting way, the most blunt way, and you make a better movie. This is my experience.
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War is tragedy. The great war stories are tragedies. It's the failure of diplomacy. 'War and Peace,' 'A Farewell to Arms,' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Those are some of the greatest tragedies.
David Mamet
We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dream life.
David Mamet
Let the cut tell the story. Otherwise you have not got dramatic action, you've got narration.
David Mamet
Put. That coffee. Down. Coffee's for closers only.
David Mamet
I'm entitled to my political opinions, and I get to vote because I'm an American.
David Mamet
If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.
David Mamet
I've always been fascinated by the picaresque.
David Mamet
In a restaurant one is both observed and unobserved. Joy and sorrow can be displayed and observed unwittingly, the writer scowling naively and the diners wondering, What the hell is he doing?
David Mamet
