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The purpose of technique is to free the unconscious. If you follow the rules ploddingly, they will allow your unconscious to be free.

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
Follow
Purpose
Free
Unconscious
Technique
Allow
Rules

More quotes by David Mamet

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Film is a collaborative business: bend over.
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We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?
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Storytelling is like sex. We all do it naturally. Some of us are better at it than others.
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Any time two characters are talking about a third, the scene is a crock of s***.
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It's upsetting to be a man in our society.
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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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Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist.
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I like Bach. I like Randy Newman.
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Mixed martial arts was invented by Brazilians, whose families had been trained by the Japanese. Those Brazilians came to the U.S., where their invention was bought out, gussied up and presented to the world, which found it good.
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What I value most in my friends is loyalty.
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I'm greedy and ambitious like everybody else.
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One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. 'One-size-fits-all,' and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is 'slavery.'
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You can't rely on the acting to tell the story.
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You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'
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Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.
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Don't write stage directions. If it is not apparent what the character is trying to accomplish by saying the line, tell us how the character said it or whether or not she moved to the couch isn't going to aid the case.
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I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old. When 'American Buffalo' came out on Broadway, people would storm out and say, 'How dare he use that kind of language!' Of course I'm alienating the public! That's what they pay me for.
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Here's what happens in a play. You get involved in a situation where something is unbalanced. If nothing's unbalanced, there's no reason to have a play. If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad's not dead and asks him if he's had a good time, it's boring. But if something's unbalanced, it must be returned to order.
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You get rich through luck. You get rich through crime. You get rich through fulfilling the needs of another. You can be as greedy as you like. If you can’t do one of those three things, you ain’t going to get any money.
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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.
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