Friday, August 17, 2007

Quotations from Chairman Mamet, Part IV

The last installment of quotes from David Mamet's book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business.
"The observed rule in Hollywood is this: 'Feel free to treat everyone like scum, for if they desire something from you, they'll just have to put up with it, and should they rise to wealth and power, any past civility shown toward them will either be forgotten or remembered as some aberrant and contemptible display of weakness.'"
Not exactly "Be nice to people you meet on the way up as they're the same people you'll meet on the way down." Also this:
"Robert Evans wrote in his book The Kid Stays in the Picture that the best films seem to come from the most troubled sets, but with respect to Mr. Evans, I think this is a bunch of hogwash. I think that a producer likes a troubled set, because it allows him to "save the day" and otherwise exert undue and unfortunate influence upon a mechanism that, had he been doing his job correctly, should have run smoothly in the first place."
Here endeth the lesson.

2 comments:

Mark said...

What I love about this book is that he trashes hollywood but writes it in such a formal way, most of the people he is trashing wouldn't read it (or some might suggest, understand it).

Nancy said...

May I suggest another book by a Hollywood producer: Roger Corman's HOW I MADE 100 MOVIES IN HOLLYWOOD AND NEVER LOST A DIME.
I'd much rather have worked for Corman than Mamet.