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.

Quotations from Chairman Mamet, Part III

More quotes from David Mamet's Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business.

"The making of movies is magnificently pragmatic. As in combat, as in sex, the theoretical is all well and good if one's a commentator, but the thing itself can actually be understood only through experience. No one on any set, or in any cutting room, knows the difference (if such there is) between realism and naturalism -- they are merely "telling a story with pictures." A couple of guys in a coffee shop set out to write a gag; a couple of guys with a camera set out to film a gag; a couple of guys in an editing room set out to make sense of the trash that's been dumped on their desks. That's moviemaking in its entirety -- anything else is just "the suits." Through it all the clock is ticking: so many days and they take away the camera, so many days and the studio needs to release the print."

And this:

"The dramatic experience is essentially the enjoyment of the postponement of enjoyment. The mouth waters at the prospect of a delicious meal; the palms sweat in anticipatory delight of sex. The enjoyment of the pseudodramatic entertainment has nothing to do with anticipation. It is, not only aesthetically but physiologically, akin to actual ingestion or congress.*

*Consider the difference between enjoyment and stimulation. One leaves the ballet feeling refreshed, as a promise has been fulfilled. One quits the videogame or pornographic film feeling empty and vaguely debauched -- for one has only been stimulated. The brain, here, craves a repetition of the stimulation, as with any drug. One may sit in front of the television for five hours, but after King Lear one goes home."

Quotations from Chairman Mamet, Part II

More quotations from David Mamet's book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business.

"As the writer changes, year to year, his or her perceptions and interests change. At twenty he is interested only in sex, at thirty in sex and money, at forty in money and sex, at sixty in money and validation, et cetera."

And this:

"The filmed drama (as any drama) is a succession of scenes. Each scene must end so that the hero is thwarted in pursuit of his goal -- so that he, as discussed elsewhere, is forced to go on to the next scene to get what he wants.

If he is forced, the audience, watching his progress, wonders with him, how he will fare in the upcoming scene, as the film is essentially a progression of scenes. To write a successful scene, one must stringently apply and stringently answer the following three questions:

1. Who wants what from whom?
2. What happens if they don't get it?
3. Why now?

That's it. As a writer, your yetzer ha'ra (evil inclination) will do everything in its vast power to dissuade you from asking these questions of your work. You will tell yourself the questions are irrelevant as the scene is "interesting," "meaningful," "revelatory of character," "deeply felt," and so on; all of these are synonyms for "it stinks in ice."
...
These magic questions and their worth are not known to any script reader, executive, or producer. They are known and used by few writers. They are, however, part of the unconscious and perpetual understanding of that group who will be judging you and by whose say-so your work will stand or fall: the audience."

And this:

"a. Make them wonder.
b. Answer their question in a way both surprising and inevitable."

Quotations from Chairman Mamet, Part I

David Mamet is a successful playwright (American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross), screenwriter (The Untouchables, Wag the Dog), and director (The Spanish Prisoner, State and Main). He's written about the act of writing and directing. His latest thought on these things are in his book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business. Here are some of this thoughts from the book:

"I pass a poster for the current film and count eighteen names of producers.

On the poster?

Note that the poster is traditionally a way to attract the eye, and so the mind, to a novelty. The producers may in fact have contributed something to the film, but who in the world has ever gone to a film because of the identity of a producer? No one.

Then why list eighteen?

And here we have, to the physician, the unfortunate, inescapable, symptom -- here is the sunken cheek, the dark hollow neath the eye, the foul breath and thready pulse, the herald of death: the film, perhaps, is being made no longer to attract the audience but to buttress or advance the position of the executive."

And this:

"Movies are a potentially great art. Like any human endeavor, like you and me, they have inevitably been exposed to and have, in the main, submitted to the power of self-corruption, of self-righteousness, to the abuse of power. But like General della Rovere, like you and me, like the studio executives, they possess the possibility of beauty and, hence, for human transformation: not as preaching, not as instruction, not as doctrine -- all of which, finally, are out of place in the cinema and can awaken, at best, but self-righteousness. Movies possess the power to speak to the human soul, to free us from the weight of repression.

What is repressed? Our knowledge of our own worthlessness.

The truth cleanses, but the truth hurts -- everywhere but in the drama, where, in comedy or tragedy, the truth restores through art.

The audience has a right to these dramas, and the filmmaker and the studios have a responsibility to attempt them."

More quotes to come.