On Directing Film
DAVID MAMET is a director, novelist, poet, and essayist, as well as an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. He has written screenplays for over twenty films, including The Verdict, The Untouchables, and Wag the Dog, and has been nominated for an Academy Award two times. Phil Spector, a 2013 HBO film starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, earned him two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing.
David Mamet explains how a film is made using his unique perspective as a playwright, screenwriter, and director of his own critically acclaimed films such as House of Games, State and Main, and Things Change. He examines every aspect of directing—from script to cutting room—to demonstrate the numerous tasks directors undertake in order to achieve their primary goal: presenting a story that is understandable by the audience and has the power to be both surprising and predictable at the same time. On Directing Film, based on a series of classes Mamet taught at Columbia University's film school, will be invaluable not only to students but to anyone interested in an overview of the craft of filmmaking.
A film director, according to David Mamet, must think visually above all else. The majority of this insightful and amusing book is written in dialogue and is based on film classes Mamet taught at Columbia University. He encourages his students to tell their stories through the juxtaposition of uninflected images rather than words. Mamet contends that the best films are made up of simple shots. The great filmmaker understands that the burden of cinematic storytelling is not so much in the individual shot as it is in the collective meaning that shots convey when edited together. Many of Mamet's ideas about directing, writing, and acting are influenced by Russian masters such as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Sergei M. Eisenstein, and Vsevelod Pudovkin, but he presents his material in such a delightful and lively manner that it is revitalized for the modern reader.
Author: David Mamet
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Directing-Film-David-Mamet/dp/0140127224/
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