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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

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The Main Question In

David Mamet

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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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Rhetorical Question

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Liberalism Is A Religion. Its Tenets Cannot Be Proved, Its Capacity For Waste And Destruction Demonstrated. But It Affords A Feeling Of Spiritual Rectitude At Little Or No Cost.

All Fears Are One Fear. Just The Fear Of Death. And We Accept It, Then We Are At Peace.

You Know, I Once Read An Interesting Book Which Said That, Uh, Most People Lost In The Wilds, They, They Die Of Shame. Yeah, See, They Die Of Shame. 'what Did I Do Wrong? How Could I Have Gotten Myself Into This?' And So They Sit There And They... Die. Because They Didn't Do The One Thing That Would Save Their Lives. Thinking.

Art Is About The Spontaneous Connection Of The Artist To His Own Unconscious - About Insight Beyond Reason. If His Insight Were Reasonable, Anyone Could Do It, But Anyone Cannot. Only Few Can, And They Are Called.

Films Have Degenerated To Their Original Operation As Carnival Amusement - They Offer Not Drama But Thrills.

Art Is An Expression Of Joy And Awe. It Is Not An Attempt To Share One's Virtues And Accomplishments With The Audience, But An Act Of Selfless Spirit.

Opportunity May Knock, But It Seldom Nags.

I'm Responding To The Will Of The People.

They Say You Can't Study Kabbalah Until You Are At Least 40 Years Old. You Know Why? You Have To Have Experienced At Least One Generation Making The Same Mistakes As The Previous One.

People May Or May Not Say What They Mean... But They Always Say Something Designed To Get What They Want.

It Is The Objective Of The Protagonist That Keeps Us In Our Seats.

When You Come Into The Theatre, You Have To Be Willing To Say, 'we're All Here To Undergo A Communion, To Find Out What The Hell Is Going On In This World.' If You're Not Willing To Say That, What You Get Is Entertainment Instead Of Art, And Poor Entertainment At That.

You Don't Know What Life Is. You Know Nothing.

The Audience Requires Not Information But Drama.

Make The Audience Wonder What's Going On By Putting Them In The Same Position As The Protagonist.

Where In The Wide History Of The World Do We Find Art Created By The Excessively Wealthy, Powerful, Or Educated?

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.

The Purpose Of Technique Is To Free The Unconscious. If You Follow The Rules Ploddingly, They Will Allow Your Unconscious To Be Free.

American Football Seems To Resemble Soccer In That One Scores By Putting The Ball Through The Opponent's Goal; But Football, Truly Is About Land. The Settlers Want To Move The Line Of Scrimmage Westward, The Native Americans Want To Move It East.

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).

You Can't Write About History Without Writing About Politics At Some Point. History Is About Movements Of People. 'what Is Criminality And What Is Government' Is A Theme That Runs Through Every History.

As Long As The Protagonist Wants Something, The Audience Will Want Something.

Do Not Internalize The Industrial Model. You Are Not One Of The Myriad Interchangeable Pieces, But A Unique Human Being, And If You've Got Something To Say, Say It, And Think Well Of Yourself While You're Learning To Say It Better.

Always Do Things The Least Interesting Way, The Most Blunt Way, And You Make A Better Movie. This Is My Experience.

The Pain Of Losing Is Diverting. So Is The Thrill Of Winning. Winning, However, Is Lonelier, As Those You've Won Money From Are Not Likely To Commiserate With You. Winning Takes Getting Used To.

Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing, Speak Up, Stand Up, Stay Out Of School.

The Dream And The Film Are The Juxtaposition Of Images In Order To Answer A Question.

In Chicago, We Love Our Crooks!

I've Always Been More Comfortable Sinking While Clutching A Good Theory Than Swimming With An Ugly Fact.

A Play Is Basically A Long, Formalistic Polemic. You Can Write It Without The Poetry, And If You Do, You May Have A Pretty Good Play. We Know This Because We See Plays In Translation. Not Many People Speak Norwegian Or Danish Or Whatever Guys Like Ibsen Spoke, Or Russian - Yet We Understand Chekhov And The Others.

Writing A Novel Is An Incredibly Free Experience. One Puts One's Self In A Narrative Mode. You Can Go Off In Any Direction - The Past, The Future, Or Go Laterally, Or Include One's Own Beliefs. It's Total Freedom.

The Surprise Is Half The Battle. Many Things Are Half The Battle, Losing Is Half The Battle. Let's Think About What's The Whole Battle.

I Love All Insider Memoirs. It Doesn't Matter Whether It's Truck-drivers Or Doctors. I Think Everybody Likes To Go Backstage, Find Out What People Think And What They Talk About And What Specialised Job They Have.

Cultivate A Love Of Skill. Learn Theatrical Skills. They Will Give You Continual Pleasure, Self-confidence, And Link You To Fifty Thousand Years Of The History Of Our Profession.

Self Confidence

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The Correct Unit Of Study Is Not The Play; It Is The Scene.

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