On Directing Film

This book is aimed at film directors, but the principles are equally true for writers of creative fiction. An easy read it really gets your mind working. Thoroughly enjoyable.

The best book on Directing I have ever read. Mamet's ideas on directing are very simplistic getting you to tell the story in images beat by beat. Some of the ideas in this book may offend some performers, writers and film makers however the principles in this book are sound.

That David Mamet has firm views on any subject he addresses in print is a given - this short tome being his views on filmaking is no exception, being a short series of lectures on filmmaking he gave at a US university, though at times they do not read much like any lecture you may have attended! For Mamet as a script writer, the story is key with his love of older movies for this aspect showing continually. Getting the beats of the acting, visuals, editing of scenes and ensuring these do nothing but support the key motivations and storyline of any scene and script is the key discipline to be learnt under filmmaking by Mamet. While at times he overstates some of his points, and reconfirms his dislikes of Hollywood and its inability at many levels to understand what makes a great movie plus method acting with its over emphasis on "what is my motivation?", there is a major lesson that is pretty well thumped into you by the time you have finished this book. That is be endless in your focus of questioning what are you trying to show or get to in the story through any dialogue/camera shot/visual edit/sound addition. The end result will then become an automatic process of continually challenging your team and yourself with "Do I really need this?" and "If I do this, what does it really add?" on everything and paring down to the essence of the story. Applying this to each scene in any film will in turn make the whole movie better simply because you will have discovered the overall story you want to tell and how. The loser will be all the superfluous concepts and motives that many filmmakers burden and overload their films with, which in the process simply confuse or are irrelavant. For that very hard to learn lesson alone, this short book is worthy of being read by all filmmakers.

Some people are just born to teach. David Mamet's vision and recomendations are life changing.

Budding director grandson very excited about reading this book

A great quick read which you'll reread over and over finding new gems of advice.

Very pretentious and tediously written. Some good ideas in here though

Christmas present for my husband. He was delighted with it and spent much of Boxing Day ignoring me while he read it. Arrived well in time. Thanks.

A few years ago I married a scoundrel--a delusional little man who had taken two whole classes one year at a presigious film school before announcing to the world that he was the next Steven Spielberg, who then spent the next twenty years refusing to get a job because filmmaking was his alleged "destiny." As it turned out, I really was his muse; obsessed with real-life cable crime dramas about psycho brides who kill their unsuspecting, purely innocent husbands, his family would later tell me, he had hoped that he could get me to snap and become the "write what you know" foil in the horror movie of the century, to gain the wealth, adulation and admiration he so richly deserved. In the years since our not-so-amicable divorce, I've been in real film school, taking classes and seminars wherever I can, and working every peon job on every set that will have me because, in a weird twist of life's true horror, I actually do want to make films, and I want to make them well. David Mamet is one of the great filmmakers that my Peter Pan wanted to pose as, but in reading this book I have learned that everything I had been told about the science of Mamet's method was completely false. Either Dopey had a far poorer grasp on reading (and watching) comprehension than I ever realised, or he just made it up as he went along. In truth, I learned in reading this book that Film Directing is much more creative and far less pretentious than I'd been led to believe, and this lecture series made me wish that I had chosen Columbia instead of Boise State way back when these classes were first taught. David Mamet's positive view that the film director is a "Dionysian extention of the screenwriter" makes the prospect much less dull. His philosophy about "letting the story evolve," how that happens, and allowing the subconcious mind to lead shot sequences and angles is brilliant. But his final advice to "stick to the channel, it's marked," is what makes this series of lessons timeless. All of the classes I have taken have left me feeling daunted, worried about the future direction of my path, losing focus in the minutiae of technicality, camera choices, light angles...resisting the urge to pummel bad actors. But then there is the clearheaded, short-and-sweet teaching of Mamet to follow first principles, plotting a sure course, summed up with: "The more time you have invested, and the more of yourself you have invested in the plan, the more secure you will feel in the face of terror, loneliness, or the unfeeling or ignorant comments of those from whom you are asking a whole bunch of money or indulgence." This book is truly a series of peptalks from a great and humble mentor, and is going into my war chest to be referred back to whenever I need to find the center again. It's so much more sensible than the ramblings of the idiot I married.

Beim Lesen dieses kurzen Buches habe ich mehr über das Filmemachen gelernt als in zig Büchern davor. Hier hat es das erste Mal wirklich "Klick" gemacht und ich habe verstanden was "Visual Storytelling" wirklich ausmacht. In diesem Buch lernt man nichts über Kameraführung, Komposition oder ähnliches, sondern rein wie man eine Geschichte in Bildern erzählt. Das Ergebnis ist eine sehr nüchtern Erzählung, weshalb einige Rezensenten dem Autor vorwerfen, den künstlerischen Aspekt zu vernachlässigen. Damit haben sie Recht, das kommt dem Buch aber nur zu Gute, denn damit kann es sich auf das Kernthema konzentrieren. Für Bildkomposition oder Kameraführung muss man zu anderen Büchern greifen.

Les conseils sont simples mais les examples utilisés permettent de bien saisir le message. Il se lit rapidement et m'a vraiment permis de changer ma façon de visualiser des court métrages

Apesar de datado em 1991, o conteúdo do livro continua extremamente atual. De forma simples e clara, David Mamet compartilha algumas de suas experiências para nos ajudar no entendimento do processo de construção narrativa audiovisual, desmistificando as lendas Hollywoodianas e estimulando o pensamento crítico sobre a ação de narrar.

Arrived on time in a very good condition! Loved the contents the author describes in the book. A great book for young, aspiring entertainers.