On Directing Film

I randomly saw this book on Amazon recommends and I ordered it, as only a few days ago I saw Mamet's MasterClass and heavily influenced me. I was really apprehensive when I picked this book because it was a really tiny book and pretty costly compared to its size. However, being a fan of Mamet and someone who works mostly in film line I had to buy it and read it. I loved how Mamet has written this book. Yes, there is not much content on this book but every word in the book is golden and will help you in your film writing and direction career more than any other book with 100 pages. Most the content is written in the form of dialogues between him and his students. It was like you were actually sitting in a workshop with Mamet himself guiding you and telling you about his experiences and how to make a good movie. Though the name of the book is "On Directing Film", I would say this book is more about screenwriting than direction. This is because Mamet by profession is a writer first, being a creator of several plays, screenplays and novels and a director later with superb films such as "House of Games". I loved this book and I am going to read it again. The last page of this book has made a huge impact on me. There is a question that one of his students ask him that what if he works really hard on his movie but the movie still doesn't work. Basically, it is the question that everyone wants to ask - whether one's hard work will pay. Truth is that no one can tell anyone in 100% confirmation that whether his hard work will pay off. You just have to do hard work and then wish everything ends in success. Mamet answers the student in the form of a story and it was the perfect ending to a perfect book. Of course, you have to read the book to know what that story was. If you are a filmmaking student, and a wannabe writer-director, this book is a must read and is another bible which you should read religiously, again and again, to get inside the mind of the master screenwriter legend called Mamet.

This book helped me how to practically think and execute the written script. Thanks David Mamet for sharing the real knowledge useful on field.

The book was in good condition and it a decent and quick read. Pretty thin, like 120 pages at most if not more and gives some interesting views on minimalism in film

Jaisa socha tha usse kai jyada better nikala.

Must have for aspiring filmmakers. Soulful book. Not a technical manual but an insight into Mamets technique of constructing a story.

Great way to explain a fact behind, screenwriting, directing and shot sequencing of a film.

This book is incredible in its simplicity and authenticity. I felt as though Mr. Mamet was personally guiding me. The perspective here is worth the price tag. I loved it.

2.5 , I've read this book with an enthusiasm of a newborn, the auther definitely has the skilsets but the book while reading the first 40 pages has very contrasting ideas, it talks about something in the first page but skips off track and talks about the same thing the book said not to in the first few pages. As if the book doesn't put forward a clear picture. But a scattered collection of thought, like a mokey from one brach to another ,"but of a different tree entirely"

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.

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.

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.