June 9, 2017

David Mamet Reveals Why Movies Don’t Need Dialogue and More No-Nonsense Screenwriting Lessons

Legendary playwright and screenwriter David Mamet discusses his no-nonsense approach to writing.

David Mamet doesn’t mince words. He doesn’t in his writing (Al Capone in The Untouchables: “You get further with a kind word and a gun than you do with a kind word”). He doesn’t in his dramatic writing MasterClass (“Godard said every movie has to have a beginning, middle, and end, but not necessarily in that order. And that’s why French movies are so effing boring”). And he certainly didn’t in his recent interview with No Film School, during which he told us, “Hollywood is a cross between a spa and a cesspool.”

Mamet has authored dozens of award-winning plays and screenplays, including The Verdict, The Untouchables, Hannibal, and Glengarry Glen Ross, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. He has also directed a number of his own screenplays, such as The Spanish Prisoner and House of Games, which won Best Film and Best Screenplay awards at the 1987 Venice Film Festival.

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Source: NoFilmSchool