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David Mamet

David Mamet Quotes

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Famous David Mamet Quotes

“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.”

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Book:Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama
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“Consider: for all the gobbledegook [film studio] executives spout about backstory, all that we, the audience, want to know is what happens next. That's the only thing that's going on. . . . Character is nothing other than action, and character-driven means The plot stinks, and you'd better hope the star is popular enough to open the movie in spite of it.”

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Author:David Mamet
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“It is to a dramatist, which is to say, to an unfrocked psychoanalyst, stunning that that which has sustained the Left in my generation, its avatar, its prime issue, has been abortion. For, whether or not it is regarded as a woman's right, an unfortunate necessity, or murder, which is to say, irrespective of differing and legitimate political views, to enshrine it as the most important test of the Liberal, is, mythologically, an assertion to the ultimate right of a postreligious Paganism.”

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Book:The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture
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“The pursuit of Fashion is the attempt of the middle class to co-opt tragedy. In adopting the clothing, speech, and personal habits of those in straitened, dangerous, or pitiful circumstances, the middle class seeks to have what it feels to be the exigent and nonequivocal experiences had by those it emulates.”

FeelsClassMiddleFashionDangerousHabitCircumstancesSpeechTragedyPursuitMiddle ClassClothingsEmulateAdoptingPitiful
Book:Writing in restaurants
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“The popularity of disaster movies expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”

WorldMomentsMightLastsForceChancePerceptionTragedyHarmAidsDisasterInnocentCollectivesPopularityNeverthelessThreatenedSymbolicIrresistibleWrongdoingNegligenceUnforeseenSymbolic MeaningDisaster Movie
Author:David Mamet
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