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What it argues
On Directing Film is David Mamet's account of lectures he gave at Columbia University's film school, transcribed and lightly edited into a short, blunt book about the craft of directing. At roughly 100 pages it is one of the most concentrated guides to cinematic storytelling available. Mamet's argument is simple and unfashionable: the director's job is not to express a personal vision or to illuminate characters' emotions but to tell a story through a sequence of uninflected shots.
The central principle Mamet hammers through every chapter is that the audience wants to work. Give them a series of images that, taken together, communicate an event, and the audience will construct the meaning themselves. This is more satisfying than being told directly. The mistake of most beginning directors — and many experienced ones — is to photograph the emotion rather than the event that causes the emotion. If a character is sad, photograph what made them sad. The audience's inference of sadness is more powerful than any shot of a sad face.
What it gets right
- 1.
The director's job is to tell a story through a sequence of shots, not to photograph emotions or express a personal sensibility. Everything else is secondary.
- 2.
The audience wants to work. Showing a series of images that imply an event is more engaging than illustrating the event directly. Inference is pleasurable; being told is not.
- 3.
Never photograph the emotion. Photograph the event that causes the emotion and trust the audience to feel it. A close-up of grief is less moving than a shot of what caused the grief.
What it covers
Who wrote it
David Mamet is an American playwright, screenwriter, and director, best known for the plays Glengarry Glen Ross (Pulitzer Prize, 1984), American Buffalo, and Speed-the-Plow. As a screenwriter he wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Verdict, and The Untouchables. He has directed films including House of Games, Homicide, and The Spanish Prisoner. On Directing Film draws on lectures he delivered at the Columbia University School of the Arts and reflects his application of classical dramatic theory to cinematic practice.
