On Directing Film was published by Viking in 1991, based on a series of lectures Mamet delivered at Columbia University. The book is structured as a seminar: Mamet works through specific scenes with his students, demonstrating how to break a scene down into beats (individual story units), how to translate each beat into a shot (an uninflected image that carries a single piece of information), and how to assemble the shots into a sequence that tells the story without relying on dialogue, performance, or fancy camerawork.
Mamet’s theory of film derives from Eisenstein: meaning is created not by what is in each individual shot but by the juxtaposition of shots — montage. The director’s job is to choose the right images and put them in the right order. Everything else — elaborate camera moves, expressionistic lighting, actors emoting — is not only unnecessary but harmful, because it draws the audience’s attention to the filmmaking and away from the story.
The book is among the most useful guides to film directing ever written, precisely because it is so narrow in its focus: Mamet does not discuss cinematography, production design, sound, or editing technique, only the director’s primary task, which he defines as answering one question for each beat of the scene: “What is the simplest possible image that will convey this piece of information?”
Collecting On Directing Film
First edition (Viking, New York, 1991): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $15–$40
- Very good/very good: $5–$15