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"Bambi" Vs. "Godzilla": On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business

by David Mamet (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2007

    $3.25
Synopsis

In BAMBI VS. GODZILLA, David Mamet, the award-winning playwright and screenwriter, gives us an exhilaratingly subversive inside look at Hollywood from the perspective of a film-maker who has always played the game his own way. Who really reads scripts at the film studios? How is a screenplay like a personals ad? Whose opinion matters when revising a screenplay? Why are there so many producers listed in movie credits? And what the hell do those producers do, anyway? Refreshingly unafraid to offend, Mamet provides hilarious, surprising and bracingly forthright answers to these and other questions about virtually every aspect of film-making, from concept to script to screen. Demigods and sacred cows of the movie business -- beware! But for the rest of us, Mamet speaking truth to Hollywood makes for searingly enjoyable reading, and will sit alongside classics like ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE as essential primers on the movie business.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 272
 Publisher: Scribner
Published: 06 Aug 2007
ISBN 10: 0743248392
ISBN 13: 9780743248396

Media Reviews
Bambi vs. Godzilla is far and away the best commentary on how movies are made thus far written by an American . . . Citing everyone from Aristotle to Preston Sturges' s The Lady Eve, Mamet demonstrates what works and what doesn' t in a movie narrative, while noting what does not work, as we have been witnessing for the last decade or so: statistically, in 1958, Hollywood turned out 2,000 films which listed in their credits 230 producers, while in 2003 Hollywood produced 240 films with 1,200 producers listed.
Happily, Mamet keeps on in theater and film pretty much on his own terms, and now, with Bambi vs. Godzilla, like his great predecessor George Bernard Shaw, he can illuminate as a critic-practitioner the not-always-friendly Darwinian world he has been obliged to flourish in.
- Gore Vidal
No other director has written about the movies with such a fearless mixture of amusement, anger, frustration, and rueful love.
- Roger Ebert
What fun to dive into this book of Mamet musings and words of wisdom! But be warned: Like munching popcorn (or Raisinets) at the movies, once you get started it' s hard to stop.
- Leonard Maltin
David Mamet is supremely talented. He is a gifted writer and observer of society and its characters. I' m sure he will be able to find work somewhere, somehow, just no longer in the movie business.
- Steve Martin

From the Hardcover edition.


Bambi vs. Godzilla is far and away the best commentary on how movies are made thus far written by an American . . . Citing everyone from Aristotle to Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve, Mamet demonstrates what works and what doesn't in a movie narrative, while noting what does not work, as we have been witnessing for the last decade or so: statistically, in 1958, Hollywood turned out 2,000 films which listed in their credits 230 producers, while in 2003 Hollywood produced 240 films with 1,200 producers listed.
Happily, Mamet keeps on in theater and film pretty much on his own terms, and now, with Bambi vs. Godzilla, like his great predecessor George Bernard Shaw, he can illuminate as a critic-practitioner the not-always-friendly Darwinian world he has been obliged to flourish in.
-Gore Vidal
No other director has written about the movies with such a fearless mixture of amusement, anger, frustration, and rueful love.
-Roger Ebert
What fun to dive into this book of Mamet musings and words of wisdom! But be warned: Like munching popcorn (or Raisinets) at the movies, once you get started it's hard to stop.
-Leonard Maltin
David Mamet is supremely talented. He is a gifted writer and observer of society and its characters. I'm sure he will be able to find work somewhere, somehow, just no longer in the movie business.
-Steve Martin

From the Hardcover edition.


Sharp, savvy. . . . Icily hilarious. . . . Mr. Mamet writes with insight, idiosyncrasy and a Godzillian imperviousness to opposition. --Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Winningly pugnacious. . . . [ Bambi vs. Godzilla ] is funny and angry and intemperate and passionate enough to tell the truth about movies. -- San Francisco Chronicle
This is a book infused with love - the sweet, helpless love Mamet has for film, and the communal process that makes it.
-- Los Angeles Times
Playful . . . deft. . . . Mamet the dramatist has developed a career as a prolific philosophical essayist. -- Chicago Sun-Times