“Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?”

— David Mamet

Source: Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business

Last update Feb. 25, 2025. History

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David Mamet 28

American playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and film direc… 1947

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On July 10, 2001, an FBI agent in Phoenix [Arizona] wrote a memo raising serious concerns about Middle Eastern men attending U. S. flight schools. The memo never made its way up the chain of command, and no action was taken. ––Richard Behar, introd. to "FBI's 'Phoenix' memo Unmasked", Fortune [date? ], [date accessed? ]. (See (incomplete) list of Behar's Fortune articles in his section of his Publications http://www.richardbehar.com/articles/fortune/fortune_all.html [some defunct links].)

“I think of how and why and what happened and the thoughts come easily, but the answers don't.”

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“We can each sit and wait to die, from the very day of our births. Those of us who do not do so, choose to ask--and to answer--the two questions that define every conscious creature: What do I want? and What will I do to get it? Which are, finally, only one question: What is my will? Caine teaches us that the answer is always found within our own experience; our lives provide the structure of the question, and a properly phrased question contains its own answer.”

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If we do not, then we should look somewhere else.
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“A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want.”

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Variant: A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want.

“And so, what we've done all of these years is very simple, is use the little tool, which is ask three whys in a row. Because the first why you always have a good answer for. The second why, it starts getting difficult. By the third why, you don't really know why you're doing what you're doing.”

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El que aquí cuenta lo que vio y le ocurrió no es aquel que lo vio y al que le ocurrió.
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“Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?”

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