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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the impetus for the beginning of Citizen Kane?

2. What is the subheading of Chapter 4?

3. The reply from the person who was asked if they were ever lost was that they were once bewildered for how many days?

4. Mamet says that when he was young, actors spent how many years on stage earning a living by the time they were thirty?

5. Who directed Casablanca?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Mamet say regarding the training of film actors in today's world?

2. What can the director not make up for in the editing room, according to Mamet in Chapter 6?

3. What is the Cult of Self which Mamet refers to in Chapter 6?

4. What did Mamet suggest directors should strive for in terms of film dialogue in movies, in Chapter 4?

5. What analogy did Mamet give that involves Stanislavsky, in Chapter 6?

6. What are modern film actors lacking in their education of storytelling, according to Mamet?

7. What animated film did Mamet laud as perfect in Chapter 5?

8. What did Mamet caution against with having multiple motivations for the farmer in Chapter 5?

9. How does the hypothetical film end in Chapter 5?

10. How did Mamet relate film direction and screenwriting in Chapter 6?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe the career of author David Mamet and how he came to the world of film. What was the principle area of his expertise at the time he wrote On Directing Film?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the similarities between film and dreams. What writers did Mamet cite in his discussion of this topic?

Essay Topic 3

What authors did Mamet quote in the book with regard to cutting extraneous text in a screenplay? What theorists did he speak about in dramatic analysis?

(see the answer keys)

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