State and Main: The Shooting Script

by David Mamet

In the acclaimed Newmarket Shooting Script format—The official tie-in to the hilarious movie coming December 22, 2000, written and directed by one of the most extraordinary writers of our time, starring Alec Baldwin, Charles Durning, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Patti LuPone, William H. Macy, Sarah Jessica Parker, David Paymer, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Julia Stiles. Part Hollywood satire, part screwball comedy, State and Main explores what happens when a cell-phone wielding movie crew invades a quaint New England town. The residents are all too ready to jettison its pastoral grace for showbiz glitz. Laced with the tart dialogue characteristic of Mamet, State and Main follows screenwriter Joe White (Hoffman), whose old-fashioned values are put to task when he is the only witness to a heartthrob movie star's (Baldwin) indiscretions with a local teenage girl (Stiles). The movie's smooth-talking director (Macy) and aggressive producer (Paymer) pressure Joe to put aside his convictions for the sake of the film and his future writing career. Meanwhile, Joe falls for a local bookseller (Pidgeon), who challenges him to stand up for the truth. Rounding out the cast are Sarah Jessica Parker as a sexy Hollywood actress who tempts Joe, and Charles Durning and Patty LuPone as the town's star-struck mayor and his wife. Produced by Sarah Green ( The Winslow Boy ), the film's executive producers are Alec Baldwin and Jon Cornick; it is a Green-Renzi Production in association with El Dorado Pictures. In the Newmarket Shooting Script ® Series format, here is the complete shooting script, an introduction written exclusively for this edition by David Mamet, movie stills, credits, and an interview with the writer/director.

Genres: Film, Theatre

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

David Alan Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity.

As a playwright, he received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997).

Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, an acerbic commentary on the movie business.

Reviews

[in8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://www.5cense.com/21/965.htm

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been on a few movie sets myself, I can attest to the proximity to reality featured in the situations described here. The absurdities David Mamet concocts are definitely within the realm of possibility. The Industry is not for everyone, kids, but for those resilient enough, perhaps "it beats working".

[Emily Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Mamet script of all time! Fantastic. Hilarious. Obnoxious. Brilliant.

[Barry]

I got this back when I went to Columbia in Chicago. Great film, great script by David Mamet about the chaos of making a movie, and all the human hilarity that follows.