Sidney Lumet, the legendary American movie director, was, doubtless, a master of cinema. His statistical roll-call of films was not only remarkable, but fabulous. His films received more than 50 Academy Award nominations, while Lumet himself was nominated for ‘Best Director’ seven times. What’s more, Lumet, for the best part, was the focus of several retrospectives, also awards and honours.
For one who was in the movie business for more than four decades, Lumet’s consistency was enormous. He was not only an acclaimed director, but also a dignified human being. He made deeply felt and moving movies: frank, honest, racy, slick, and also smart.
Making Movies, Lumet’s autobiography, was a revelation of such an outlook. It’s a professional tale and definitive guide to the art, craft, and business, of the motion picture.
The book is delivered with a rare sense of clarity, sincerity, and a wealth of anecdotes — a delightful spectacle of movie magnetism. It explains the fun and ecstasy of making movies and focuses on how painstaking labour and inspired moments could result in hours of screen magic. Lumet’s point of view is a gift, and it tells how any filmgoer could learn the art of making movies and what to look for while watching them.
Making films, according to Lumet [June 25, 1924-April 9, 2011] is a complex, technical and emotional process. “It’s art. It’s commerce. It’s heart-breaking and it is fun. It’s a great way to live.” Yet, he does not talk about the right, or wrong, way to directing a movie. He just writes about how he worked: “Take what you want and throw the rest away: or, throw it all away.”
Lumet’s book encompasses every frame of movie-making. It is composed of 13 chapters — among them, the director, script, style, actors, camera, art direction, clothes, shooting, rushes, music, mix, answer print, studio, equipment, and so on. In addition to it, Lumet argues that movie-making is a way of communication, not consensus. And, it is not a battle, or war, between the visual and the aural — rather, it is a mixture of the best of the two elements.
What about melodrama? Lumet says it could have its own justification: of what happens next, which is one of the delights that are carried over from childhood. He writes, “It was a thrilling feeling the first time we listened to Little Red Riding Hood, and we’re still thrilled when we see The Silence of the Lambs. This is not to say that The Silence… is only about its story. Thanks to Ted Tally’s fine writing, Jonathan Demme’s extraordinary direction, and Anthony Hopkins’ magnificent performance, it is a brilliant exploration of two fascinating characters. But, first and foremost, it is a nail-biter, a brilliant story that keeps you terrified and guessing.”
Lumet, as Rotten Tomatoes delineated, was a consummate workaholic who helmed vibrant films well into his eighties, and laid claim to being one of the most revered and most imitated directors of all time. Films like Twelve Angry Men [1957], Dog Day Afternoon [1975], Network [1976] and The Verdict [1982] were more than just classics — they became cultural fixtures that transcended generational demands. Because of his visual economy, strong direction of actors, vigorous storytelling and use of the camera to accent themes, Lumet produced a body of work that could only be defined as extraordinary. By refusing to ‘go Hollywood,’ he instead became strongly identified with the city of his youth, New York, the place where he filmed a great majority of his films. In fact, Lumet’s use of the city became more than just location — he turned New York into a character just as vital and alive as Frank Serpico, Howard Beale, or Sonny Wortzik. But it was the social realism which permeated his greatest work that truly defined Lumet — the themes of youthful idealism beaten down by corruption and the hopelessness of inept social institutions allowed him to produce several trenchant and potent films that no other director could have made.
Melodrama, as Lumet often expressed, is heightened theatricality; it makes the implausible plausible. It seems more real when it goes further. Lumet gives us some charming — even if, at times, idiosyncratic — insights on Marlon Brando and the way he often sized up a director, the old-world values and fastidiousness of Paul Newman, and the depth of Al Pacino’s facial expressions to a given character and scene. “It’s experiences like these,” says Lumet, “that make me love actors.”
Lumet eulogised the camera as your best friend too, because it can define character, provide exposition, make a joke, work a miracle, and tell a story. Lenses, he observed, have different characteristics — and, they tell a story differently. Murder on the Orient Express illustrated this — the lens story — clearly. Picture this — during the making of the movie, various scenes took place that would be retold at the end of the movie by Hercule Poirot, the genius detective, using the retelling as part of his evidence in the solution of the crime.
As Lumet articulates the incidents, “The scenes we’d seen earlier were repeated as flashback. And, because they’d taken on a greater melodramatic significance as evidence, they appeared on the screen much more dramatically, forcefully, and etched in hard lines. This was accomplished through the use of different lenses. Each scene that would be repeated was shot twice — the first time with normal lenses for the movie [50mm, 75mm, 100mm] and, the second time with a wide-angled lens [21mm]. The result was that the first time we saw the scene, it appeared as a normal part of the movie. Viewed the second time, it was melodramatic, fitting in the drama of the solution to a murder.”
It is arguable, as The Guardian put it, that, had he not been so prolific, Lumet’s critical reputation would have been greater. Certainly, for every worthwhile film there was a dud, and occasionally a disaster, to match it. But Lumet loved to direct and he was greatly esteemed by the many actors — most notably Al Pacino and Sean Connery — with whom he established a lasting rapport. Lumet’s book, Making Movies, a lucid account of all aspects of the film business, used his own works for textual analysis and included a coda, almost a lament, in which he railed against the studios’ interference. He had become increasingly aware that there was little space, even in his beloved New York, for works inspired by social commitment and passion, less still for those derived from great plays and literature.
Lumet who made his debut with 12 Angry Men in 1957, produced a host of movies that range from Long Day’s Journey into Night to several others. His memoir, as The Baltimore Sun put it so succinctly, “conveys the joy in his craft, the great pleasure he takes in making movies… rich in the technical side of movie making just as much as it serves as an earnestly accessible introduction to how movies are made by a veteran of the craft.”
— First published in India First
