The late filmmaker Sidney Lumet leaves behind a half-century's worth of masterpieces (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict), misfires (The Wiz, Gloria, Guilty as Sin), and enduring curios (Last of the Mobile Hot Shots, The Group, The Offense). Among that body of work are a few vital lessons any moviegoer would do well to take to heart.
1. First impressions are everything
Contemporary filmmakers could learn a lot from Lumet's openings, the most expressive of which feature long, gradual shots working from the outside in. Sometimes this is literal; take 12 Angry Men, which marvelously sets up the entire narrative in about seven shots -- a courthouse exterior to a young murder defendant's close-up -- before getting to the opening credits. The effect compels viewers to digest the stakes while entering the deliberation room with the jurors. Subtle stuff, but utterly standard-defying for its time.
On other occasions the outside-in technique is more figurative. For my money, Lumet never surpassed the opening credits of The Verdict, starring Paul Newman as Frank Galvin, a washed-up, ambulance-chasing attorney gripped by a crisis of conscience. Dollying in to Newman's profile -- virtually a silhouette to start -- Lumet gradually blocks out Galvin's pinball game, beer mug and cigarette distractions, leaving only a pub-cloistered nobody against the chilly backdrop of winter. The intrigue is instant. (And who needs credits music, anyway?)
2. All you need is a table.
Jean-Luc Godard once said that all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun. From the start, Lumet went simpler: Just sit some excellent actors down at a table with a good script, and get out of the way. "But how is that directing?" one might ask. It's all in the set-up, as evidenced by these three diverse, extraordinary scenes from Network, The Verdict, Running on Empty -- to say nothing of 12 Angry Men.
<embed
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
id="player-277442"
name="player-277442"
src="http://www-movieline-com.vimg.net/_/jw/player-licensed-viral.swf"
width="630"
height="477"
allowscriptaccess="always"
allowfullscreen="true"
flashvars="autostart=0&playlist=none&config=http://www-movieline-com.vimg.net/playlists/config.xml?2011-04-09-17-44-50&file=/stv_videos/network_scene.flv&image=http://www-movieline-com.vimg.net/images/network_clip.jpg
&plugins=acudeojw,gapro,viral-2&viral.callout=none&viral.onpause=false&gapro.accountid=UA-1915907-26&gapro.trackstarts=true&gapro.trackpercentage=true&gapro.tracktime=true&acudeojw.progId=4af229940e9cc"
/>
Speaking of openings, Lumet shocked everyone with the introductory scene of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which featured Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei's characters in some pretty heated sexual throes. Discussing the unexpectedly graphic (for a Lumet film, anyway) sequence in 2007, the director simply explained to press at the New York Film Festival that the scene needed to look and feel real, and the only way to accomplish that was to just shoot it as such. Nothing if not practical, Lumet later elaborated to an interviewer about his purpose:
"That's what changes his life," referring to Hoffman's character, a morally bankrupt money manager. "It's not just a question of fancy fucking. It's a question of the ability to take pleasure in something away from the reality of his life, and from now on he's on a quest to change the reality of his life to see if he can get the things he wants. What does he want? He wants that kind of freedom sexually. He wants an apartment like his dope dealer's. Those are his values. And a lot of destruction happens as he tries to reach them."
And then there's the famous train departure from Murder on the Orient Express, which Lumet recounts just as famously in his must-read memoir Making Movies:
The shot is as follows: The camera is on the Nike, a 16-foot motor-driven camera dolly. It is in its low position. As the train starts toward us, the camera "dollies" forward to meet it and is at the same time being raised to about the middle of the train's height, about six feet. The train picks up speed coming toward us as we pick up speed coming toward the train. By the time the center of the fourth car has reached us, we have a full close-up of the Wagon-Lit symbol. It's very beautiful, gold on a blue background. It fills the screen. As it passes us , we pan the camera to follow the Wagon-Lit symbol until we've turned one hundred eighty degrees and are facing in the opposite direction. We now have risen the full height of the crane, 16 feet, and we are shooting the train going away from us, getting smaller as it goes. Finally we see only the two red lights of the last car as the train disappears into the blackness of the night. [...]
We couldn't rehearse the shot even once, because Geoff [Unsworth, the cinematographer] needed the train i
n place on the platform to light the whole scene. The end of the shed through which the train exited would be open to the exterior of the railway yards, with all modern Paris behind it, which was another reason we could have no daylight.
Peter McDonald is the finest camera operator I have ever worked with. The camera operator actually turns the wheels that point the camera in any direction. There is also a focus puller; his job, obviously, is to keep focus. But that's not so easy when the camera is moving one way, the train is moving another, and you're going to pan the camera around on letters ("Wagon-Lit"), where it's very easy to see if the focus is not perfect. [...]
Extras in place, engine breathing, hearts pounding, we roll the camera. I call out: "Cue the train." The bilingual French assistant cues the engineer. The train starts toward us. We start toward the train. The tongue starts up, raising the camera with it. The focus puller is already starting to shift focus toward the onrushing Wagon-Lit logo on the fourth car. It's upon us so fast that it's hard to follow by eye, much less through a camera. Peter whips that camera around with a speed that makes me glad he insisted I lock my seat belt. The train bursts out of the shed and disappears into the night. Peter looks at me, smiles, gives a thumbs up. Geoff smiles, looks at me. I look down to the script girl and very quietly say: "Print."
And the results:
4. Location, location, location
For better or worse, nobody deployed New York and its environs more prodigiously than Sidney Lumet. Specifically, for better, check out the variety and precision of locations selected for his epic NYPD corruption biopic Prince of the City, including rural homes, ferries, courthouses, restaurants, hotels, beaches, bathrooms, phone booths and seemingly every conference room and/or office in Lower Manhattan. To all you aspiring directors, production designers and location scouts, this is how it's done:
And this, Lumet's misbegotten, Motown-produced adaptation of The Wiz, is how it's not done -- though you've got to give him credit for trying:
<embed
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
id="player-277441"
name="player-277441"
src="http://www-movieline-com.vimg.net/_/jw/player-licensed-viral.swf"
width="630"
height="477"
allowscriptaccess="always"
allowfullscreen="true"
flashvars="autostart=0&playlist=none&config=http://www-movieline-com.vimg.net/playlists/config.xml?2011-04-09-17-38-32&file=/stv_videos/wiz_trailer.flv&image=http://www-movieline-com.vimg.net/images/wiz_trailer.jpg
&plugins=acudeojw,gapro,viral-2&viral.callout=none&viral.onpause=false&gapro.accountid=UA-1915907-26&gapro.trackstarts=true&gapro.trackpercentage=true&gapro.tracktime=true&acudeojw.progId=4af229940e9cc"
/>
5. Be adaptable
Like many of his contemporaries, Lumet began his career directing television in the '50s. The experience yielded a multitude of lessons that came in handy on movie sets, from creative camera set-ups for long takes to ingrained methods for economizing time and money. "Interestingly enough, I don't mind limitations," he wrote in Making Movies. "Sometimes they even stimulate you to better, more imaginative work. A spirit may develop among the crew and cast that adds to the passion of the movie, and this can show up on-screen."
Among his more intriguing observations, however, was another point made at the 2007 New York Film Festival. Talking further about Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, his only foray into digital production, Lumet surmised that film as a medium was hurtling toward obsolescence. His ensuing, fascinating commentary on that change -- captured in the video below -- blends both 50 years of experience and evergreen optimism. He may well have been Hollywood's only pragmatic visionary. It's almost tragic that Lumet would never again have the opportunity to advance his argument behind the camera.