Sidney Lumet interview on "Making Movies" (1995)

Sidney Lumet has made some 39 movies in four decades as a film director his first was the stunning 12 Angry Men Dog Day Afternoon prince of the city Serpico Network and the verdict followed among others a DW Griffith Award winner lament has just published a memoir of a life in the film business called making movies and I am very pleased to have him here welcome Hank it's great to see you I take this this is the upcoming with all the power we have we can get an upcoming New York Times magazine New York Times review actually we've got it because it's out early Roger Ebert says about you making movies is a sane even invaluable book about the job of being a movie director from the creation of the screen blade screenplay to the final previews mr. lament explains every step in the process drawing examples from his own career with startling honesty this is not an autobiography but is a more revealing than most memoirs discussing with complete frankness that the technical practical financial and artistic decisions a director makes he ends by saying I am sometimes asked if there is one book a film Gore could read to learn more about how movies are made and what to look for while watching them excuse me he concludes by saying this is the book why did you write this book I mean I mean obviously if you thought you're getting these kind of reviews then you have achieved the goal of making a book that would be a companion for everybody who wants to enjoy movies I did I never expected that kind of reviews of any kind of success into meeting with Charlie Waring we've you know we're in our second printing and we haven't been out that long which is terrific I wrote it Charlie because I was so tired of the theories I was so tired of students not knowing their work you know I I taught a postgraduate course at Yale many many years ago movie course I film it's tough for me to say the word film cinema won't pass my throat and then I did another one in Colombia about four years ago I was amazed at the ignorance of the students and then also in terms of the general public you know that for any other thing that happens when you people passing a some people when you're shooting in the city and they're passing your location the first thing you says well what's everybody standing around for you know and the fact is very real work is going on and then the second thing that happens which is when if they come to the studio and see some of the work there I never knew moviemaking was so hard is what they inevitably say so I thought that they'd be kind of a value on all levels just to really get down to how is a movie made what are the steps who's involved what are their jobs on both a creative level and a technical okay I want to talk about all of that and also talk later about some of the actors you work with well it's Brando they Dunaway many others in terms of what they bring to Al Pacino what they bring to the table when you work with them but let me just try to talk about make when you where'd is it a movie start for you it starts when I either have read a script that's been sent to me and what happens charlie is just I just react completely instinctively I'm not analyzing it I'm not I had no theme I have no idea of the kind of picture I want to do I'm open and a very good audience and what what to me is interesting is that almost every time I've accepted a script it's been on the first reading if I've had to read it more than once chances are I've I've said no and I doesn't grab you at first reading than you pass well you know there are obviously the deficiencies in this I've done some very bad movies but I've also done some very good ones and you also say that some of the movies are you did because a you need it to work absolutely we got tired of waiting around for the right film so you just made one or because you needed the money in some cases those films have turned out better than the movies you made because it seemed like the best thing in the world for you actually you know what happens I don't think anyone anybody good really knows when the work is going to turn out good I I'm not being falsely modest here I think there's a reason I've gotten good results and and other directors will never get good results but it's a question of preparing the ground in such a way that's a lucky accident can and I know this is true of musicians I know I know many writers feel that way when you just prepare the ground so that the piece can take on a life of its own and run away with it let me ask something that I've always want to ask you and others and it may even apply to you in some instances I love the verdict you haven't made anything since the verdict that I like as much as I love the birding Francis Ford Coppola hasn't made a movie that I really like a lot in a while yeah he would different say this was really good this was really good but I think the majority of thumb Gore's and critics wouldn't say that how does someone like you or occasionally and other people who have shown they know what it's about and they're at the top of a class fail at making good movies it happens too early of two reasons first of all there's that very very important area of self-deception which is which is really necessary to even go to work in the first place because the work itself is so hard you've got to be prepared to say I believe in this I don't see the problem kind of plunging in with faith and very often it's misdirected I've had two pictures in which around the second or third day of shooting I realized that my god I was wrong never gonna be what I thought I got to go through with it and worst of all I can't tell anybody because so there's that then there are pressures it's a very strange marketplace out there now and I know the rules of that jungle very well and I always used to say I need one hit so I can get the money for three more flops and now it's getting even more severe and I think in my view the taste level is slowly sinking in this country not just in movies I think generally limite an interesting story interrupts you how much yesterday with a great editor in America who said to me who the great poets today who were the great novelist today who were the great filmmakers today he said I think that we are not somehow today in our producing greatness like we used to a lot of people but Mon the good old times in the Golden Age of Hollywood the Golden Age Intellivision know that but here was a very who was somebody would be classified as an intellectual saying I don't see it out there I said to him you know you're a great editor why don't you go commission a book get somebody to write a book about that what's happened to it what do you think has happened in movies television I think basically what's happened we are now probably a what on our third generation of people who did not know life before television and that there used to they've been they've been brainwashed into a state of acceptance of what television producers think is reality Aaron Spelling's version of of what reality is and you know that wonderful line and network when Peter Finch in this rage says to the audience for God's sakes you're real I'm just a picture you know and which really sums it up because the people's contact with reality is completely determined by the box and it's an isolated experience let's just start with that it's not done it it's not shared in any way and in my view it's causing a major crisis to to in all aspects you know I just came back off of this book to her Charlie and and what how can you hit cities more architectural II different than let's say Boston Washington Chicago San Francisco LA you know they've almost got a culture they do have a cultural difference about it but you know what's happened there's a homogeneity oh oh every city has its pizza Rio you know everything you can go from Pizza ryouna to Armani you know depending on how much how much money you want to surround and every hotel is owned by the same people we stayed at what is called a boutique hotel in San Francisco it's a charming little place it's owned by a chain which is opening boutique individuals and I think precisely you use the word right on a that homogeneity is going to destroy us so a couple of things about movies that are intriguing you want you don't believe in speaking of this you don't believe that these testings and preview audiences which can cause directors and studios to force directors to change endings very necessarily good right right I think it's a disaster I think because again it's forcing it on to a kind of homogeneity the the whole testing process look I'm not a fool I know that movies have to make money and I'd be thrilled to change the picture ah not all pictures but some pictures to see if it can make more money but the fact is there is no correlation I I once asked the man who conducts the research group what is the correlation between your percentages and the cards that you break down in demographics that make them are in boggle and the eventual performance of the box-office right and he said we don't have those figures no one's ever done a study no and of course he's lying of course he has the figures the fact is the figures just don't work out the way he would like them to work out so that he can get hired more the other thing another incident from the book Brando Brando will give you on separate takes separate performances one is he's reaching deep inside where as an actor right and going for what is inside of him it gives expression to the idea that he wants to convey the other is a more studied in which he is simply acting the performance it looks identical Charlie it's just empty inside right but but on the surface it looks as if it's exactly like he as an actor if you the director choose the wrong one not the one that genuine comes from inside he won't give you anything from inside for the rest of the film you've had it now you know a lot of people say well listen what right does he have with it that's so arrogant what right does he have to test the director I don't feel that way and maybe it's cuz I passed the test but the point is that acting is about self revelation and that's a very painful process and he in my view has a right who want the person watching it to be able to tell the difference between it when he's doing it and living it and when he's simply indicating it I don't think it's an it's invalid a great a good director can't screw up a great script true or false false you can great script can be screwed up regardless funnily enough in my view great scripts can get screwed up more easily because the demand that they make is so much greater I don't have to tell you you is there anything more boring than a bad Hamlet well said yeah and nothing more powerful than a brilliant Hamlet well that's what that's what it was for right it's so acting then is 75% of the game it's certainly in the theatre certainly it is in the theatres in the movies you've got a great great helper that camera it can do an awful lot of things that that can compensate for even a bad performance it can't create a good performance but it can provide an element that the performance should have provided okay I want to take a look from 12 Angry Men what an appropriate film I remember what's going to a class about and what I've noticed part of management training or something like that and they had to see it some psychologists wanted to see this as a group of dynamics right exactly we're certainly appropriate now as we were fascinated by what's happening in the jury room of the Simpson trial but take a look at this this is 12 Angry Men starring Henry Fonda and others here it is tell me about that movie and directing that scene and the way the camera pulled out so that you could see all of the people leaving the table well clearly it's scene immature a man takes off on a racial attack juror number eight or whatever I love that they never had names only numbers and and slowly a protest evolves what were one of the things that was very important because it has to be completely believable and it is very tough to make that believable that 10 other people would be so would they'd be such unit unanimity in an opinion especially on a racial level that they take make this step of protest but if you noticed Henry Fonda our hero was not the first one to get up the first one to get up is actually a character who has come from a very similar background so he's the one that starts it and then others get up out of it I hope out of character out of what the characters were but the interesting thing charlie is that doing it in one shot doing it as a slow pullback prevented it from becoming obvious and sentimental in fact it isn't for about through till three or four people so about the fourth person get up that you even realize it as a protest you don't know at first whether the guy isn't just a new bathroom right you know we just want to shake his legs and also bid by doing it in one shot I avoided all those silly intercuts of somebody going you know glowering this way or rat or any of those obvious reactions that would have had to have happened if it had been cut up I also would have destroyed EADS tempo ed begley who played played the man is was a superb actor and the very fact that he could gauge the performance by how and when people getting up and moving away from as you as you saw the way he runs down and energy is is is quite moving a fond of to work with you know there are certain actors Charlie who are so pure that for me at least they become a barometer of truth I can measure the truthfulness of myself by own work and almost every other person's work on that set by what they are doing Fonda was one of those and I don't know of a greater compliment that you think you can give anyone Pacino speaking of actors Dog Day Afternoon there was a long scene on them on the phone I think that's as extraordinary piece of moving acting as I've ever seen it was very complicated the way I set it up because I wanted him to do both phone calls the phone call to his male wife and his female wife in continuity and yet the two scenes together ran 14 minutes I don't know if you're aware but a magazine a film only runs ten minutes so I had to I had to from a technical point of view I was using two cameras starting the second camera when the first one was almost out of film and so on the thing about Al is he also has this purity mixed with mixed with this incredible undeniable anger he's so dangerous up there on the screen even even in a moment of complete vulnerability you know you have a feeling that he can just turn around into something I'll never forget that amazing moment in godfather when I think was Godfather 2 when Diane Keaton tells him that she's had an abortion and he's just been pacing up and back pacing up and back very still in that inner stillness that he's got and all of a sudden he flies across that room and it's her it's an explosion that's absolutely terrifying and he has this in him I think the this sense of rage what does a directed give of actor like Pacino two things first of all you give him a person who understands what he's doing the thing that we were talking before about Marlon which is very important to him second of all once you've got that you can find sources of stimulation for those feelings that he may not have been aware of in the performance of another actor in the physical state the scene or in the instance of the two phone calls in Dog Day Afternoon in the way that I shot it so that by the end of it it got very complicated Chara yeah you know the story was they were in that bank by then for nine hours and I just wanted him in a state of exhaustion beyond now that state of exhaustion does another thing it opens up emotions I'm sure you farm and and most of us have found that when we're tired we weep more easily we laugh more easily get angry easy that's right we're just wide open and when we finish the first take I said a lime don't cut camera I said first don't cut camera al I want to go back and do it again and he looked at me and he said you've got to be expletive deleted kidding and I said I am not kidding we have to go again action and he started again from the top and and in the meantime while that little the exchange went on they had changed a magazine of film so that when he finished the second take of it he literally didn't know where he was I mean the news Austin was so complete the anomaly didn't recognize that the second take was better he didn't know when we talked about laughter words he said I didn't even know I forgot that you told me to go again I didn't even know he did a second take but when he saw rushes the next day he did he sure did Network this is a Howard build he's giving his speech and has a heart attack take a look at this and we'll talk about the scene when we come back tell me about the scene that would figure well it you know he's he is a magnificent actor as you know part of a point of that whole speech is that the the show always ends on him having a fit I mean a he's an OD real danger he just has a fit and the fit is the music cue he's a consummate actor interestingly enough the same thing that I did without his Dog Day speech I did with Peter on his first I'm mad as hell don't take it anymore speech to camera so he could go from one take to another he wanted that part as badly as any actor I've ever known I felt it was very very important to get an American for it and Peter was living in the cat in the Caribbean at the time I don't remember which island it and said look I've got with me he can't be flew up to New York he said I've got with me a tape of Walter Cronkite a tape of John Chancellor I am going back down and I'm gonna work for two weeks and I'm gonna come back up to New York and I'm gonna read this whole part for you and he did Charlie he did and he read my reservation was only about the accent I mean as an actor he's magnificent and he came back up and read four lines and Patty and I said it's yours that she asked yeah and it was did he want an Oscar for that he did perfect posthumously posthumously glad yeah it was an extraordinary I was we were you know before the Oscar while the voting is still going on the company flies you out there and you were hustle like crazy trying to pick up votes and Peter and I were scheduled to do a radio show that morning and Beverly's her Beverly Hills Hotel there's a small staircase down from the second floor and literally as I came down the staircase he was sitting below and I saw him go over knowing what you know when putting a lot as roger ebert says if you want one book on making movies is dead the title is making movies what do you wish you had learned earlier I mean what have you learned it's important that you wish you'd known from the beginning I wish I'd had a little I don't know if you couldn't learn this I wish I'd had a little better taste I taste taste yeah I think I think I tended to overstate an awful lot that may have been because I really wasn't used to having come from television I wasn't used to an image 30 or 40 feet wide and and and that takes that's a whole different aesthetic you know we could scale it's critical so making for a television screen is a very different Act and making movies I think yeah I think so you have to tell the story differently you have to use the camera differently so I wish I I wish I'd had a little more drink but there are things I like to I I had a lot of courage which noted for making political films films that had to do with a passion about politics in the broadest sense the world right not politics and who's winning elections but the politics you know you know you were passionate about that can you make those films today I think will be very tough I don't know I haven't tried but my guess is that they are running so scared and the cost of production is up so enormously you know Charlie if a picture doesn't gross nine figures now that I mean over a hundred million dollars they really look at it as a flop no understanding how much it cost exactly but I recently looked at it that is because most films now cost over 30 million of make I think that's the the average cost has gone up to there and and the prints and advertising and now equal if not greater than the cost of the movie what what's your favorite film that you made that I made yeah Charlie I wish I could tell you yeah I I've been ducking the question as you know I don't duck many i duck it because in a way it makes the or an orphan out of the others yes what film that you have seen do you wish you had made I couldn't have made it so it's safe to say that I think the best movie of the last 10 years is hoop dreams really I think documentary I think it's an astounding movie about America about people that there's just not there's no way of saying too much about that movie sort of missed it on the Oscars didn't um I think they made a great error by trying to well it wasn't a great error I would have loved to see this nominated for Best Picture because to me it was alright making movies by Sidney Lumet it's gotten good reviews it really is an understanding of how the business is made we learn a lot about cameras you learn a lot about how actors approach their craft and this is not about the gossipy book about actors and actresses it is really a book about one man's love for the craft of making movies and how he goes about it and when you come away with this experience of reading this book you'll understand more about movies which all of us love back in a moment stay with us for an extraordinary story from Chicago by an Esquire magazine reporter back in

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

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Length: 23min 57sec (1437 seconds)

Published: Sat May 28 2016