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RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR
Sidney Lumet's statistical roll-call
in Hollywood is not only remarkable, but legendary too. His
films have received more than 50 Academy Award nominations,
and he has himself been nominated for Best Director seven
times. He has also been the focus of many retrospectives,
awards, and honours. A review of his classy bio, Making
Movies.
For a man who was in the movie business
for more than four decades, Sidney Lumet's consistency has
been enormous. He's not only an acclaimed director,
but also a dignified human being. He has made very deeply
felt and moving movies: frank, honest, racy, slick, and
even smart.
Making Movies, Lumets' autobiography, is a revelation of such
an outlook. It is a professional tale and a definitive guide
to the art, craft, and business, of the motion picture.
Delivered with a rare sense of clarity, sincerity, and a wealth
of anecdotes, Making Movies is a delightful spectacle
of movie magnetism. It explains the fun and ecstasy of making
movies and focuses on how painstaking labour and inspired
moments can 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, is a complex, technical
and emotional process. "It's art. It's commerce. It's
heart-breaking and it's fun. It's a great way to live."
Yet, he does not talk about the right or wrong way to direct
a movie. He just writes about how he works: "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: the director, script, style, actors,
camera, art direction, clothes, shooting, rushes, music, mix,
answer print, studio, equipment, and so on. In addition to
this, Lumet argues that movie-making is a way of communication,
not consensus. And, it is not a war between the visual and
the aural: rather, it is a mixture of the best of both.
What about melodrama? Lumet says it can have its own justification:
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. That is not to say that The Silence…
is only about its story. Due to Ted Telly's fine writing,
Jonathan Demme's extraordinary direction, and Anthony Hopkins'
magnificent performance, it is also an exploration of two
fascinating characters. But, first and foremost, it is a nail-biter,
a brilliant story that keeps you terrified and guessing."
Melodrama, says Lumet, is also heightened theatricality. "It
makes the implausible plausible." It seems more real when it
goes further. Lumet gives us some very charming -- even if,
at times, idiosyncratic -- insights on Marlon Brando and the
way he often sizes 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 eulogises the camera as your best friend, because it
can define character, provide exposition, make a joke, work
a miracle, and tell a story. Lenses, he observes, have different
characteristics: and, they tell a story differently.
In his words: "Murder
On The Orient Express illustrated this -- the lens story
-- very clearly. During the making of the picture, various
scenes took place that would be retold at the end of the movie
by Hercule Poirot, our genius detective, using the retelling
as part of his evidence in the solution of the crime. While
he described the incidents, the scenes we'd seen earlier were
repeated as flashbacks. Only now, because they'd taken on
a greater melodramatic significance as evidence, they appeared
on the screen much more dramatically, forcefully, etched in
hard lines."
He explains: "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 [50 mm, 75
mm, 100 mm] and, the second time with a very wide-angled lens
[21 mm]. 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."
Making his debut with 12 Angry Men
in 1957, Lumet produced a host of movies that range from
Long Day's Journey Into Night to Network and
The Verdict.
His memoir, as The Baltimore Sun
put it, so aptly, "conveys the joy in his craft, the
great pleasure he takes in making movies… rich in the
technical side of movie making even as it serves as an easily
accessible introduction to how movies are made by a veteran
of the craft."
Touché!
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