Making movies may be "hard work," as the veteran director
continually reminds us throughout this slight volume, but Lumet's
simple-minded writing doesn't make much of a case for that or for
anything else. Casual to a fault and full of movie-reviewer
cliches, Lumet's breezy how-to will be of little interest to
serious film students, who will find his observations obvious and
silly ("Acting is active, it's doing. Acting is a verb"). Lumet
purports to take readers through the process of making a movie,
from concept to theatrical release - and then proceeds to share
such trade secrets as his predilection for bagels and coffee before
heading out to a set and his obsessive dislike for teamsters.
Lumet's vigorously anti-auteurist aesthetic suits his spotty
career, though his handful of good movies (Serpico, Dog Day
Afternoon, Prince of the City, and Q&A) seem to have quite a
lot in common visually and thematically as gutsy urban melodramas.
Lumet's roots in the theater are obvious in many of his script
choices, from Long Day's Journey into Night to Child's Play, Equus,
and Deathtrap. "I love actors," he declares, but don't expect any
gossip, just sloppy kisses to Paul Newman, Al Pacino, and"Betty"
Bacall. Lumet venerates his colleague from the so-called Golden Age
of TV, Paddy Chayevsky, who scripted Lumet's message-heavy Network
Style, Lumet avers, is "the way you tell a particular story"; and
the secret to critical and commercial success? "No one really
knows." The ending of this book, full of empty praise for his
fellow artists, reads like a dry run for an Academy Lifetime
Achievement Award, the standard way of honoring a multi-Oscar
loser. There's a pugnacious Lumet lurking between the lines of this
otherwise smarmy book, and that Lumet just might write a good one
someday. (Kirkus Reviews)
How is a movie made and what exactly does a director do? This book
attempts to illuminate every circumstance, internal and external,
emotional and technical, involved in the arduous process that
culminates in what we see on the big screen.;Only the director
knows the background to the scenes, behind every passing frame of
film, and the complex series of details and decisions involved,
from budget considerations to divine inspiration, from the earliest
rehearsal to the final screening. Sidney Lumet's knowledge of the
art and craft of directing is considerable, and here he discusses
everything from art direction and wardrobe, shooting and editing,
the verbal and mechanical soundtracks, to the distribution and
marketing of a film and the role of the studio.
General
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