Making Movies
By Sidney Lumet - Vintage Books © 1996
Director Sidney Lumet may not be the household name he once was, but his movies certainly haven’t been forgotten by those who appreciate complex storytelling and the craftsmanship that goes into putting those stories on film. And Lumet’s book, part how-to, part memoir, and simply titled Making Movies, may have been published in 1995 but it still resonates. In the last 27 years technology has certainly evolved, studios changed hands, distribution channels become more direct, and stars risen and fallen, but Lumet’s grasp on the real work behind what we see on screen is as relevant and insightful as ever. Lumet went on to that big screening room in the sky in 2011, but he still has an awful lot to teach us.
There is certainly no doubt the man knew what he was talking about. Lumet made over forty films in a career that spanned six decades. His movies garnered more than fifty Academy Award nominations. He was nominated by the Directors Guild of America for Best Director seven times and he was awarded the Guild’s highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award. And if his name has faded from popular memory you’d still be hard-pressed to find a cinephile who hasn't seen 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Murder on the Orient Express, or Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Known for his ability to get the best out of his actors, Lumet did just that with legends like Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Katherine Hepburn, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Newman, and of course Al Pacino.
The son of struggling veterans of the Yiddish theatre, Lumet (pronounced loo-MET) grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and worked first as a child actor on Broadway, then in television, before carving out a niche for himself making intricate, emotional films, many of them set and filmed in his beloved New York. Considered a master of the medium, Lumet was known for his technical knowledge, and while his book is filled with plenty of memories from a life navigating rehearsal rooms, faraway locations, suffocating sets, and the general insanity of Hollywood studio life, there is technical knowledge aplenty in Making Movies for those interested in the nuts and bolts of the craft.
Even with chapter titles like “Rushes: The Agony and the Ecstasy”, “The Cutting Room: Alone at Last”, and “ The Mix: The Only Dull Part of Moviemaking” there simply isn’t a dull moment. The old joke about not wanting to know how the sausage is made simply doesn’t apply to Lumet’s writing or craft. Sure, the arrival of digital cameras and subsequent time-saving technology revolutionized the industry since this book was released in 1995, but from the first page Lumet makes it clear that all the (now outdated) nitty gritty he shares is secondary to a much larger priority. The director’s job is about making choices, and everything from lens filters to lighting scaffolds to the bagels served at the first read-through MUST contribute to the telling of the story. No detail should be left to chance, no shortcut taken, and nothing less than one’s full effort should be given to the task at hand.
Renowned film critic Robert Ebert gave high praise to this “Invaluable” 218 page synopsis of an fabulously complex process, saying, “I am sometimes asked if there is one book a filmgoer could read to learn more about how movies are made and what to look for while watching them. This is the book.”
In his own introduction, Lumet humbly states, “There is no right or wrong way to make a movie.” He’s right, there is no right or wrong way. But there is the Lumet way. And in an era where maximizing profit seems to take priority over all else in filmmaking, especially artistic storytelling, the Lumet way is one worth revisiting and emulating.
(If you’d like to learn more about Sidney Lumet and his prolific career, check out the 2015 documentary available now on Amazon Prime, By Sidney Lumet.)
