Friday, November 23, 2007
Grit and Spring: Sidney Lumet's Cinema of NYC
It makes me happy that Sidney Lumet made a film that is probably great in his fiftieth year of feature films that began with 12 Angry Men. It would have been long, but it would have been kind of cool if his new movie was titled in its entirety for the Irish saying it was named:"May you be in heaven half an hour Before the Devil knows you're dead"
Recalling the films of Lumet, I am struck on how the emotional content of the films is clearer than the plot and how clearly I remember the time and place where I first saw them.
- The Anderson Tapes was a spirited and engaging caper my family arrived to the Broadway late to, back in 1971. I recall all of us kind of nodding to each other when the part we came in on appeared with tacit understanding to stay again to the end. Surveillance actually served as a character in the film. I remember how impressed I was with that, but maybe not as impressed as Sean Connery getting into Dyan Cannon (hey, I was 13) or the crispy Quincy Jones soundtrack (yes, even at 13)
- I recall the dread of Fail Safe which was to me Dr. Strangelove without the humor and the wish that we had a President half as cool as Henry Fonda when I watched it on one of those movies on KATU that came on at an irregular time on the weekend or early evening due to the broadcast of a sporting event. I also remember when it was going to come on unexpectedly, and I tried to get out of watching it with my friend Cameron by moaning: "Washington DC and Moscow both get destroyed." His reply: yeah, but getting there is all the fun"
- I remember going to the theaters to see Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico on their first runs. It was strange to see actors from The Godfather in a strangely reversed and parallel universe to Coppola's. I also recall how seeing those films, as well as Network were more like huge national events. Not just an evening at the movies.
- Paul Newman in the Verdict and William Holden in Network were special performances for me. These weren't just actors in roles. They were ideals of my father's generation facing mortal issues and problems as well as just guys trying to respond to a mad world.
- There was a late show on a Monday of Prince of the City at the Hazel Dell Cinemas. It was one of those last chance Texaco affairs where the film was going to leave a day or so later. I remember waking up the next day to a Lumet hangover, my mental time for most of the morning thinking about the characters and the choices they made.
- And I remember a Saturday night at College where dorm parties emptied out and I watched the last act and a half in the dorm lounge of Long Day's Journey Into Night and encountered the greatness of Eugene O'Neil. (It would have been nice to recollect that a smart, long straight haired and slendored English Major join me for cuddling and conversation afterwards, but I am sure that it unfortunately didn't happen that way)
The long and faithful adaptation to A Long Day's Journey into Night with Jason Robards, Jr., Ralph Richardson and Katherine Hepburn is about the The decline and fall of Eugnene ONeil's Tyrone family. The Hansons in When the Devil.. also have a decline and fall: Egotism, emotional paralysis, alcoholism, drug abuse, consumption and knock Kneed enertia...oops, those were the problems of the Tyrones. The list for the Hansons in the new film has a few duplicate maladies and its own flavors of dread, inhumane behavior, and betrayal.
At 83. Lumet has created a film as worthy as any he did in his high profile prime body of work years in the seventies. He still is generous as he was in his book "Making Movies" with lessons learned about the creative process, working with actors and nature of film as he was in this New York Magazine interview from earlier in the year. He also has embraced HD and said he will never go back to filmstock.
I am as excited by the addition of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead to Lumet's work as a hard core fan is about their team making it to the playoffs. Even more pleased to see that there is at least another film in development. And now I look forward to visiting his work and picking up on some films such as last year's Find Me Guilty, which received some good reviews but not an audience or the status of multiplex event in seventies flashback as When the Devil finds you Dead currently and well deservedly seems to have found.
As I reflect on Sidney Lumet, I try to figure out what makes a Lumet film special. Most of his films are set and are about New York City with an emotional intensity and a truth to that intensity. Characters and his films often have a special kind of coil and spring to them. There is a wide shot in real time the Devil Finds where Philip Seymour Hoffman pours himself a glass of tonic water while cartoons obnoxiously play on a HD television in a living room. In this pregnant pause to the action the audience is given the opportunity to try to figure out what is going on and maybe what will happen next. The spring is being loaded as it is time and time again during the film with payoffs of plot, character, and cinematic experience in just a few frames to come.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:43 PM
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