sidney lumet search and destroy etc

i think one problem is i hate that post-method style of Acting

at least in the wrong hands (robert duvall is the only person who comes off vaguely ok in 'network')

x-post

i think one problem is i hate that post-method style of Acting

at least in the wrong hands (robert duvall is the only person who comes off vaguely ok in 'network')

yeah i have seen DDA and i liked it pretty well, forgot about that

My favorite is Running on Empty.

it has a real lazy misogyny to it, movies "taking on" tv are always dud (i liked quiz show alot though). the fucking voiceover that comes and goes. too ott to be a 'searing' portrait, not ott enough to be insane or interesting. some good lines, and vaguely interesting in it's datedness, but awful awful awful.

i mean usually people point to coppola or whatever which is silly because coppola was outstanding, even spielberg in his way was quite good and inventive

but lumet--who again i'm sure is very talented at this sort of thing--just represents to me a total degeneration just the same

is it the movie's or Holden's character's?

datedness

only because it's no longer a mildly hysterical vision of the future but a mildly satiric description of the present?

the misogyny is in the way the female character(s) are written

actually another thing i think of was robert altman's mastery of this sort of material, at least the sort of material aiming for similar things

altman for one has (had) an interesting visual style and a sense of balance and timing, whatever the basic shallowness of his concepts

(you may not see sybil the soothsayer, but i do)

and amateurist otm re: misogyny (which hardly prompts an automatic veto on movies from me)(i luv altman, hitchcock, master p)

I haven't seen it in years, but I remember really enjoying 'Prince of the City' as well - a twisting crime thriller stuffed with great character actors

murder on the orient express owes what it gots to albert finney with maaaybe a nod in the direction of the nine million other stars in that thing. if that thing works it's despite lumet.

x-post

sidney lumet filmed a movie in my aunt's old apartment, apparently he was really nice.

D: that Melanie Griffith Nazi one, that Gloria remake

The Hill - mesmerised me first time I saw it. Still does.
Fail Safe - ditto
Running on Empty - made me cwy
Dog Day Afternoon - What's not to like? Awful inevitability of John Cazale's death
Serpico - saw it this week and still loiked it. Very watchable.

I've not yet seen 12 Angry men...

god the original is so weird, it's like the most 'impossible' movie i've ever sat through

dude jess they showed you network in film school? i think i will have to pray now

I think the whole movie is arguably seen through the Holden character's eyes, even if he isn't present, which may explain the perspective.

It's interesting because he started in TV in the early days. It made him less an "auteur" than a craftsman who is interested in finding the best techiques to convey the film's themes. So he has great knowledge of things like lenses... they mean a lot.

He's also really tuned in to how those techniques work on the subconscious - like in 12 Angry Men (search) how the shots keep getting tighter and tighter so it feels like the ceiling is caving in on the actors. I mean, the whole movie was shot in one room!

Most of his movies from the 80s on are pretty crapola though.

amst could you explain what you mean by this?

this is one of the more readable film threads in a while.

wow, this is just brilliant

roll over robert bresson

-- amateur!st (amateur!s...), February 27th, 2004. (later)

Seeing as how he made it in 1957 in the US studio system, yes, it's pretty noteworthy. I never said the guy was the greatest filmmaker alive for fuck's sake though. Just chiming in.

no all i'm saying is that that's a basic filmmaking technique that people used in the 1910s and onward, it's a nice technique and i'm sure there are some who are oblivious to it, but it doesn't really reveal any sort of creative genius on the part of lumet

in fact the range of stylistic options 'available' (in the 'have currency' sense) to contemporary hollywood filmmakers is in a certain sense narrower than it was in the 1950s

the quality of any of his movies is usually pretty incidental to his involvement.

You don't have to think he's a 'genius' to find this absurd. It's not like he throws the actors onto the set and starts rolling.

Prince of the City, just out on DVD, holds up real well -- more complex and tragic than Serpico. Lumet's comments on the 3 visual styles he used are illuminating.

Hmm.

and let's just thank God dePalma didn't direct Prince of the City as planned.

I'd like to think that Nancy Allen would fit into the ensemble nicely.

no, Lindsay Crouse is great in about 4 short scenes as Treat Williams' morose wife.

"The Offence" is pretty powerful. Haven't seen it in a long time tho.

Did he do "The Pawnbroker"? Even longer since that's been on telly!

"morose" and "Lindsay Crouse" are inseperable.

Re-saw The Verdict a couple of months ago...holds up better than expected, but the victory still seems forced, and the "tragic" ending too determinist.

well, that's just another Paul Newman comeback movie.

Lumet directed the ILX poll-winning classic Dog Day Afternoon, but perhaps it was pretty incidental to his involvement.

Sorry, Morbs -- Treat Williams gives one of the more unwatchable lead performances I've ever seen; however, Jerry Orbach gives his best screen perf. Nice creepy bit by Bob Balaban, pouring Bud in a hotel suite.

Pauline Kael otm: "Treat Williams has a very closed face—the kind of opaque face that is like a brick wall in front of the camera. And that may be why Williams, as a New York City police officer who agrees to be wired and to obtain evidence about corruption in his unit, plays each scene as an acting exercise—going through so much teary, spiritual agony that you want to throw something at him.

Good god I had no idea people hated Network so much! I saw it recently and loved it. Like Natural Born Killers, I didn't think it really 'worked' as a critique of exploitative TV journalism. If you aren't digging deep for satire or realism they're both just fun, fucking crazy rides. I thought it was fucking hilarious! The friendship between the two old broadcasters was pretty genuine. And maybe it's just because I loved how everything looked in the '70s: the warm, detailed wood of the news desk, the curlicue stairs and boldly patterned drapery of the lady's apartment. Why is everyone dead set on looking so anesthetized and ugly today?

I do think it works pretty well as a commentary on how people exploit/treat people with mental problems.

gabbneb otm here re: network

it's no longer a mildly hysterical vision of the future but a mildly satiric description of the present

anyone else looking forward to Before the Devil Knows You're Dead?

I like Network more than Eric, but I enjoy it as opera, not realistic cinema. (My favorite William Holden performance too).

I wouldn't want realism in a film like that because the depressingness would make me unable to finish it, if I could even start watching it.

Kael's quote about Treat Williams is exactly why I'm excited to see Prince Of The City. Oh, sweet, sweet irony.

I enjoy it as opera, not realistic cinema

agreed

Williams doesn't even give a fun, juicy bad performance -- no "THIS IS A BIG TITTED HIT!" Duvall-style hoohah here.

the way the last few scenes in 'prince of the city' play out is great. that last line richard foronjy gives him before the elevator closes, i can't tell what's more despairing: if he's lying or telling the truth.

i also wonder if the opening shot is intended as taking place before or after the events in the film?

orbach is awesome, love the deliberate wipe-off of his hand during the last conversation between him and TW.

yeah, but did you like the MOVIE?

i call them "films", alfred

The key to understanding this movie is to realize that William Holden is playing an older version of his character in Sabrina.

Not that I like either one of those movies.

assorted local-pro thoughts re NYC retro:

http://www.thereeler.com/features/tell_me_about_sidney.php

and, you knew it'd be here:

http://www.nypress.com/21/6/news&columns/feature1.cfm

Lumet did not make the quintessential New York movies. These would be My Man Godfrey, A Man’s Castle, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Gentleman’s Agreement, On the Corner, The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3, Annie Hall, Do the Right Thing—films about the struggles of the working class and the ethos of ethnic strivers. Instead, the films that make his reputation are the ones that herald the skullduggery of the city’s movers-and-wreckers; that is, the power fantasies of New York’s media elite. Media wonks like to pretend blue-collar virtue while enjoying the benefits of white-collar luxe—but without showing intellectual pretense. Lumet gets celebrated for making New York magazine or Daily News movies; these aren’t snotty New Yorker magazine movies but a modish version of blue-collar pulp. To have influenced David Chase or George Clooney is nothing to be proud of.

the pawnbroker (sidney lumet, 1965)

Another thread I missed entirely. I am surprised to find it full of hate for Network. I like Eric H's observation that it works as opera... it works very much like that, actually. Everything in it is WAY over the top, unapologetically. See the scene with the spurned wife, who is never heard from before that or after. Or Ned Beatty's completely awesome "corporate cosmology" speech. Or... any of it, really. It's one of my favorite movies, despite the fact that I know it's a bit of a mess.

The wife appears in the scene where Max and family is at home and everyone screams out the window.

The back of her head.

And also, almost every performance in it is great. Holden is crusty but benign. Dunaway plays hysterical as well as Gene Wilder, except cold as a media executive's tit. Robert Duvall is what you might call a "screamer." ("WE'VE GOT A BIG FAT BIG-TITTED HIT!") The whole thing is hilarious.

You guys hate this movie? Really?

It is one of my very favorite movies, actually. I don't think it's messy at all. Compared to something like Weekend, which does feel a bit messy, or some other films that I like a lot from the late 60s/70s that are messier and more chaotic. Network feels very controlled to me.

The romance side plot doesn't work at all. Holden getting involved with Dunaway makes zero sense.

Also, there is a painful amount of expositional dialogue.

"I took this job with your personal assurance that you would back my autonomy against any encroachment. But ever since CCA acquired control of UBS ten months ago..."

The romance side plot doesn't work at all. Holden getting involved with Dunaway makes zero sense.

Eh, it makes perfect sense to me - she's young and hot, and he's a guy.

honestly, it strikes me like the early television plays that owe a lot to the theater, which is the writer's background, right?

xp He's old and hot, you forgot to mention.

so what about it doesn't make sense to you?

She's completely insane, and he's not.

Also, you have to admit, radio play or not, some of that dialogue is labored.

She's completely insane, and he's not.

She is also successful and flatters him immensely.

As far as the dialogue goes, I think it works in its context. Maybe if you gave examples, I'd concede that some of it is, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

I just gave one! The writing often breaks through and reveals itself as having been written. It's not exactly clumsy, because it's consistently like that, but I do cringe at certain lines.

I suppose it's the whole movie in abstract when Dunaway looks at Holden over dinner and, bug-eyed and hyperactive, asks "What sort of script do you think we can make out of this?"

xp - yeah, i have no problem with that. Granted, there are more streamlined ways of presenting the same information that make more use of the potential of the various facets of cinema to do so. I think the theatrical-style exposition in the dialog calls attention to the era of television that the movie is, in a sense, mourning.

That's definitely an angle on the movie that hadn't occurred to me.

rip

Can't say he didn't live a full life as a movie director.

RIP

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/movies/sidney-lumet-director-of-american-classics-dies-at-86.html

Huge. Love Dog Day, The Verdict, and Long Day's Journey Into Night, also Serpico and Prince of the City a little less so. (Mixed feelings on Network.) Amazing how many major directors have died during the past calendar year.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead was a good one to go out on.

As a director, only usually as good as his material (i.e. Network's script, The Wiz's tunes). Don't know what he was like as a person.

RIP. Don't forget 12 Angry Men!

I've never watched The Iceman Cometh, which I home-taped years and years ago. I think that's #1 on my to-do list.

oh my. (particularly sad about that last crappy film.)

I would argue that his craft, esp the direction of the actors, gave Chayefsky's goddamn reactionary sermonizing a human dimension in Network.

I thought Before The Devil was terrible: lots of shouting, which was par for the course for Lumet when his Magic Gift for actors departed him. On the other hand, Night Falls on Manhattan is an underrated little film, despite Andy Garcia's misbegotten accent.

I didn't like Before the Devil either, but then I got caught up in some scene on TV one night, not even realizing it was Devil till I checked. So maybe it's worth a second look, I don't know.

Well, Lumet is the kind of non-auteurist director who is only as gd as the script he's working from - ie Frank Pierson's screenplay for DDA is really brilliant, so poignant and multilayered, while Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay for 'Network' is yes, vulgar and clumsy.
― Andrew L (Andrew L), Thursday, February 26, 2004

As a director, only usually as good as his material (i.e. Network's script, The Wiz's tunes).
― scissorlocks and the three bears (Eric H.), Saturday, April 9, 2011

Same point, seven years apart. This is the "Raising Kane" debate--isn't this more or less true of any director, though?

this is a great scene: beautifully staged, esp with the bank tellers being thrilled at being part of a media event. Too bad he didn't fuck it up with some self-regarding camera gyrations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9gHNl8UNq4&feature=related

http://historical-images.encore-editions.com/44-van-vechten-collection/500/400787-portrait-of-sidney-lumet.jpg

RIP

I forgot about Network jeez. Before The Devil knows was pretty bad, but heck, the man'd done enough great movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTDhgR3p12w

My fave shot from this

Neat trick to isolate Begley: you see Lee J. Cobb go over to the window in the first second of that clip, then the shot reverses angle and Cobb disappears for the rest of the scene. (I spent the whole clip wondering where Cobb was, and only caught him when I went back to the beginning.)

uh, did we know one of his 3 wives was Gloria Vanderbilt?

Ah man, Dog Day Afternoon is one of my all-time faves. Love Network, Serpico and 12 Angry Men as well.

86 is not a bad age, he lived his life fully it seems. RIP.

deathtrap is pretty fun

I forgot that I was an extra in one of his films -- Daniel. The scene was a socialist rally on behalf of the neo-Rosenberg characters, shot in Union Square, presided over by Ed Asner. I had a circa 1950 hat. Don't remember his direction, except it was given by megaphone.

Anyone read this?

http://lehmannfilms.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/making-movies-sidney-lumet-paperback-cover-art.jpg

Yeah, it's pretty terrific -- the best thing he did in twenty years.

BTDKYD isn't terrible but the fractured chronology kills all possible tension (see also Vantage Point)

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/3119

From that link:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/post_images/4140/lumet2.jpg?1302434653

I don't think I remember subway seats w/ fabric, but I do recall the small electric fans mounted on the car walls.

From the NYT Last Word interview, I don't remember "Wyoming" from DDA.

Wonderfully unpretentious in that video piece - must find myself a copy of Making Movies.

When I posted a list many years ago of my favorite films of the '90s, I had Q&A in a group of 10 runners-up. When I watched it again a couple of years later, some of it seemed very shrill; it didn't hold up as well as I'd remembered, although Nolte's performance mostly did.

^^^ my feeling too

Making Movies is a great book. He's such a likeable presence.

Joe Morgenstern on Lumet.

Of the many things we discussed, the oddest was dishwashers. There’s a scene in “Rachel Getting Married” in which the father of the bride has a dishwasher-loading competition with the bridegroom that seems to be about efficiency but is really about control. The scene, Jenny said, had been inspired by a similar contest she witnessed as a child between her dad and the director/choreographer Bob Fosse.

Pete Hammond's remembrance

Matt Seitz: "Just because you don't instantly notice what directors are doing doesn't mean they aren't doing anything."

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2011/04/09/sidney_lumet_appreciation

That's the best thing I've read so far.

Lumet on directing Brando, from the CC of The Fugitive Kind:

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1810-the-craft-of-sidney-lumet

I started his book, it's very snappy. He suggested Vanessa Redgrave for Network, and when Paddy Chayefsky yelped "no, she's pro-PLO," Lumet told him that was blacklisting. PC: "Not when a Jew does it to a Gentile."

Watched Dog Day for the first time in eons on Friday -- really amazing neorealist texture, the quintessence of '70s New York (ie, better than Mean Streets or Taxi Driver). Possibly Pacino's peak, and I didn't realize Judith Malina and Lance Henriksen had small meaty roles. The principal location is blocks from where I lived for a dozen years.

Have you ever read the LIFE Magazine article on which the screenplay was based? Some of the photos accompanying that story look almost like stills from the movie.

I have not, but will later! Also I'm amused that the real-life love object paid for his sex change with the money from the movie rights, apparently.

From his book, the ppl on the set he really had no use for were the star's personal hair/makeup staff, and the Teamsters.

Got an invite to a memorial tribute for him at Lincoln Center Monday afternoon. Can't go.

watching 'network' i think that movie sort of epitomizes everything i might hate in a movie

What happened to you as a child? This is such a great movie. I always pair it with "Hospital" (another great Chayefsky script) in my mind.

Good scripts, not movies!

sometimes I credit Lumet for ameliorating some of the hysteria in Network; other times he just said fuck it and let the camera go.

The hysteria is the best thing about the movie, that and Dunaway's premature orgasm.

Carl Paladino did sort of ruin the "mad as hell" for me though.

Is The Deadly Affair worth watching? I got ten minutes in, decided that James Mason was vastly inferior to Guinness the George Smiley role, and gave up. I should probably give it another go.

did you guys know he was in yiddish theater as a child? and he was in a movie w/ sylvia sidney in the 1930s?

yes (he was also on Broadway as a teen)

yeah. dude had an interesting life. kind of wish i could chat w/ him.

the "strip search" thing he did for hbo is interesting, if a bit facile. on youtube btw if ur curious

imdb is weird abt it listing a bunch of extra actors and longer run times so maybe an 86 or 120 min vers exists..did they try and distribute it w/o hbo in other countries maybe?

the main thing is the controversy abt hbo pulling it in the wake of abu ghraib which i do kindof remember and is pretty bs

lol that 1 of the imdb plot keywords is Panties Hit The Floor

i'm about halfway thru prince and the city. must have watched this 20 times when it first made the rounds on cable back in the 80s, just loved the myriad "real" new york character actors. especially loving bob balaban's prissy little fed this time around. pretty crudely structured/directed as per usual with lumet but his style very much suits the story in this one.

My wife and I just watched Running on Empty last night (partly because of mentions in this thread). It was rock solid. Like a small indie film, except one made by consummate professionals at every level.

Incidentally, after so many years of watching a thousand names scroll by on the end credits of blockbuster movies, I was amazed at how few people were needed for this production. By modern Hollywood standards, just a handful.

Christine Lahti is so good!

http://imgur.com/a/HMuy2#7

The ending of Fail-Safe is really chilling without being graphic at all--those lightning-quick optical zooms, the hiss from the melted phone, Hagman & Fonda's small talk in their last scene, "He knows" re:First Lady.

on Fail-Safe (the guy doesn't really 'get' Strangelove)

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/10/fail_safe_50th_anniversary_sidney_lumet_s_nuclear_war_movie_is_better_than.html

The ending of Fail-Safe is really chilling without being graphic at all--those lightning-quick optical zooms, the hiss from the melted phone, Hagman & Fonda's small talk in their last scene, "He knows" re:First Lady.

― A Made Man In The Mellow Mafia (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, October 1, 2013 5:06 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep otm; i was also very into all the silence, esp in the beginning & how it's used throughout. it's obv of its time but i also think quite timeless + great

god network is awful!
― cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, February 26, 2004 4:14 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cannot be said enough.

no, that's silly. His last movie, THAT'S awful.

Probably (I didn't see it), but there seems to be a consensus on that. I still run into people who think Network is great.

The Offence w/ Connery is now on Bluray

looking at Q&A alongside... Akira

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/bradlands/akira-q-a-joy-juxtapositions

Q&A is a really good one. otm there about how it starts to get very twisty and interesting in a lot of unexpected ways.

Mini-Lumet series at the Lightbox, five films. Saw Serpico today, Network and Prince of the City next weekend. (Skipping Dog Day and 12 Angry Men.) I like Serpico, but it gets a little repetitive about 2/3 of the way through. His first girlfriend, Cornelia Sharpe, gives a good performance; the second, Barbara Eda-Young, is good in his first scene, but during her big meltdown, where she cries that she wants to marry Serpico and have kids with him, I started wondering if she was the basis for Catherine O'Hara's Lola Heatherton. Saw M. Emmett Walsh's name in the credits--missed him in the film.

"good in her first scene"

I was trying and trying during the film last night to remember who won Best Actor in '73. I knew it wasn't Pacino, knew it wasn't Nicholson for The Last Detail--their first awards came later--knew that Hoffman and De Niro weren't up that year. Had to look it up when I got home: Lemmon for Save the Tiger. Which is dumb, because that's a film I've always liked more than most people.

Some of Prince of the City I like better than Serpico, and there are some good performances: Jerry Orbach, Norman Parker as the attorney who recruits Ciello, Ron Karabatsos, and the guy who plays Blomberg's lawyer. Great ending. Treat Williams always wears me down after a while--he aims for Brando and De Niro, occasionally gets partway there, occasionally gives you Bobby Bittman.

Kael: "And that may be why Williams, as a New York City police officer who agrees to be wired and to obtain evidence about corruption in his unit, plays each scene as an acting exercise--going through so much teary, spiritual agony that you want to throw something at him."

I'm enjoying his book Making Movies and how much he hates teamsters.

I just saw an interview with Ava DuVernay on TCM talking about Dog Day Afternoon & she said that Making Movies was what inspired her to direct and she gives copies of it to people she meets who want to work in film <3

Also I rewatched Dog Day Afternoon last weekend and it is perfect

the teamsters part is great. also about how some hair & makeup people are leeches.

oft overlooked Lumet-Brando-Tennessee out on Criterion

https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/blu-ray-review-sidney-lumet-the-fugitive-kind-on-the-criterion-collection/

Watched this last night on the Channel. There's something I just don't get about Williams' compulsive demon-exorcisms, but it was top notch filmmaking.

amazing I'd never watched Network until last night! familiar with the ott monologues from elsewhere, but I wasn't quite ready for how arch the performances would be. the idea people are playing out their roles in some metatextual way as if they're all caricatures of television characters, to the extent Holden articulates it in dialog, doesn't completely work as intended

it unintentionally bridges the gap between two movies I've recently watched: A Face in the Crowd and, for its subject matter and McLuhan-inspired theme, Videodrome

Fail-Safe CC is out too!

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6801-fail-safe-very-little-left-of-the-world

To create the animations of the various blips of planes and missiles seen on the massive screens that dominate many of Fail Safe’s spaces, the director turned to the acclaimed animators John and Faith Hubley.

had no idea of this

Is anything he did post-1990 worth watching? The Larry Cohen writing credit on Guilty as Sin intrigues me, but otherwise it looks like he fell off considerably in his last couple decades. A few of these titles (Night Falls on Manhattan, Strip Search) even sound like straight-to-video erotic thrillers.

MANHATTAN has one of Ian Holm's great performances and one of Andy Garcia's worst.

Some critics dig Q&A.

I haven't seen it, but Q&A is the most recent one that I've heard anything good about.

I liked Q&A alright, and skipped everything after til the last one (dreadful imho).

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead is aggressively grotesque, idk if I would actually call it good tho

I know I wouldn't.

Bye Bye Braverman and The Group are both curious movies

Q&A is really good. Nolte is incredibly and outlandishly sleazy. That's a compliment. Night Falls on Manhattan has some good performances and is a pretty compelling view, though as far as his crooked cops thrillers go it's the one that feels like a greatest hits package more than a new take on the genre (i haven't seen it in years, that was just my impression at the time).

Gilbert Gottfried mentions Bye Bye Braverman quite a bit on his podcast. I'll keep an eye open for that one on TCM.

saw that very long ago; like a much less gonzo, very Jewish precursor of Cassavetes' Husbands

I don't know where I posted about it if not here, but I thought A Stranger Among Us wasn't bad--at the very least better than Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

this revive has made me rewatch Q&A

when i first moved to london and shared a flat with my sister, she was at film school with a bunch of ppl who were OBSESSED with 12 angry men, so we watched it a lot (i had a job and more importantly a video recorder). i haven't seen it for years but i became very fond of its performances and character actors and not-quite-formalism. i shd rewatch that too.

Just saying .. on R4 on Saturday night on what was actually a decent program (The Science of Evil) in which there was a reference to "Stanley Kubrick's 12 Angry Men" that got me thinking the BBC is not sacking enough of the right people.

lol i forgot i was rewatching Q&A 12 days ago, i am still rewatching Q&A

Network is still amazing, people I've never heard of ITT from 15 years ago are very much not amazing.

I might not be clear on the time line, but The Anderson Tapes (1971) seems like it was a couple of years ahead of the curve on the whole "70s paranoia thriller" thing, even if its basically a heist movie seasoned with some contemporary concerns re: surveillance issues. It feels a bit padded--the Dyan Cannon character and a scene involving Alan King's mafioso patriarch mostly serve to kill time until the caper gets underway--but it has a killer Quincy Jones score, and a supporting cast that includes a twinky Christopher Walken in his film debut, Martin Balsam as a gay stereotype (warning: the movie is in love with that word), Conrad Bain being punched in the nose, and Margaret Hamilton reading dirty books.

Wow--I always thought Annie Hall was Walken's debut. Took him another six years to land a one-minute part (albeit an unforgettable one)?

Walken had a big role in Next Stop Greenwich Village ('75)

saw Anderson Tapes at a rep house, possibly in the '80s

also a pre-SNL Garrett Morris!

watched The Pawnbroker the other night. just a great performance by Steiger, and the movie it reminded me most of oddly was The Blue Angel. Steiger looks and acts like Emil Jannings in that movie, they're both professors, movies + stories set at opposite ends of the biggest event of the 20th century. the difference is at least Jannings has Dietrich, and for 5 years no less. Steiger has his apprentice, who ends up dead and Steiger has to continue on! there are similarities too in the lighting and blocking of everything in the pawnshop, it's very Sternbergian / clearly drawing from German Expressionism in a way that I haven't seen in any other Lumet films.

Fail Safe was great. Really the perfect movie to watch during a pandemic. I couldn't stop violently sobbing at the end!

Very New Wave, mostly in the titles and that truly overwhelming final shot of white

also watched the Fail-Safe Criterion last night, which i've been a fan of since high school, although I think it's a very good film while Strangelove is great and more attuned to my sensibility.

Didn't remember the second part of Matthau's first appearance, where his Herman Kahn-like nuclear hawk is nearly picked up by a D.C. party girl who is aroused by nuclear doomsday. Weird scene, though one of the few bad ones in the picture.

I also think the backstory of the breaking-down colonel (Fritz Weaver)'s shame over his alcoholic parents was too on-the-nose and gratuitous, and Lumet says pretty much the same thing on his commentary track (recorded in 2000).

Funny that Matthau, Dom DeLuise (one great sweaty scene) and Sorrell Booke (Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard, here playing -- only 33! -- the bespectacled congressman in the SAC hq) all reached stardom as comedic actors.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but was anyone in American movies doing anything like this w/r/t title-cards/text/opticals? The timing, style, and purpose of the titles and very quick cuts and that final white screen just scream Godard. and not only that, there's the photo negative footage of the planes, something Pasolini claimed Godard invented in Alphaville, in 1965.

I think nouvelle vague stuff starts showin up in some US films by '62 tho I can't think of any examples right now (Manchurian Candidate?)

also A Hard Day's Night, made by a Yank

obv this was more apt to show up in indie productions

The use of hard cuts (instead of dissolves/wipes) as transitions in Lawrence of Arabia was Nouvelle Vague-influenced.

Lumet was ahead of the curve in many ways. There are Kurosawa visual riffs in The Fugitive Kind from 1960.

I started watching the 2000 remake with George Clooney a few years ago, and either I gave up on it, or it made so little impression on me I've forgotten it all.

Fail Safe was great. Really the perfect movie to watch during a pandemic. I couldn't stop violently sobbing at the end!

― flappy bird, Friday, March 13, 2020 12:58 PM (two days ago)

In addition to the pandemic, I'm reading an essay on "Cold War rationality" right now. So now I'm trying to decide whether to watch Fail Safe or Seven Days in May tonight (I've seen neither).

Tried watching "Network" with my 15-year old and it was pretty tough going. Crossing over with the "Is Dylan overrated?" thread,I noted there how I tried to explain to her why Dylan was so important or noteworthy, and even though I could list all the reasons, not many of them resonated with a (my) teen in 2020. Same things with "Network." I see William Holden and Faye Dunaway, she sees mostly old men she can barely tell apart. I see a satire of Things To Come, she sees a milder version of what she has lived with and seen her whole life. I see an iconic (like it or not) exemplar of '70s filmmaking, she sees ugly earth tones everywhere (compared to "His Girl Friday," which she loved for the acting, characters *and* wardrobe). We made it about halfway, since it proved a paradoxical dead end: trying to explain its novel ideas was pointless, since those novel ideas are not only no longer novel, but they're downright quaint (if not outright clunky) compared to what we see and hear on TV etc. today. She's seen and liked "Dog Day Afternoon" and "12 Angry Men" (and seen and hated the slo-mo "Murder on the Orient Express"), so I think that might be it for her and Lumet.

the group is pretty interesting

I see William Holden and Faye Dunaway, she sees mostly old men she can barely tell apart.

kinda harsh on Faye Dunaway!

Ha, yeah. I guess I mean she didn't even recognize her movie star qualities, she was struggling so hard to tell apart the old white men. I mean, she's seen "Chinatown" and still couldn't place her! Which is a testament to Dunaway, in a sense, but also underscores the distractions built into the movie that my daughter had to deal with. Fwiw, she's seen and liked "Sunset Boulevard," too, but failed to make that connection as well, thus missing the impact of stately, old veteran William Holden in the put out to pasture role. It would be like showing her "The Verdict" years after "The Hustler" or something and expecting old Paul Newman to resonate as more than old white man.

I don't remember thinking super highly of Network when I watched it the first time as a 14-year-old either.

But it is hysterical to imagine someone my age now showing it to a 14-year-old today and defending it as a "those were the good old days of things-getting-worse" proposition.

I was 14 when it came out. I liked the high-pitched acting, jokes and profanity.

the "politics" of it probably worked for me as well, since i hadnt yet learned that Walter Cronkite was a bullshitter.

i've said it before but Lumet's a classic non-auteurish workman of often enjoyable movies, i can't imagine Network blowing any kid's mind

he made the best possible film out of Chayefsky's screed in this instance.

sure, i love a bunch of his films, i never think of him as top tier tho

As Welles said, "You only need one." And he has, at least, Long Day's Journey into Night and Dog Day Afternoon.

I can't conceive of any age in which i don't recognize Network as garbage.

xp good point Morbs

I saw Network for the first time pretty late (a year after Trump elected) and yeah, not only is it overwrought, it is quaint. Very funny that your daughter wasn't impressed, Josh. It makes sense.

Lumet has like 5 classics... Fail Safe, 12 Angry Men, DDA, The Pawnbroker, even Network is still enjoyable.

Chayefsky's dialogue wouldn't work in any age, though. "Why is it that a woman's first instinct when she wants to hurt a man is to impugn his cocksmanship?" -Oscar winning screenplay

Damn right it is.

https://media1.tenor.com/images/80a1533cd59f394429938ffa9bb83417/tenor.gif?itemid=5486328

The most hyperliterate, loquacious newsmen I've ever met.

Really, what grates most about Network is its cynicism, which is, of course, another version of and indistinguishable from sentimentality. Even Laureen Hobbs is in on the take! Her KFC-eating leaders said so.

i'm a sucker for sentimentality but you're right Alfred, cynicism is it's arch-shadow and i can usually leave that

i remember really enjoying Q&A tho thinking at the time it was a lesser version of Internal Affairs

i'm sure i read at least 3 profiles of Respected People in the News Business between 1980 and 2000 which included some variant of the quote "Have you watched Network lately? It's all happened."

the eighties version of "it's just like a scene from 'The Thick of It'"

well, TV news has always been 99% shit, except in Paddy's golden memories

sorry everyone but network is still a brilliant film, not flawless by any means, but still brilliant.

I guess Network is also an early example of Boomer-loathing, not in the prior sense of despising them for being bratty kids/hippies but from the perspective of seeing them as adversaries in the workplace

It loathes Boomer women, and black Boomer women especially.

As far as I remember there's just one black woman character, yes, she's easily the worst-drawn character in the film, but in no way the most unlikable, and her scenes could (and probably should) be cut with no real impact on the film as a whole.

she's easily the worst-drawn character in the film

Wellll...

but in no way the most unlikable

OK, agreed.

I think the only thing in Network that hasn't become trite and/or sentimental is the phenomenon of Beale's catchphrase becoming popular just because it's fun to scream out windows and like, knock over a trashcan. Just the total impenetrability of any kind of real message. Once they get into newsroom & media politics, it's just a joke, self-congratulatory and trite. "The media and politicians lie and corporations run the world." Whoa, stop the presses. I mean that last Ned Beatty speech... talk about bathos! Great performances though and Lumet directs brilliantly.

I didn't make it to the end this viewing, but iirc the Unspooled podcast noted that at the beginning the board meeting is all old white men, but supposedly there's a fleeting second shot of the board at the end and it now features more women and even a couple of black characters, so I think Lumet et al. were aware and maybe (for once) subtle to a fault.

The Ebert (original) review homes in on how the movie loses the focus of its satire of the news/TV and starts to take scattershot aim at all sorts of stuff:

If the whole movie had stayed with this theme, we might have had a very bitter little classic here. As it is, we have a supremely well-acted, intelligent film that tries for too much, that attacks not only television but also most of the other ills of the 1970s. We are asked to laugh at, be moved by, or get angry about such a long list of subjects: Sexism and ageism and revolutionary ripoffs and upper-middle-class anomie and capitalist exploitation and Neilsen ratings and psychics and that perennial standby, the failure to communicate. Paddy Chayefsky's script isn't a bad one, but he finally loses control of it. There's just too much he wanted to say. By the movie's end, the anchorman is obviously totally insane and is being exploited by blindly ambitious programmers on the one hand and corrupt businessmen on the other, and the scale of evil is so vast we've lost track of the human values.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/network-1976

Still a 4-star review, as is the 2000 reassessment.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-network-1976

Both are worth a (re)read.

BTW, I think Beatrice Straight still holds the record for least amount of screen time in an Academy Award winning performance. 5 minutes, 40 seconds.

If you see earlier Chayefsky-written films, particularly The Hospital, his race/gender peeves are consistent. I think Lumet was obviously more liberal, enough to make 3 (or 4?) police corruption movies where the rot can be traced to his own generation of Jewish, Italian, and Irish peers.

xp yes, though amazingly enough not the shortest nominated performance, which is hard to fathom

Judi Dench should pop up as Queen Victoria again in something to break the record

I know it has its heavy-handed, method-actory moments--Newman's final summation probably the worst offender--but The Verdict rarely gets mentioned here, and I love it. James Mason and Jack Warden are excellent.

i wonder if Mamet visited the set much

My two favorite scenes: Miles O'Shea slurping on clam chowder in the judge's chambers wheedling Paul Newman as a silent tea-sipping James Mason watches (Mason offers to say something, thinks better of it, patronizingly slinks away); and Mason rehearsing the strategy with the young law partners.

Least favorites: any scene with Charlotte Rampling. Her section comes in as from another movie. I get the sense Lumet and Mamet got cold feet about all the dudes and stuck in a female character out of melodrama.

I love where Mason scolds all his young lawyers that they aren't to make even the slightest mention that Newman's replacement star witness is black--after one of them smugly informed the room that "Oh--and he's black"--and then, in the next breath, says something like "and make sure we get a black lawyer sitting at our table" with a big conspiratorial grin.

(Which is probably the scene you refer to.)

yep!

It's based on a bestseller, and i have verified that the Rampling character is in the novel.

Quite a tussle over who would make the film in fact:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Verdict#Production

I think Rampling tries, gamely, but the character isn't even granted one light moment--she's reduced to a scold at first (her big "I can't invest in failure" speech), then an informant, then humiliated.

This was the second film in close proximity where Newman flat-out slugged a woman (after Absence of Malice)--I think Sarris might have called attention to that). And in both instances, I'm pretty sure the film wants you to empathize with him.

Would not fly today.

This is embarrassing enough that I shouldn't say anything, but I once put Q&A on a decade-end Top 10. God, what was I thinking? There's a post somewhere above where I tempered that, but even that was way too generous. It's probably better than Lumet's last film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, but not a high bar. I evidently didn't mind the corniest kind of cop banter when I drew up that list; even more surprised that I didn't recoil from all the show-offy, look-how-fearless-our-film-is race- and gay-baiting, which is non-stop. Lumet's daughter, Jenny, isn't much of an actress, and indeed she only did a few movies after this one; the eye-catching thing on her resume is having written the Demme film Rachel Getting Married. There was only one thing I really enjoyed this time (not Nolte), something I would have been oblivious too until now: Dominic Chianese from The Sopranos! He's got a pretty big role, and he may as well be doing Uncle June. (And now something even more embarrassing--until I looked him up, I had no idea he was Johnny Ola in GFII.)

dog day afternoon for me is a perfect film

i could watch it a hundred times & every time its like i’m watching it for the first time
like a high powered magnet that just WHOOMP pulls you all the way in and doesn’t let go

i rewatched tonight & it was 107 in sacramento today so i relate heavily to the sweat pouring off everyone like water

Rewatched that recently on the big screen and I couldn’t agree more. It’s funny, it’s intense, it’s real, every actor in it is doing their best work.

Btw I live a 10 minute walk from where it was filmed. The bank in the film is condominium apartments today. It wasn’t even really a bank in 1975. But the barber shop across the street where the cops are based is still a hair salon today.

i always wondered if it was a real bank!

I think it was like an empty warehouse space that they dressed up as a bank.

Furthermore (if anyone cares) I saw the film at a cinema located three blocks from where the film was shot (The Nitehawk Cinema in Park Slope, Brooklyn). And FURTHERmore there is a hot dog joint more or less across the street from where the “bank” was, called Dog Day Afternoon.

As I've posted before, I always find Dog Day's first half-plus to be much stronger--can't remember at what point it starts to slow down for me. If you haven't, try to see The Dog (on Kanopy, I think).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3091304/

yeah i need to watch that, may give it a whirl tonight!

Furthermore (if anyone cares) I saw the film at a cinema located three blocks from where the film was shot (The Nitehawk Cinema in Park Slope, Brooklyn). And FURTHERmore there is a hot dog joint more or less across the street from where the “bank” was, called Dog Day Afternoon.

It really is a great movie to see in Brooklyn. (I saw it at BAM in 2009, not long after I moved into the neighborhood.)

And yes, Dog Day Afternoon is hands down my favorite Lumet film. I think his filmography can be a little all over the place, but even when the films themselves are a bit lacking, he usually gets the best out of his performers.

My other favorites:

The TV production of The Iceman Cometh - Jason Robards's performance is legendary and rightfully so. One of the best I've ever seen.

Long Day's Journey Into Night - Another O'Neill classic, both plays mean a lot to me, and they're both done so well. Again, a legendary cast and rightfully so.

Prince of the City - saw this again after Treat Williams's death, he actually did a Q&A for this movie at Metrograph several years ago. Really nice guy. A good double feature with Serpico, but as wonderful as Pacino's performance may be, I actually think Prince of the City is the better film.

The Verdict - I thought this was just okay when I first saw it in high school, but I revisited it during the pandemic and was surprised by how much more it resonated. Lumet's great theme is institutional corruption, and it's richly detailed here. It made me think of the moral dilemmas that every law graduate I know just went through - what to do with a law degree, which typically loses out to status and financial considerations - and I get the sense that those problems grew exponentially during the '80s all the way to the present day. The film came out in 1982 and you see this already taking root - it's not just Newman trying to redeem himself and win for his client, he's also fighting against a future that's already been lost, where so much of the best and the brightest aren't going to make the world a better place but cash in, pay off their student loans and move on to better material lives.

Should clarify, I don't think Dog Day Afternoon is all over the place, it's perfect the way it is.

ok i watched The Dog documentary finally and holy shit. what a…i don’t wanna say piece of shit but yeah maybe piece of shit? proof that if you tell yourself something enough you can just force it to be true.

the real hero of the documentary is Frank’s brother Tony <3

I've probably asked this before: no Lumet poll? I'm sure DDA would win, but there should be one.

I don't remember seeing Night Falls on Manhattan when it came out ('96), but I must have--can't imagine skipping it. Lumet's fifth-last film...not good at all. He's remaking Serpico for the third or fourth time. Ron Liebman, Andy Garcia, and Ian Holm each get one big hysterically overwrought speech. The Garcia-Olin romance comes out of nowhere--you look away from the screen for a minute, and suddenly they're deep into a relationship that serves no purpose whatsoever.

The only interest is seeing James Gandolfini and Dominic Chianese in the same film three years before The Sopranos. No scenes together, unfortunately.

I remember Ian Holm giving his typically great performance and Liebman just behind him. Garcia gave his typically terrible performarnce.

I remember seeing NFIM in the cinema and falling asleep. The last Lumet I saw at home was the Anderson Tapes, which I think is underrated. It’s slightly less histrionic than usual, has a satisfyingly grizzly 1970s ending, and Connery is always interesting (to me) when he stops pretending to be likeable.

Garcia should stick to animation work.

no Lumet poll?

The Wiz would be getting at least one vote

Assumed you'd be Network.

around 3-5 votes will come in for Network, only one person will fess up to voting for it (me)

https://i.giphy.com/media/11mYSZihIu0q40/giphy.webp

https://i.imgur.com/uz3HzzJ.gif

NFOM is good not bad I think but it does feel like a Lumet greatest hits. It's got nothing on Q&A, Prince of the City, or Serpico as far as his police corruption pics. I've got zero memory of Garcia in this one, but remember Holm and Gandolfini really nailing their roles.

Look, I'll put my vote behind Network if the moderator agrees to leave off Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

i just watched before the devil knows yr dead

as the film gang here are always wrong abt movies i thought i might enjoy it -- lots of ppl shouting and cursing for two hours 👍🏽 👍🏽 👍🏽 -- but boy what a dumb movie

maybe the gang knows best after all

Let that be a lesson to you

Ethan Hawke's accent is a poem.

Connery is fucking scary in The Offence (rotating off Prime at the end of the month). The whole movie feels like the prototype for the whole "Dark British Police Procedural Prestige Drama" genre.