Thursday Minute
No. 234 | April 14, 2011

Sidney Lumet, R.I.P.

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Over the weekend I was in Utah (surviving, it turned out), and saddened to learn of Sidney Lumet’s death.  I had the itch to see one of his films, and when I made it home I put on The Verdict.  No particular reason, except maybe that I hadn’t seen it in a while.  It’s a film I had admired but it was even better than I remembered.  Paul Newman was brilliant, as good as he ever was, and the film allowed itself a darkness unlike anything you’d see in any movie today.  Lumet made something truly special.  You get a taste in the clip below.

For more of Lumet, check out this conversation with Charlie Rose from 2006.  I recall seeing it the first time.  I’d been a fan of Lumet’s films, and I’d read his book a couple of times.  He was a guy I’d stop and listen to anytime.  It’s a good interview, and after an engaging discussion about movies, Lumet got to talking about another of my interests, crossword puzzles.  Turns out he was a daily solver of the New York Times puzzle, “In ink!” he was proud to note.  “Except Thursday,” he added with a smile.  “Thursday has been getting tougher.”  That was sweet to hear at the time.  I was just getting started as a constructor, with a puzzle that had run in the Times that month, on a Thursday, a tricky number with a theme on squares.  It was a kick to think that the director whose work had given me many thrills over the years may have had a few minutes of pleasure with something I had done.  Yet if that’s the case, I still got the better end of the exchange.  I owe you, Sidney.  We all do.

Finally, a link to the N.Y. Times retrospective “The Last Word,” on the films and life of Sidney Lumet, with reporter Tim Weiner.

Our theme this week
Director Sidney Lumet

The Verdict

Sidney Lumet, in his own words:

The Verdict, Andrzej Bartkowiak, photographer.  The movie was about a man’s salvation, his fight to rid himself of his past.

I wanted as “old” a look as possible.  Art direction had a lot to contribute, and we’ll deal with that later.  But light mattered enormously.

One day I brought a beautiful edition of Caravaggio’s paintings to my meeting with Andrzej.  I said, “Andrzej, there’s the feeling I’m after.  There’s something ancient here, something from a long time ago.  What is it?”  Andrzej studied the pictures.  Then, with his charming Polish accent, he pinpointed it.  “It’s chiaroscuro,” he said.  “A very strong light source, almost always from the side, not above.  And on the other side, no soft fill light, only shadows.  Once in a while he’ll use the reflective light of a metal source on the dark side.”  He pointed to a young boy holding a golden salver.  On the shadow side of the boy’s face, one could discern a slight golden hue.  And that’s what Andrzej carried out in the lighting of the movie.

—Making Movies, 1995 

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The Verdict (1982)
Sidney Lumet, director
Barry Reed (novel); David Mamet (screenplay); writers
Andrzej Bartkowiak, cinematographer
Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason

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Quote of note
Hoyle:  Frank, what would you and your client take—right now, this very minute—to walk out of here, let this damn thing drop?
Galvin:  My client can’t walk, your honor.
Hoyle:  I know full well she can’t, Frank.  You see the padre on your way out.  He’ll punch your ticket.  You follow me?
—Judge Hoyle (Milo O’Shea), Frank Galvin (Paul Newman), The Verdict (1982)

…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
No. 233 | April 12, 2011

Sidney Lumet, R.I.P.

One of the greats died over the weekend.  Sidney Lumet was a brilliant director and a favorite of mine.  He’s one of the reasons I fell in love with movies.

I regret to say my schedule gives me little time to say much now.  Instead, you can find many worthy tributes around the Net.  Here’s one from Betsy Sharkey in Monday’s paper that does a good job of getting at what made Lumet tick—the moral angle, the slice of New York, the fascination with crime and the legal system.  He’s been called an actor’s director, and that is certainly true, but you could just as well call him an audience’s director.  He made movies about people for people—grown-up people, no less—and that, as simple as it may sound, is more and more a rare thing in the “product” that Hollywood turns out.  Lumet was making movies before I was born and was still going strong in his 80s.  Thankfully, he had a long career and made many films, among them some of the greatest of our time (though, like others, he never received due respect at Oscar time).  On the short list of his best work I’d put the following:  Network, Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, 12 Angry Men, and Serpico.  Those you probably know.  Certainly check out The Pawnbroker and Prince of the City, if you haven’t yet.  His most recent, from 2007, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, deserved all the raves it received.  Lumet was 86.  He will be missed.

Our theme this week
Director Sidney Lumet

Prince of the City

Sidney Lumet, in his own words:

Let me vent my anger first, so it’s out of the way.  Critics talk about style as something apart from the movie because they need the style to be obvious.  The reason they need it to be obvious is that they don’t really see.  If the movie looks like a Ford or Coca-Cola commercial, they think that’s style.  And it is.  It’s trying to sell you something you don’t need and is stylistically geared to that goal.  As soon as a “long lens” appears, that’s “style.” … From the huzzahs that greeted Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman, one would’ve thought that another Jean Renoir had arrived.  A perfectly pleasant bit of romantic fluff was proclaimed ”art,” because it was so easy to identify as something other than realism.  It’s not so hard to see the style in Murder on the Orient Express.  But almost no critic spotted the stylization in Prince of the City.  It’s one of the most stylized movies I’ve ever made.  Kurosawa spotted it, though.  In one of the most thrilling moments of my professional life, he talked to me about the “beauty” of the camera work as well as of the picture.  But he meant beauty in the sense of its organic connection to the material.  And this is the connection that, for me, separates true stylists from decorators.  The decorators are easy to recognize.  That’s why critics love them so.  There!  I’ve had my tantrum.

—Making Movies, 1995 

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Prince of the City (1981)
Sidney Lumet, director
Robert Daley (book); Sidney Lumet, Jay Presson Allen (screenplay); writers
Andrzej Bartkowiak, cinematographer
Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach, Richard Foronjy, Lindsey Crouse

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Quote of note
“I know the law.  The law doesn’t know the streets.”
—Daniel Ciello (Treat Williams), Prince of the City (1981)

…58…59…60.

Thurday Minute
No. 232 | April 7, 2011

Run for Your Life

Our theme this week
Films about runners and running

Featured this week
Tuesday         —   Chariots of Fire

Without Limits

In Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrahams and Eric Littell are runners who race for God and country.  In Without Limits, Steve Prefontaine runs for no one but himself.  Though we’re not supposed to admit it in polite society, Pre, as he’s known, runs for a more noble cause.  As I see it, running has nothing to do with politics or religion, and filmmakers are wiser to keep them apart.  Prefontaine makes a better subject for a movie, and though I wouldn’t claim Without Limits is Best Picture material, in countless ways it’s superior to the British Oscar winner. 

The film came out in 1998 and did nothing at the box office, just as Prefontaine, another film about the Oregon track star, starring Jared Leto, did the year before.  The story, and the films, deserved better.

Without Limits, the better version, in my opinion, was brought to the screen by Robert Towne, one of Hollywood’s great screenwriters (Chinatown) and occasional director.  (His first directing job was another track story, Personal Best, with Mariel Hemingway.) 

Billy Crudup plays the lead, doing first-rate work to capture the spirit, charisma, and headstrong personality that made Steve Prefontaine a key figure in the running world during the 1970s.  Prefontaine is a front-runner, taking the lead early and often winning without a contest.  When his considerable talent doesn’t blow away the field, he has another edge—guts.  He’s cocky and uncoachable, but his faith in himself is admirable.  He knows better than anyone else what he needs to do to win.

Pre’s coach is Bill Bowerman, a legendary figure at the University of Oregon and later co-founder of Nike, portrayed by Donald Sutherland in an award-worthy performance, one of the finest of his career.  Playing Mary Marckx, Pre’s girlfriend, is Monica Potter (inspiration for the Counting Crows song “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”). 

Well-written, well-directed, and well-acted, Without Limits is small gem, one of those movies you want to seek out, especially if you missed it the first time around.  Though never an Olympic champion, Steve Prefontaine, in his short life, was one of the shining stars of American track, and a figure well worth spending some time with onscreen.

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Without Limits (1998)
Robert Towne, director
Robert Towne, Kenny Moore, writers
Billy Crudup, Donald Sutherland, Monica Potter

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Quote of note
“Running, one might say, is basically an absurd pastime upon which to be exhausting ourselves.  But if you can find meaning in the kind of running you have to do to stay on this team, chances are you will be able to find meaning in another absurd pastime—life.”
—Bill Bowerman (Donald Sutherland), Without Limits (1998)

…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
No. 231 | April 5, 2011

Run for Your Life

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In my choice of themes each week I look to find something that strikes my interest, and this week (another light week, by necessity), I’ll take a look at a couple of films about a subject very much on my mind these days.

I started running in the 1970s.  Going for a run has always been my workout of choice.  I would rather go for a run around the neighborhood, or wherever I might be, than go to a gym.  I enjoy the freedom and the solitude of a good long run, and staying healthy, I’ve found, is much better than the alternative.  In my younger years I ran races regularly, mostly 5Ks and 10Ks, and a couple of marathons, not so much for the competition as just a way to keep in shape.

I don’t have what’s called a runner’s body.  I never did, but the older I get, the truer it is.  My pet theory on aging is that people don’t put on years, they put on pounds, and despite my best efforts, it’s happened to me.   This year I decided to reverse the trend.  I would sleep better*, eat better, work out more, and for the first time in two decades, run a marathon.

My date with destiny comes this weekend.  Should I survive, I’ll be back with another look at movies of one type or another.  Meanwhile, a quick look at two films about—what else—running.

* Another of my pet theories:  the key to health is not diet or exercise, but sleep.

Our theme this week
Films about runners and running

Chariots of Fire

I’d love to say this film is a great inspiration.  But it’s not.  Not for runners, and certainly not for movie fans.  I watched it again recently, for the third or fourth time altogether, and what I still can’t understand is how the movie was a hit with critics and movie fans in 1981, and even more puzzling, how it won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  There are a handful of Best Picture winners I have not yet seen, but off the top of my head it’s hard to think of a less-deserving Best Picture winner in history.

Hagiography is not a popular shelf at the video store and the lives of saints do not make for good cinema.  Not when the filmmakers’ only interest is to thrust the saints atop a pedestal.  What we get in Chariots of Fire is not a story about human beings but about icons with all the life drained out.

The main story is set in 1920s England, at Cambridge University, where runners Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), among others, race and train for the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris.  Abrahams is a Jew, an outsider who must overcome the anti-Semitic attitudes of the administration and staff, though in the film he never suffers any real discrimination, let alone, persecution, so we’re left to wonder what all the fuss was about.  Liddell is a devout Christian, the son of missionaries, who runs for the glory of God.

If you enjoy movies about the pious and snobbish, this is the film for you.  But my beef, at least what I’ll get into here, is the film’s failure as a drama.  The essence of any good story is conflict, but at every turn the movie softens its rough edges instead to wallow in pretty pictures:  the period costumes, the historic scenery, and the slo-mo glory of amateur athletes back in the day.  Worse, it’s all accompanied by the score of Vangelis, an odd choice that was lauded at the time but seems like a serious misstep to my ears.

Later in the film, on his way to the Olympics, Liddell discovers that he’s scheduled to race on a Sunday.  His religious conviction won’t allow him to compete on the Sabbath, putting in doubt his chance for a medal.  The filmmakers took some liberties with the actual record, but it amounts to a crisis, as close as the story gets to having one.  Not to diminish Liddell’s faith, but it’s a rather thin reed to hang a movie on.

More interesting than the film itself is the story behind its success.  It screened at Cannes and was panned by French critics, who may not have appreciated references to “Frogs” in a boring picture about the glory of all things British.  An American, however, came to the rescue.  A young and influential critic named Roger Ebert engineered an “American Critics Prize,” the first and only time one has been awarded, and by a 6-5 margin Chariots of Fire came out of Cannes a winner.  Otherwise, its prospects may have been doomed.  The rest, even more than the story onscreen, is history.

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Chariots of Fire (1981)
Hugh Hudson, director
Colin Welland, writer
Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nicholas Farrell, Nigel Havers, Lindsay Anderson, John Gielgud, Ian Holm

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Quote of note
“Let us praise famous men and our fathers that begat us.  All these men were honored in their generations and were a glory in their days.  We are here today to give thanks for the life of Harold Abrahams.  To honor the legend.  Now there are just two of us—young Aubrey Montague and myself—who can close our eyes and remember those few young men with hope in our hearts and wings on our heels.”
—Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers), Chariots of Fire (1981)

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Thursday Minute
Entr’acte | March 31, 2011

Elizabeth Taylor, R.I.P.

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“I have never felt more alive than when I watched my children delight in something, never more alive than when I have watched a great artist perform and never richer than when I have scored a big check to fight AIDS.  Follow your passion, follow your heart, and the things you need will come.”
—Elizabeth Taylor, her final interview, Harper’s Bazaar, February 2011

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Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor
Turner Classic Movies
Paul Newman, narrator

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