Sundays with Sidney Lumet’s “Making Movies”

A weekly series featuring reflections on filmmaking by one of the truly great movie directors.

Roger Ebert said this about Making Movies: “It has more common sense in it about how movies are actually made than any other I have read.” That alone is enough reason to read this book authored by Sidney Lumet.

Known as an actor’s director, Lumet directed 17 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Katharine Hepburn, Rod Steiger, Al Pacino, Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney, Chris Sarandon, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Beatrice Straight, William Holden, Ned Beatty, Peter Firth, Richard Burton, Paul Newman, James Mason, Jane Fonda and River Phoenix. Bergman, Dunaway, Finch and Straight won Oscars for their performances in a Lumet movie.

Among his filmmaking credits are such stellar movies as 12 Angry Men, The Pawnbroker, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Equus, Prince of the City, The Verdict, and Running on Empty. He also has five screenwriting credits including Q&A and Night Falls on Manhattan.

As I’ve done with Sundays with Ray Bradbury and Sunday’s with Stephen King’s “On Writing,” I will work my way through Lumet’s book focusing on insights applicable to the craft of screenwriting.

Today: From “Making Movies,” Chapter 2: The Script: Are Writers Necessary?, p. 36.

Except in two cases, every writer I’ve worked with has wanted to work with me again. I think one of the reasons is that I love dialogue. Dialogue is not uncinematic. So many of the movies of the thirties and forties that we adore are constant streams of dialogue. Of course we remember James Cagney squashing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face. But does that evoke more affectionate memory than “Here’s looking at you, kid”? God knows Chaplin trying to eat corn on a mechanized feeder in Modern Times is a great sight gag. But I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder than when, at the end of Some Like It Hot, Joe E. Brown says to Jack Lemmon “Well — nobody’s perfect.’

The point is that there’s no war between the visual and the aural. Why not the best of both?

I constantly tell my students, “Movies are primarily a visual medium.” Perhaps hyperbolic, however when confronted by young writers who may tend to advance plot through the use of dialogue, I find it’s a helpful reminder. When working out a scene, always be mindful of ways to heighten the visual experience for the audience.

But Lumet’s observation — Dialogue is not uncinematic —is certainly worth remembering. [Note: Later in this chapter, Lumet zeroes in on a certain kind of dialogue which is, in fact, uncinematic, so his comment is not intended, I think, as a blanket statement].

The two examples Lumet cites are notable because each is a great line. Here’s looking at you, kid is a line Rick says to Ilsa on four occasions. The first two are when the couple is having a romance in Paris. Each time, the line is simply a sign of affection. The third time is when Ilsa confronts Rick in Casablanca, only to break down and confess she still loves him. Here the line serves as a reminder of what they once had, now rekindled. The fourth time, however, the line takes on a whole other layer of emotional meaning.

It recalls each of the other references, but now it’s Rick’s way of acknowledging their relationship, but also taking on a paternal role, donning a mentor mask who’s explaining to Ilsa why she needs to follow his decision. In other words, great cinema.

The other line — Well, nobody’s perfect — is the final side of dialogue in Some Like It Hot.

The entire plot hinges on the two lead characters Joe and Jerry keeping hidden their actual gender identities. The very last moment of the movie consists of Jerry willingly revealing the truth to his “betrothed” (Osgood). One would expect Osgood to freak out. Instead, he calmly, even happily delivers the line. It’s both a surprise and the perfect way to cap the story. Again, great cinema.

Writing great lines of dialogue is only one way in which dialogue can be cinematic. Lumet explores another in the next set of pages (long speeches). So yes, there should be “no war between the visual and the aural.” As writers, this is something for us to bear in mind in our scripts, finding a balance between the two.

Come back next Sunday for more of Lumet’s thoughts on story and working with screenwriters.

For previous installments, go here.

For more background on Sidney Lumet’s filmmaking career, go here.

To purchase my book The Protagonist’s Journey: An Introduction to Character-Driven Screenwriting and Storytelling, go here.