Sundays with Sidney Lumet’s “Making Movies”

A 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 11: The Mix — The Only Dull Part of Moviemaking, pp. 186, 192.

Life has a cruel way of balancing pleasure with pain. To make up for the joy of seeing Sophia Loren every morning, God punishes the director with the mix.

The mix is where we put all the soundtracks together to make the final soundtrack of the movie.

— —

Mind you, sitting in the mixing room, we have run that movie, foot by foot, at least seventy-five times, often more. Everything about the movie has become incredibly boring.

Two screenwriting takeaways:

• If we take the concept of “mixing” metaphorically, a screenwriter “mixes” a script as part of the final polish. We take all of the elements of the script — scenes, sequences, scene description, dialogue, transitions — and bring them into balance. Like mixing a movie’s sound, we do this over and over and over again, rewriting and revising until we get it right.
• Everything has become incredibly boring. For most writers with most scripts, they face a point in the process where the process becomes a slog. Part of that slog arises from countless re-reads, rewrites, revisions, going over the same pages endless times. It’s a challenge to sustain positive energy.

The trick is to somehow tap into a deeper level of creativity. Where we think we can’t “mix” the script any further, dig down into yourself. Summon the drive to go through the story one more time.

You’ve come this far. Now is not the time to yield to complacency.

It’s a slog, yes. But Fade Out is in sight.

And if you feel tapped out, lean into your Protagonist. After all, if they can find the energy to battle through the Final Struggle…

So can you.

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.

My book The Protagonist’s Journey: An Introduction to Character-Driven Screenwriting and Storytelling is an Amazon #1 Best Seller in Film and Television. Endorsed by over thirty professional screenwriters, novelists, and academics, you may purchase it here.