Sunday, April 10, 2011

Lumet

This is a neat reminiscence on working with the late Sidney Lumet. Henriksen (best known as Bishop from Aliens, probably) was an FBI agent in Dog Day Afternoon, a character who appears to be just above extra for most of the film, and turns out to have shattering significance in the last moments. I like the idea of him rehearsing the movie in sequence with all of the cast together. It might be a time-intensive way of making a movie, but it helps explain why DDA has so much cumulative power.

Speaking of cumulative power, this is an earlier exhibit of Lumet's craft, from 1957's 12 Angry Men

2 comments:

susan said...

I loved this movie and Deathtrap, Network, Dog Day Afternoon, the Pawnbroker, and even Murder on the Orient Express among others I may not recall.

It's sad to lose a director so devoted to making intelligent, thought-provoking films. It wasn't that long ago we watched his last 'Before the Devil knows You're Dead' which was simply an interesting story/morality play. He wasn't looking to set the world on fire with special effects since he found people fascinating without fireworks. He'll be missed.

Ben said...

I only know a couple of people who've seen "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead", but they both give it high marks. That's one I need to see, I guess.

And Network really has turned out to be somewhat prophetic.