Sidney Lumet: On Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon

Excerpt from Sidney Lumet’s Making Movies:

Sidney Lumet:

One of the most difficult acting scenes I’ve ever encountered was on Dog Day Afternoon.

About two-thirds of the way through the movie, Pacino makes two phone calls: one to his “wife” and lover, who’s at a barbershop across the street, and the second to his “real” wife, in her home.

I knew Al would build up the fullets head of steam if we could do it in one take. The scene took place at night. The character had been in the bank for 12 hours. He had to seem spent, exhausted. When we’re that tired, emotions flow more easily. And that’s what I wanted.

There was an immediate problem. The camera only holds a thousand feet of film. That’s a bit over eleven minutes. The two phone calls ran almost fifteen minutes. I solved it by putting two cameras next to each other, the lenses as close together as was physically possible. Naturally, both lenses were the same … When camera 1 had used about 850 feet, we would roll camera 2 while camera 1 was still running. I knew that there would be an intercut of the wife somewhere in the final film, which would allow me to cut to the film in camera 2. But Al would have acted oiut the two phone calls continuously, just as it happened in real life.

I wanted Al’s concentration at its peak.

I cleared the set and then, about five feet behind the camera, put up black flats so that even the rest of the physical set was blocked out. The propman had rigged the phones so the off-camera actors could speak into phones across the street and Al would really hear them on his phone.

One more thing occurred to me. One of the best ways of accumulating emotion is to go as rapidly as possible from one take to the next. The actor begins the second take on the emotional level he reached at the end of the first take. Sometimes I don’t even cut the camera. I’ll say quietly, “Don’t cut the camera — everybody back to their opening positions and we’re going again. OK from the top: Action!” By the way, I always call “Action” in the mood of the scene. If it’s a gentle moment, I’ll say “Action” just loud enough for the actors to hear me. If it’s a scene that requires a lot of energy, I’ll bark out, “Action!” like a drill sergeant. It’s like a conductor giving the upbeat.

I knew a second take would mean a serious interruption for Al. We’d have to reload one of the cameras. Reloading a magazine of film can be quite disruptive … The whole process, done at top speed, takes two or three minutes, enough time for Al to cool off. So I put up a black tent to block off both cameras and the men operating them. We cut two holes for the lenses. And I had the second assistant cameramen (there are three men on a camera crew: operator, focus puller, and second assistant) hold an extra film magazine in his lap, in case we needed it.

We rolled.

As camera 1 reached 850 feet, we rolled camera 2. The take ended. It was wonderful. But something told me to go again. Camera 2 had used only about 200 feet.

I called out gently, “Al, back to the top, I want to go again.”

He looked at me as if I’d gone mad. He’d gone full out and was exhausted. He said, “What?! You’re kidding!”

I said, “Al, we have to. Roll camera.”

We rolled camera 2. It had about 800 feet left. Meanwhile, behind the camera tent, out of Al’s sight, we reloaded camera 1. By the time camera 2 had used 700 feet (close to eight minutes into the take), we started the reloaded camera 1.

By the end of the second take, Al didn’t know where he was anymore. He finished his lines, and, in sheer exhaustion, looked around helplessly. Then, by accident, he looked directly at me. Tears were rolling down my face because he’d moved me so. His eyes locked into mine and he burst into tears, then slumped over the desk he’d been sitting at,

I called, “Cut! Print!” and leapt into the air.

That take is some of the best film acting I’ve ever seen.