{"id":2197,"date":"2004-12-17T11:33:26","date_gmt":"2004-12-17T16:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2197"},"modified":"2015-05-16T21:09:45","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T01:09:45","slug":"lumet-appreciation-day-why-he-accepts-a-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2197","title":{"rendered":"Sidney Lumet: Accepting A Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

Excerpt from Making Movies<\/a>\"\":<\/p>\n

Sidney Lumet<\/i>:<\/p>\n

There are many reasons for accepting a movie. I’m not a believer in waiting for “great” material that will produce a “masterpiece”. What’s important is that the material involve me personally on some level. And the levels will vary.<\/p>\n

Long Day’s Journey Into Night<\/i> is everything one can hope for. Four characters come together and leave no area of life unexplored.<\/p>\n

However, I once did a picture called The Appointment<\/i>. It had fine dialogue by James Salter, but a dreadful story line that had been handed to him by an Italian producer. I presume Jim needed the money. The picture had to be shot in Rome. Until then, I had been having great difficulty in finding out how to use color. I’d been brought up on black-and-white movies, and almost all the movies I had made until then were in black and white. The two color movies I had done, Stage Struck<\/i> and The Group<\/i>, had left me dissatisfied. The color seemed fake. The color seemed to make the movie even more unreal. Why did black and white seem real and color false? Obviously, I was using it wrong or — much more serious — not using it at all.<\/p>\n

I had seen a movie of Antonioni’s called Red Desert<\/i>. It had been photographed by Carlo Di Palma. Here, at last, was color being used for drama, for furthering the story, for deepening the characters. I called Di Palma in Rome, and he was available for The Appointment<\/i>. I happily accepted the picture. I knew that Carlo would get me through my “color block”. And he did.<\/p>\n

That was a perfectly sensible reason to do the movie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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