Sidney Lumet

  • The Verdict (1982)

    The Verdict (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, August 2021) The unsung hero of The Verdict is whoever who took the decision to cast Paul Newman in the lead role — what best way to portray a lawyer past his prime than to cast an aging movie idol? Newman still looks fantastic, of course (compare and contrast with how he looks in the roughly contemporary Absence of Malice), but the deliberate grey hairs, added fat and slower demeanour tell us everything we need to know, even before his character gets thrown out of a funeral in the opening scene. What follows, in keeping with the tone set early on, is an examination of justice with a jaundiced but not entirely cynical eye — as our burnt-out protagonist is handed an easy settlement but decides to push matters to a civil trial, and quickly gets enmeshed in dirty tactics and counter-tactics. If The Verdict remains compelling viewing today, it’s how it skirts the edges of an uplifting film with a gritty look at the less admirable aspects of civil law. Our protagonist isn’t above stealing mail; his opponent will spy on him; and in the film’s defining sequence, a slam-dunk testimony and piece of evidence that would, in another film, be the final blow are here (with some heavy dramatic license) judged inadmissible and struck from the record. But to get back to a crowd-friendly idealistic finale, it turns out that even inadmissible evidence can’t just be erased from memory. While the pacing of the film is a bit slow, especially at first, veteran director Sidney Lumet does keep good control over his material, gradually unfolding the layers of complexity in David Mamet’s narrative. (Unusually for Mamet, this first screenplay is adapted from existing material, and so his distinctive dialogue is not really present.)  Good supporting turns from Charlotte Rampling and the irreplaceable James Mason help round out the acting talent involved. The Verdict, then a box-office success and Oscar favourite from cerebral material and a strong narrative, is almost unusual today — but fret not, it’s still very enjoyable and the circa-1980 period has aged rather well… like its star.

  • Equus (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cablet TV, August 2021) I’m a philistine when it comes to modern theatre, but even I was dimly aware of Equus’s reputation, largely because there seems to be a scandal whenever it’s revived, and that one of the last spats involved an attempt by Daniel Radcliffe to get away from his earlier teenage persona. If nothing else, the film adaptation would let me experience some of what the fuss was about, and help complete my filmography for both Sidney Lumet and Richard Burton. The opening is really quite good, as Burton sombrely frames the story in apocalyptic terms from the back of his darkened office. Then there’s an immediate narrative hook in how our psychologist protagonist (Burton, appropriately rumpled) is asked by an old friend to take on a most unusual case: a young man who abruptly blinded six horses. Getting to the heart of mystery will, obviously, take us deep in repressed perversion, Freudian symbolism and out-there psychological problems. The mystery is matched by the protagonist’s own descent into issues of his own. Like many theatrical adaptations, Equus is very talky and arguably too long for the film format. It also, crucially, literalizes many of the metaphors and stage tricks employed during theatrical productions that can’t bring real horses onstage. You can feel some of the symbolic power of the theatrical play leeched away by the realism of the film adaptation, but enough of it remains to get the point across. Burton got an Oscar nomination for the role, and so did Peter Firth for his intense performance as a troubled young man. There’s an interesting footnote in finding out that this very respectable film was a product of the infamous Tax Shelter years of Canadian cinema, in which many very bad movies (and a few surprisingly good ones) emerged from federal fiscal policy. As for Equus itself, it’s curiously respectable even after taking so many risks for a delicately evocative source material. It’s blunt in its psychological drama, but then again — it’s about a young man blinding horses in the throes of psychosexual trauma, so it has to go big.

  • Bye Bye Braverman (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) If you’re looking for a plot premise for Bye Bye Braverman, here it is: Four men (all writers, none happy) learn about the death of their friend, so they get together to attend the funeral, then go back to their homes. That’s it. Clearly, this (an adaptation of a novel) isn’t meant to be a narrative-heavy experience. You can even argue that it’s not meant to be particularly dramatic, as grand epiphanies are nowhere to be found, and the characters all more or less end up at the same place at the end of the film as at the beginning, with interpersonal conflicts still left intact. What’s left is dialogue, character and atmosphere: Taking place in the New York City Jewish community, Bye Bye Braverman is largely made of the four articulate characters riffing off each other, snarkily commenting on the funeral, various encounters along the way to and from the funeral, and the protagonist (played by George Segal, sometimes showing glimpses of a funnier persona) reflecting on life and death in fantasy segments. Directed by Sidney Lumet, it’s generally well-handled, but at the end of the entire thing, we’re left wondering what’s the point of the film: with adequate dialogue, low stakes, non-existent character development and mild comedy, Bye Bye Braverman struggles to justify its existence. It does a bit better as a late-1960s slice-of-life period piece taking place in the likable company of frustrated NYC Jewish writers, but not that much. Call it a piece of Lumet’s filmography if you really need to see it.

  • Garbo Talks (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2021) Classic movie fans may get an extra kick out of Garbo Talks, a slight comedy that has its protagonist frantically tracking down Greta Garbo in early-1980s New York City as a favour to his terminally ill mother. Much of the film hinges on Garbo’s famous reclusiveness, as she left acting in 1941 at the age of 35 (after twenty years in the business) and lived a private life until her death in 1990. By the time Garbo Talks was made, she had become this enigmatic Manhattan figure, sometimes seen but rarely heard. It’s in this situation that our protagonist (a likable but otherwise bland Ron Silver) starts acting like a detective, trying to find Garbo in order to relay to her his mother’s dying wish to meet her. There are a few low-octane hijinks along the way, but Garbo Talks never takes it to a consciously comedic level. Director Sidney Lumet, working with what he has, keeps things going at a tepid boil — the film should be more interesting than it is, either by leaning on the detective elements of the story, or its comic potential. What we have instead is a film that runs a long time on the Garbo mystique, but otherwise walks through the motions. Although, the final scene is amusing enough.

  • Critical Care (1997)

    Critical Care (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2021) There’s something fantastically creepy about Critical Care’s darkly comic approach to the American medical system, so advanced that it can keep anyone alive but only if the money is there. James Spader plays a young doctor who learns the real world in between a cynical mentor and two sisters trying to seduce him into pulling the plug on their dearest, richest father. Under the direction of a sardonic Sidney Lumet, the film never cracks a smile and so, perhaps, doesn’t tip its hand as to whether it’s really a comedy. The clinical set design borrowing (still) from science fiction doesn’t necessarily make things any funnier, although if you’re not cracking a smile at the seduction scenes, then you may not be paying attention. The god complex of doctors is fully scrutinized and the deeply unhealthy relationship between patient care and their financial means also goes under the microscope. While Critical Care was not a commercial success, it’s got an interesting cast that becomes stronger with time. Just have a look at these names: Kyra Sedgwick, Helen Mirren, Anne Bancroft, Albert Brooks (terrific and terrifying), Jeffrey Wright, Margo Martindale, Wallace Shawn, Colm Feore… that’s a nice cast. The film is not without missteps and missed opportunities: the move to a courtroom late in the film breaks its spatial unity, and I’m not sure that all of its thematic opportunities have been equally well explored. But Critical Care is still acerbic enough to classify as a bit of an overlooked film — not a classic, not even a gem, but something surprising enough to be worth a look if deadpan comedies with a bitter edge have any appeal.

  • Stage Struck (1958)

    Stage Struck (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2021) It took me about ten minutes too long to figure out that Stage Struck was a remake of the 1933 Katharine Hepburn vehicle Morning Glory, but that’s the least of the film’s problems. No, the problem with the film is one you rarely expect — an overacting, over-articulating, falsely cheerful, badly cast (or directed) lead actress: Susan Strasberg. I get that the film is the story of an overeager girl from the sticks heading to the big city and finding out that reality doesn’t measure up to her dreams. In that context, it makes perfect sense for the character to be exuberant, annoyingly upbeat and pretentiously mannered… at least at first. Similarly, you don’t need to point out that Hepburn was doing even more overacting back in 1933: that was the acting style at the time, and she made it work for herself. The problem with Strasberg is that she stays at eleven out of ten on the theatricality scale during the entire film, well after reality should have brought her down to earth. What a wasted opportunity, and an inexplicable lack of directorial judgment from Sidney Lumet, who would go on to direct several much-lauded films. It’s all the more regrettable, given how the rest of the film (filmed in colour on location) offers a rather wonderful look at Broadway circa 1958 in its grittiness and vitality. Henry Fonda is on hand as an older producer who, inevitably, falls in love with the half-as-young woman; other notables include Christopher Plummer as a writer (his first film) and Joan Greenwood as an acting rival. Stage Struck itself would be fine if it wasn’t for the way Strasberg uses highly stylized theatrical acting in an otherwise normal film — she stands out in a bad way and actively harms the rest of the film.

  • Running on Empty (1988)

    Running on Empty (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2020) I didn’t expect to develop much sympathy for the adult protagonists of Running on Empty. As the film quickly sketches out, here are two ex-activists who ended up maiming a janitor in a laboratory bombing in the 1970s, then spending the 15 previous years on the run while raising two boys. Who can empathize with people like that? Fortunately, though, the emphasis of the film is on their elder son, a gifted pianist who is getting fed up with uprooting himself every few years, as his parents are terrified of being discovered by the authorities and keep a nomadic lifestyle. The script does a fine job of portraying the toll that regular uprooting can take, especially outside a controlled context providing support. The protagonist is played by River Phoenix, going a rather good job as the one most affected by the decisions of his parents. There’s a mixture of social drama and paranoid thriller going on here, especially when the runaways themselves keep suffering for not turning themselves in. From a narrative perspective, Running on Empty is messy: While it has a clear moral centre in the eldest son, it does spend some time on tangents related to other family members – it shouldn’t work, but somehow it coheres into a strong conclusion that is no less effective from being predictable long in advance. Director Sidney Lumet is at ease with a complex, politically aware script, and the cleanliness of his work does much to untangle a script filled with tangents.

  • Strip Search (2004)

    Strip Search (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2020) It goes without saying that I can appreciate any film that reinforces my values and outlook on life. But it sometimes happens that a film simply goes too far, preaches too much and wears its politics too visibly on its sleeve that I can turn on it in the worst way. Look: I was around and awake in 2004. I remember how Americans were practically forbidden from speaking ill of any anti-terrorism initiative. I remember the public discourse curdling against any dissenting voice, and anyone trying to introduce any kind of sophisticated analysis being branded as anti-American. I remember the hysteria of the War on Terror and how anyone who thought it may not have been an unqualified good felt so alone. The fact that Strip Search, which makes explicit parallels between terrorism and American values, was made at the time (even as a TV movie!) was nothing short of amazing—which explains why, according to Wikipedia, the film almost immediately disappeared after its HBO premiere. (I ended up seeing in French translation, which is probably significant.) The premise is simple: An American woman gets detained and interrogated in an unspecified Asian country, while an Arabic man gets detained and interrogated in the United States. The parallels between both situations are not meant to be subtle: much of the dialogue is repeated word-for-word in both strands of the plot. Which ends up being the single worst irritant of the film: As a good third of it simply repeats itself with very few variations, the touches of wit of the dialogue get dulled fast, and once you realize that this is what the film is going to do for the following hour, well, you’re stuck with it for the following hour indeed. There’s quite a bit of talent assembled here: Directed by Sidney Lumet and starring no less than Glenn Close (as the American interrogator) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (as the American prisoner), the film hits above its weight in terms of star power. Alas, this comes to naught thanks to the heavy-handed nature of its discourse. Even when I agreed with the intent of the film, I felt irritated by the brute-force nature of its repetitiveness. A savvier script would have intercut into both conversations as a way to show how both were the same, but Strip Search simply re-rolls the tape with very minor variations, with us knowing the exact words about to be repeated for the next few minutes. It probably doesn’t help that, fifteen years later, we don’t need to be convinced about the film’s then-upsetting thesis. We now know about the horrors of Abu Ghraib, of Guantanamo, of secret detention camps and the 2004–2008 period. Strip Search was brave and bold and misguided upon first broadcast. Now, it simply seems misguided—not for the core of what it’s saying than the way it says it, then forces us to listen to it again.

  • The Anderson Tapes (1971)

    The Anderson Tapes (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) At its core, The Anderson Tapes can be summarized as a heist film—during the course of the story, an ex-con recruits a team to plan a large-scale robbery of an upper-class Manhattan apartment adjacent to Central Park. It takes us through the conception, the planning, the execution of the robbery, as well as its bloody aftermath. But as the computer-fond opening credits title font suggests, there’s a whole new wrapping around this noirish kind of plot: The presence of surveillance cameras, TV screens, computers and consumer electronics. Throughout the film (supported by beepeetee-doo computer noises), our protagonists are watched, recorded and itemized by various law enforcement and surveillance outfits. The Anderson Tapes’ big irony, of course, is that none of this surveillance actually works to prevent the robbery—each unit being concentrated on their own purposes, they completely miss the pieces being assembled in front of their eyes. Ultimately, it’s not surveillance that defeats the robbers but a ham radio and the power of concerted citizens half a world away. In the hand of directory Sidney Lumet, this proto-technothriller adapted from the Lawrence Sanders novel also offers plenty of touches that round out a suspense film: laughs, chills, thrills and action are dolled out in careful fashion, with surprisingly strong character work (including a very funny turn by veteran actress Judith Lowry) and a dependably likable turn by Sean Connery as the lead. The other big casting surprise here is a tall but very young-looking Christopher Walken in his first film role. What was a solid film upon release is now greatly enhanced for modern viewers by seeing then-primitive but scary technology being lavished with attention, and well-observed details to make it all credible. In that, The Anderson Tapes is clearly from the same director who later did Dog Day Afternoon and similarly raised a generic premise into something far more interesting.

  • The Group (1966)

    The Group (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) In adapting Mary McCarthy’s bestselling novel to the screen, The Group runs into a few problems, most of them having to accommodate an ensemble cast of eight women, plus the men who usually make trouble in their lives. Even at 150 minutes, it’s a bit of a challenge—especially since the story spans years from 1933 to 1940 and multiple heartbreaks as the eight women don’t quite achieve their idealistic goals after graduation. It’s not exactly the most riveting of premises, but seeing Sidney Lumet’s name as director drew me in, and the rest of the film gradually grew on me. The film is clearly a 1960s feminist drama—the well-educated, intelligent protagonists have dreams of intellectual lives that are gradually ground down by the demands of marriage, children and household. You could pretty much tell the same story about just any graduate class since then. It does feel melodramatic and overdone by today’s standards, but you can feel how daring The Group could have been to a mid-1960s audience. As you’d guess from the premise, men don’t come across particularly well here—and bring much of the drama. With such a large cast, some of the names are familiar: Candice Bergen, Hal Holbrook and Larry Hangman, most notably. Director Lumet manages the action effectively with the succinct script he’s given—among other things, there’s an interesting visual device of typewritten alumni letter updates typed on screen as context. With such a sprawling melodrama, there was bound to be something interesting for everyone—in my case, having a look at a drunken playwright and a literary agency. Nowadays, The Group would be best adapted as a TV series—in trying to retain the novel’s details, the film does rush through a lot and delivers mere bites of drama. Still, it does have an impact.

  • The Hill (1965)

    The Hill (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Now here’s something as merciless as it’s interesting—a WW2 film in which the heroes are British soldiers and the villain is… the British Army. Taking place at a military prison camp in which punishment is delivered to break the prisoners, The Hill is a film that goes against undeserved authority, against military leadership, against the idea that armies are all perfectly aligned against the enemy. Sean Connery stars as one of five new prisoners introduced to the titular Hill—a massive stack of rock and sand used to torture prisoners under the blazing Saharan sun. Our protagonist can’t stand the abuse inflicted by the camp’s leader, but fighting back is tricky in a military context. It’s all crisply directed by Sidney Lumet, who ably portrays the unrelenting heat and the claustrophobia of having nowhere to go. The opening cleanly establishes the area, and the ending is substantially bleaker than expected. Connery is very, very good here, consciously shedding his James Bond image in an attempt to avoid typecasting. Be sure to turn on the subtitles, as some of the dialogue is difficult to hear. More a prison film than a war movie, The Hill is nonetheless a successful drama.

  • The Way We Were (1973)

    The Way We Were (1973)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2019) The New Hollywood of the early 1970s was so depressing that even its romances were doomed to death or divorce. A prominent case in point: The Way We Were, a multi-decade chronicle of the love story between two characters (played by Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford) throughout their hook-ups, breakups, and intervening ups and down. While there’s nothing conceptually wrong with that premise, the execution is severely underwhelming. Under director Sidney Lumet, the film feels like a mosaic of scenes set years apart, not really building on anything nor proposing a coherent dramatic arc other than “they won’t end up together.” There are some vexing narrative decisions that undermine anyone’s attempt to suspend disbelief or in sympathizing with the characters. For instance, much is made of the female lead’s political activism… but the plot doesn’t present an interesting antithesis despite a rich historical potential. Streisand and Redford do look good, but their characterization isn’t particularly deep other than becoming incarnated arguments. Where the film does a bit better by virtue of being a big-budget production is in looking back at a few decades of American history, showing in retrospect what could not be shown on-screen during the Production Code years—including the impact of the blacklist on Hollywood. It’s not particularly dismissive of The Way We Were, but that’s more out of resignation for the nature of the films at the time. I’m not volunteering to see it again any time soon, though.

  • Serpico (1973)

    Serpico (1973)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2018) As I watch more and more movies from the sixties and seventies, it seems to me that the characteristic grittiness of the seventies was as much of a reaction to the breakdown of the Hayes Code (and associated social conventions) as anything else. Suddenly free to show the world is as much unpleasant detail and harsh language as they wanted, filmmakers went far overboard and the result speaks for itself. (The tendency corrected itself in the late seventies with the rise of the audience-friendly blockbuster, but that’s a thesis best discussed elsewhere.) Serpico clearly redrew the classic template for most undercover-cop movies, delving deep into matters of police corruption through the eyes of an idealistic young police officer played by the explosive Al Pacino. (Sadly, the worst consequence of catching the film on a French channel is losing Pacino’s distinctive voice.)  The film feels grimy and ugly, set during New York’s increasingly desperate period and reflecting the exploitative atmosphere of the time’s films. It’s still rather good, but some of the atmosphere can feel overdone at times. Pacino himself is very likable, which helps in navigating the bleak moral landscape of a police force thoroughly corrupted by a culture of graft and payouts. It’s not quite as violent as expected, but the atmosphere does help in creating an atmosphere in which the worst can always be expected. Sidney Lumet’s direction is solid enough that the film only feels a bit too long today—and much of that length is due to sequences that have been redone so often that they feel like clichés today. It may not pleasant, but there is an undeniable atmosphere to Serpico that still resonates.

  • Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

    Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, April 2017) Forty years later, there is still something remarkable about Dog Day Afternoon’s off-beat crime thriller. Based on a true story in a way that sets it apart from most formulaic fiction, this is a bank robber/hostage thriller with enough unusual moments to feel fresh even after four decades of imitators. The closest equivalent I can think of remains 2006’s Inside Man—down to the very New York feel of the story. Watching the film is a reminder of Al Pacino’s early explosive screen persona—there’s a good reason why the “Attica!” sequence will forever be part of his highlight reel. Otherwise, the stars here are the quirky screenplay (in which the lead hostage taker has numerous scenes outside the bank and a complicated personal life) and Sidney Lumet’s matter-of-fact direction. Dog Day Afternoon is a film of moments—not necessarily the predictable ending, but the way it still twists and turns familiar genre convention into something that feels real and credible. Witness, for instance, the incredible over-reaction to a single gunshot midway through the movie—a welcome change of pace after movies in which entire magazines of ammunition get emptied without as much as a shrug. It is, in other words, still a remarkably enjoyable film. It has become a great period piece, and little of its impact has been blunted by the usual Hollywood formula.

  • Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)

    Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2017) As far as mean and slightly seedy crime dramas go, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead hits most of the right notes. Featuring great performances (most notably from an often-naked Marisa Tomei, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, unfortunately playing a heroin addict) and a script that ping-pongs in time, this is the kind of low-stake but well-executed crime drama that doesn’t set the box office on fire but should feature in every moviegoer’s diet. (And I say this having missed the movie in theatres, only to catching a decade later on DVD.) The film does get grim as the consequences of “a simple theft” go awry in increasingly dramatic ways. By the end of the movie, you can expect a few deaths, a family torn apart and no one feeling particularly happy about the whole thing. Nonetheless, in the hands of veteran director Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead steadily moves forward despite a slightly too long running time, and has a few surprises in store until the end. Not bad, even though I’d be surprised if viewers will be able to recall much of the plot weeks after seeing the film.