Making Movies by Sydney Lumet If you want to learn about the movie business, you can’t do better than this

Making Movies by Sydney Lumet

If you want to learn about the movie business, you can’t do better than this- 10 out of 10

 

In this fabulous book, one of the best directors of all time tells you the way movies are made-well used to be made anyway.

From working with actors to editing, from the sets arrangements to the money issues, moving to focus groups- we learn a lot about what goes on behind the scenes and how some of the best movies have been made.

It is wonderful to listen to the author of The Network talk about the making of it, the performances and the associated issues.

I had no idea that placing Sean Connery- who is very tall- and Dustin Hoffman- on the short side- in the same frame is difficult.

There are focus groups that tell you what to make with the movie and this is definitely upsetting Sydney Lumet.

People are invited to watch a movie and about twenty of them will give opinions which may alter the whole picture.

One executive even asked the great director if he could not cut out the parts that the focus groups did not like and leave only the appreciated ones.

It appears that it had all started with Fatal Attraction, where the original ending had Glenn Close committing suicide.

The testing audience did not like that, the end was changed and the movie became a major box office hit.

Another worrying and disturbing factor is the ever increasing power of actors and talent agencies that have come to dictate terms.

There is a studio that would only make a movie if it has Tom Cruise (who comes out as an awful personage in a recent documentary on Scientology) or the like starring in it, with a price tag at $ 12 million.

The salary of a major star is bigger than that nowadays, even if names have been changing to include other actors than Cruise.

A talent agency is named that had so much power that it imposed the terms and the package required.

They were representing Marlon Brando and Montgomery Cliff and they asked the studio to hire Dean Martin as well-take the whole package.

An actor, who never made hugely successful movies, was still able to demand and receive perks of 300,000.

These would include limos, chauffeurs make up and more which add immensely to the cost of making a movie.

Some more modest, independent films could have been made with the money that only the stars make.

With the take of the major stars increasing, so does the salary of the supporting cast which cost more and more.

Sydney Lumet wonders what is left for the heads of the studios to do if all the important decisions are made based on focus groups the stars and their agents.

Only Spielberg and Disney seem to have had the flair to make one hit after another, and even there it was not flawless.

The reader learns about The Orient Express and the sounds of trains, Quincy Jones who made the music for the Pawnbroker and so many details about almost every aspect of the movie that it is mind boggling.

On top of being such an amazing, awesome director, Sydney Lumet is fascinating as man who loves his profession, the actors and the other people working for a movie, and who respect all those who put up the money and the public.

Extraordinary book