It's well known that a vast number of people work on any given movie in roles as varied as writing scripts, choosing locations, dressing sets, costuming the players, lighting scenes, manipulating the camera, directing actors, editing film, working on sound, advertising the finished product, and screening it to an audience. Have you ever thought about how these components are collated? Or why the director is most often considered the author of a film? Wonder no more, because Sidney Lumet's Making Movies is a terrific journey through each stage of filmmaking that is overseen by the director. Lumet, the veteran director of Twelve Angry Men, The Pawnbroker, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict, and many other fine movies, knows the ins and outs of American filmmaking as well as anyone. In this excellent, personable account, Lumet tells what he's learned about making movies in the course of the last 40 years. He shows why fine directors need to have strong imaginations, extraordinary adaptability, and skill in many different fields. His enthusiasm for his life's work, particularly his love of actors, is evident on every page of this book. As Herculean as the labors of film directing are, Lumet takes great pleasure in his work, almost guiltily admitting that the film director's job is "the best in the world."


From Publishers Weekly
Lumet, the acclaimed director of such films as Dog Day Afternoon and Network, presents an anecdotal insider's account of the key elements in filmmaking. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Lumet's book is about the agonizing and ultimately rewarding art of filmmaking. And who better to elucidate the process than a legendary director, with credits such as 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, and Prince of the City? Lumet discusses writers and actors, camera and editing techniques, art direction and sound. Yet Making Movies is anything but a clinical textbook. Lumet's career straddled the shift between studio management and the rise of financiers and talent agencies: he's seen both worlds and candidly reveals his predilections, including his disdain for teamsters, critics, and market researchers. He alludes to the tension between film as art and as business and shows that filmmaking is ultimately a capricious, collective enterprise with no sure formulas. Although overly mechanistic at times, Lumet is most lucid in examples drawn from his own experiences. A fascinating look at the artist at work; recommended for film studies collections.-?Jayne Plymale-Jackson, Univ. of Georgia Libs., AthensCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Lumet is not the first filmmaker to write about filmmaking in order to praise it as an art form, but he may be the first to cover the process in detail from beginning to end, without missing any point of the action. That doesn't mean a reader will know how to make a feature film after reading the book. Lumet's approach is to provide a framework for both his memoirs as a film director and his argument for the purity of filmmaking, though he would probably deny both charges. Two aspects of the work are invigoratingly revealing: the ongoing discussion of his films and the last chapter, "The Studio: Was It All for This?" For all the talk about technique, camera lenses, art decorators, camera operators, and so on, the excitement of the book lies in Lumet's encounters with other artists. Rather than attempt to glean instruction from the story about using only one take to get a dolly shot of a moving train for Murder on the Orient Express, most readers will prefer the fun of simply riding the dolly with camera operator Peter McDonald or listening to the account of the time the crew and Lumet agonized on the set of The Fugitive Kind when it took Brando 34 takes to complete a scene. Lumet writes, "He looked at me and smiled as only Brando can smile, so that you think daybreak has come." The final chapter on the studio offers a harrowing look at the kind of greed people can fall into given the chance to operate with endless amounts of money. At the close, Lumet seems to be letting people know that what he has described is moviemaking, and he shows us how the studios threaten it. Bonnie Smothers


From the Inside Flap
From one of America's most acclaimed directors comes a book that is both a professional memoir and a definitive guide to the art, craft, and business of the motion picture. Drawing on 40 years of experience on movies ranging from Long Day's Journey Into Night to The Verdict, Lumet explains the painstaking labor that results in two hours of screen magic.

ANNOTATION

Acclaimed director Sidney Lumet provides a revealing and comprehensive guide to the complex and fascinating process of making a movie.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From one of America's most acclaimed directors comes a book that is both a professional memoir and a definitive guide to the art, craft, and business of the motion picture. Drawing on 40 years of experience on movies ranging from Long Day's Journey Into Night to The Verdict, Lumet explains the painstaking labor that results in two hours of screen magic.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Lumet, the acclaimed director of such films as Dog Day Afternoon and Network, presents an anecdotal insider's account of the key elements in filmmaking. (Mar.)

Library Journal