“I feel like Sidney Lumet made movies especially for me!”

PostED ON OCTOBER 19 2022

At the end of the week, he will come introduce movies that are close to his heart. Before his arrival in Lyon, Vincent Lindon, unofficial patron of the Sidney Lumet retrospective, confessed his admiration for the filmmaker.

If you had to describe Sidney Lumet's work in one word?

My first instinct: underrated. That's the thing about art, it is subjective, so automatically there are other filmmakers who are overrated. I tend to be very objective, I don't know if that's an advantage or disadvantage in life, and I'm often bothered, embarrassed, by the subjectivity of opinions about art and film; I'm never quite sure what to make of it all. It only takes two or three articles from the world's critical intelligentsia for a filmmaker to be referred to as a minor master when he is a major one, and as a genius when he is a minor master. One also tends to throw around the word ‘filmmaker’ too easily, which has nothing to do with ‘staging director’, which has nothing to do with ‘director’ either. And for this underestimated ‘staging director’, it will take thirty-five years for others to learn to appreciate his or her true worth. This was not just the case with Lumet. But let’s not name names, one way or another, let's wait thirty-five years!

© Anouck Oliviero

What was the first Sidney Lumet film you saw?

I don't remember, I don't think like a movie buff who remembers exactly when he or she saw a film at a certain age in a certain theatre. Was it ‘Serpico’, ‘Network’, ‘12 Angry Men’? You don't see movies in the same way when you make films (at least for me): I had already started working when I saw ‘Dog Day Afternoon’, I knew a little bit about how things were done and basically what editing was. And I remember being amazed; I had the impression that the Good Lord had put cameras in the bank and that all that was left to do was to go and withdraw the tapes. I didn't see how, after ten takes of each camera angle, one could make the actors look so natural, so youthful, or how the actors could give the impression that they were living what was happening before our eyes for the first and last time. But, you know, I find it very difficult to talk about the movies I like. It's like with love: when you have to describe why you love someone, most of the time you have no idea. It's organic, visceral; ‘because it was her’, because it was him’, and it's the same with films.

Un après-midi de chien, 1975 © DR

Does seeing actors like Pacino in Sidney Lumet's movies inspire you in your work?

Frankly, I don't know. First of all, I don't feel I can distinguish Pacino in Lumet from Pacino in a Coppola or a Harold Becker. Secondly, when I work, I don't know what I need or could do without, what does me good or what does me harm. I use my unconsciousness, my recklessness more than my know-how or my 'knowing how to look'. In my opinion, as we age, we need to know less and less...

A work in his filmography?

I was very impressed by his last movie, ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’. I love the idea that an 83-year-old filmmaker is making such a disruptive picture, and that there are no ‘old age mistakes’. An example: in some films, during scenes of car chases, it often happens that in one shot the vehicles are twenty metres apart, then in the next shot, without any logic, they are fifty metres apart, and in the next shot they are at a different distance again. Even at a mature age, Lumet knew how to respect the ‘plausibility factor’ of the shot.

What about ‘Running on Empty' ?

Oh yes, I'm sorry, I forgot, it's unforgivable, it's his masterpiece. I know it by heart. The dancing scene in the kitchen to James Taylor's music is great, the last shot of the film with the kid on his bike is heartbreaking. I experience movies organically, I don't analyse them as a critic or a cinephile, I am the viewer who is afraid for the protagonist, who constantly wants to shout, "Look out, look out, here they come, hide!", and yet I know that the film has been made about him or her, and that they will inevitably go all the way through the story. But the magic still works for me... I can see several Lumet city pictures without noticing that they take place in New York, I just feel it unconsciously, without being able to put it into words...

I have a passion for Sidney Lumet, I'm not sure I can explain exactly why, but it's a bit like with Raoul Walsh, or William Wellman or John Ford, when I see one of their films, I want to see a second one, then a third one, like we do today with episodes and seasons of a series. I don't even look for the relationship between them, I take it all in. I see Lumet's name in the credits and I'm happy. I know I'll like at least a dozen great moments in his movie and, at best, the whole movie from beginning to end; watching his films, I always have the impression that he made them especially for me, I think that's what it means to be somewhat universal.

I discovered his films when I was still in drama class, and I love these films now, on the brink of retirement. If this is not passing through the history of cinema, then...

Running on Empty, 1988 © DR

Interviewed by A.F.

Vincent Lindon will introduce

‘Running on Empty’ on Friday, October 21 at 10:45am at Pathé Bellecour and Saturday, October 22 at 7pm at Lumière Terreaux

‘Dog Day Afternoon’ on Saturday, October 22 at 8pm at CinéDuchère

A conversation with Vincent Lindon: Sunday, October 22 at 11am at Pathé Bellecour