tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8709052517699784943.post1571978802304152591..comments2024-03-24T05:20:55.209-04:00Comments on Greater New York: Angry MenRob Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14297706005998824168noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8709052517699784943.post-71719083503903977842011-04-20T10:32:26.942-04:002011-04-20T10:32:26.942-04:00If I had to choose a favourite Lumet film it would...If I had to choose a favourite Lumet film it would probably be "Running on Empty". To me it will always be one of the few films that looks back at the sixtes with a healthy degree of honesty.<br /><br />Lumet, I suppose, to many will always remain a theatrical director. Many have criticised his camera placement and his limited interest at what has become an obsession for critics in the wake of the young turks at Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s, mise-en-scene. <br /><br />I have never thought, however, that mise-en-scene and camera movement were he be all and end all of cinema. I guess I still appreciate a good story and it seems to me that there is a place in cinema for good stories along with the mise-en-scene of a Hitchcock and the camera movements of an Orson Welles. And for me Lumet told many from his wonderful realistic adaptation of the "static" teleplay "12 Angry Men" (1957) to the gritty social realism of Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975, Prince of the City (1981), and Running on Empty (1988). <br /><br />Sadly, good storytelling and social realism seems out of place in a Hollywood of juvenalia, little in the way of intelligent narrative, pop music, and special effects. And so did Sidney Lumet in his final years.Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.com