12 Angry Men (1957, Sidney Lumet)

Director Lumet wrote at length about his compositional decisions for 12 Angry Men in his book about filmmaking, aptly titled Making Movies. The camera starts up high, looking down at the jury room and its jurors, then gradually moves down and in; by the third act, it’s in tight, low-angle close-ups. It’s beautiful, sublime work with gorgeous black and white photography from Boris Kaufman.

But it’s only one of Lumet’s moves, and, while eventually the most important, it’s not the most startling. It’s a gradual, deliberate device. You can watch it as the film progresses, identify where Lumet makes changes. The most startling and deftest move is how Lumet brings the audience into the jury room as an active observer. The height and angle of the shot are part of it, but when it comes to the men sitting around talking and arguing, Lumet wants the audience to have a seat at the table. The camera becomes subjective, whether a juror speaking directly into it or the camera peering at someone, trying to suss out what they’re thinking.

But at one point, Lumet entirely flips it, giving the camera a second-person viewpoint. Loudmouth marmalade salesman and baseball fan Jack Warden makes a big scene, then has to apologize to someone. It’s the first time Warden’s acknowledged he can be wrong—he’s bigger on identifying when someone else is incorrect—and Lumet shoots Warden in one shot. There are a couple cutaways to the wronged party, but it’s mostly just this long take of Warden being extra, then realizing his error. The length of the shot isn’t for Warden, however, it’s for the audience. So much of 12 Angry Men is about a group of men looking at others; the shot of Warden doesn’t have the ten other guys. And the wronged party is in close-up, from Warden’s perspective. The rest of the room is silent, some doodling, some daydreaming, many smoking, many silently watching, just like the audience. It puts the audience in the in-group and Warden temporarily in the out-group. It’s an incredible beat and a literal relief.

The film opens with a jury getting their instructions from a bored judge (Rudy Bond); Bond makes sure the men know if they vote guilty, they’ll be sending the defendant to the electric chair. They retire to the locked jury room, and men settle in, making small talk, and reading the newspaper. Really quick ground situation establishing and hints at character details. Only one of them has an actual character arc throughout, Lee J. Cobb. A few others have shorter arcs as they realize they’re not so sure about their initial guilty verdict, but Cobb’s the one who the film—from a strict distance—reveals enough about for him to have an arc.

Led by jury foreman Martin Balsam, the men take an initial vote. Eleven guilty, one not guilty; Henry Fonda is the holdout. He’s not ready to send an eighteen-year-old Hispanic kid (John Savoca) to the electric chair without at least talking about it. 12 Angry Men runs ninety minutes and change, mostly continuously, but it’s not exactly real-time.

Most of the jurors have passively decided: Balsam, John Fielder, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Warden, Joseph Sweeney, George Voskovec, and Robert Webber. Of course, they’re assuming the prosecuting attorney’s not just going to lie.

Then there are the die-hards with other reasoning. Cobb has issues with his son—Savoca’s accused of killing his punchy father after having enough one night. Ed Begley’s a racist. E.G. Marshall’s a stockbroker who needs the prosecuting attorney to be unimpeachable to preserve his investment in the “system.”

The system, of course, is patriarchal white supremacy, which 12 Angry Men couldn’t even talk about if it knew what it was talking about. Not in 1957. But the film’s very much about Fonda convincing the men to question their prejudices and preconceptions. Some of the men bend to reason; some react to the opposition having such shitty logic (if not the bald racism), and some just need the confidence to (earnestly) share their truths.

Reginald Rose’s screenplay (based on his earlier teleplay for an episode of “Westinghouse Studio One”) never gives the actors too much about themselves. Almost everyone eventually shares the basics: their jobs, their family situations—no names, not until the end, and then only a couple. They’re a group of white men in a situation with social norms, but there are bullies operating on different levels; they’re still strangers, even when they’re in the exact same demographics, and they’re trying to figure out how to talk with one another. Their frustrations (and fulfillments) might play out in dialogue, but the performances are all physical. We’re watching the men find their voices, good and bad, both through their dialogue and just their physicalities. It’s an exceptionally well-made film. The way Lumet watches the performances, the way the men interrupt one another, listen to one another; it’s an actors’ picture, to be sure, but almost more a reaction picture.

They’re all setting one another off, intentionally and not, to great success.

The best performance is Cobb. After him, the top tier is Fonda, Marshall, Warden, Sweeney, and Voskovec. Then Begley, Klugman, Binns, and Balsam. Fielder and Webber are both good but have the most caricatural parts. Webber’s the closest thing the film’s got to comic relief, while Fielder’s just the sweet, meek guy.

Besides Cobb and Fonda, the other big star is Kenyon Hopkins’s score. The film doesn’t need the music for drama—and Men doesn’t use it to punctuate—but the music’s still essential to the experience. Just like the audience, it’s also got a seat in the deliberations, another active participant.

Great editing from Carl Lerner.

12 Angry Men’s one of the true masterpieces of film. Everything about it improves on repeat viewings: the acting, the directing, the music. All of it. Just staggering.

Run Silent Run Deep (1958, Robert Wise)

Run Silent Run Deep runs a little short. Just when the film has the most potential does it sort of shrug and finish up real quick. There’s a third act reveal and it’s a good one, but it’s not good enough the movie can end on it. Especially not after it’s just had such a strong second act.

Burt Lancaster has just had a big character development moment, there’s just been an awesome special effects sequence, it’s right when Run Silent Run Deep has its most potential. The film’s never bad, though it occasionally feels a little claustrophobic, narratively speaking, but it’s been on this “can’t believe no one calls him Ahab” arc with Clark Gable for about an hour. The second act shake-up comes at just the right moment and sets up a great third arc. And the third arc is not great. It’s perfunctory, inventively so, but perfunctory. The finale lacks any impact. The big action finale doesn’t have much action, certainly not of the level in the second act set piece; Lancaster’s arc ends up going nowhere. He really had just been support for Gable the whole time.

So, Run Deep takes place during World War II. It opens with sub commander Gable’s sub getting sunk; he survives, along with some other guys but not everyone. A year later, he’s pushing pencils and playing “Battleship” with new sidekick Jack Warden. All of a sudden Warden lets it slip three other ships have gone down just where Gable’s did. A man possessed he storms over to the brass, demands a ship, gets one, which pauses executive officer Lancaster’s promotion to captain. His captain… died on their previous mission? It doesn’t come up.

Once onboard it soon becomes clear Gable’s going to hunt down Japanese ship sinking all the U.S. submarines. Run Deep teaches the sound moral, “you’ve got to be willing to die to kill.” For a brief few minutes, the film’s about the inherent righteousness of Ahab-ing. Gable’s got Lancaster convinced—though Lancaster doesn’t want to admit it. The crew doesn’t get that perk of command, however, so they’re ready to mutiny.

Lancaster and Gable are great together because they don’t like one another but Gable’s exploiting Lancaster’s ability. It’s kind of awesome, even when it’s just to kill time with montage sequences. Run Deep impresses with its special effects. The other stuff? It doesn’t worry too much. The submarine set is fine; not great. The editing—supervised by George Boemler—is awesome. The editing makes Run Deep until that end of the second act uptick.

Gable’s good. Warden’s good. Lancaster’s almost great. He’s great for a while, then his character arc falls out from under him. Worse, the third act is set to be where Gable finally gets some great material and never does. It’s a bummer. It needs to go longer. And there are places where it could’ve, but it really could have used a better action set piece in the third act than the second. If the dramatics were stronger, it’d be fine. But the dramatics aren’t stronger.

Nice supporting cast, particularly Brad Dexter, Don Rickles (in a totally straight part), and Joe Maross.

Decent Franz Waxman score. Solid Russell Harlan photography. The composite shots don’t really impress but Harlan does fine with the submarine suspense stuff and it’s more important.

Wise’s direction is fine. He does really well with the action. He does better with the supporting cast than his stars, which is a problem. But there’s already that too short script. So fine.

But Run Silent Run Deep ought to be better than fine. It wastes Lancaster and Gable separately and it wastes them together.

This post is part of the Second Clark Gable Blogathon hosted by Michaela of Love Letters to Old Hollywood.

Night and the City (1992, Irwin Winkler)

Night and the City ends on a comic note. Given the film deals with struggling and desperation–with no humor–having a funny line for a finish doesn’t just feel wrong, it invalidates all the work Robert De Niro does in the film. It turns his performance into a comedic one, which it had not been until that final moment.

Not to mention it undoes a bunch of Jessica Lange’s excellent work. She plays his love interest; she has a husband too. City seems complicated but it really isn’t. Richard Price’s script is full of great dialogue and great parts for actors–Cliff Gorman (as Lange’s husband), Alan King and Jack Warden are all excellent–but it doesn’t move very well. Even though Lange painfully explains why she likes De Niro, it’s not convincing. His ne’er-do-well ambulance chasing lawyer turned boxing promotor isn’t an entirely weak character, but he can’t hold up the entire picture.

Director Winkler is a lot of the problem too. The third act is a disaster, but these terrible music montage choices start somewhere in the second half. City never has much of a style–Winkler apes other New York directors–but it does have amazing editing from David Brenner to distinguish it. Not even Brenner can make the music choices work.

With a better director–and De Niro sharing more of the runtime with the supporting cast–City might have been a decent little picture. Instead, the film is an almost competent misfire.

1/4 ★

CREDITS

Directed by Irwin Winkler; screenplay by Richard Price, based on the novel by Gerald Kersh; director of photography, Tak Fujimoto; edited by David Brenner; music by James Newton Howard; production designer, Peter S. Larkin; produced by Jane Rosenthal and Winkler; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Robert De Niro (Harry Fabian), Jessica Lange (Helen Nasseros), Cliff Gorman (Phil Nasseros), Alan King (Boom Boom), Jack Warden (Al Grossman), Eli Wallach (Peck), Barry Primus (Tommy Tessler) and Gene Kirkwood (Resnick).


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OTHER 1992 RELEASES

The Presidio (1988, Peter Hyams)

I can’t forget so I need to open with it. In this ‘rah-rah, go USA’ twiddle, Sean Connery actually hijacks a eulogy at a Medal of Honor winner’s funeral to resolve his issues with his daughter. It’s a hilarious close to the movie, which has such bad jokes throughout, a laugh track wouldn’t be out of place.

The film’s actually incredibly important in terms of 1980s film history–it’s Paramount trying to repeat pass success without the people involved with those successes. The Presidio is basically a Simpson/Bruckheimer production (down to the terrible script from Larry Ferguson), just without their particular brand of cinematic styling–for all the lame chases and exploding cars, Peter Hyams is not a bad director… he has a good understanding of using a Panavision frame to tell narrative, apparently just not the sense to know how to fix a bad script. The film’s missing a hip score and Eddie Murphy. Mark Harmon’s in the Eddie Murphy role, though I’m not sure if Simpson and Bruckheimer would have gotten rid of Connery. (He’s actually not terrible in it, with his native… ability–or long experience–above the script).

Harmon’s pretty terrible, with his bouffant hair doing most of the “acting” for him. Casting Harmon as a tough cop was a ludicrous decision and he spends most of the film utterly lost, kind of like a deer in headlights. Meg Ryan, however, is pretty good.

Hyams takes advantage of San Francisco as a location (not just for the frequent chases) and it gives The Presidio a classier look than it deserves. But as a Paramount executive shepherd’s pie–I’m wondering if all the principles were fulfilling contracts since all three did Paramount work just prior–it’s a gem. It’s atrocious, with simpler politics than First Blood (how they didn’t get a Reagan cameo, I don’t know), but it’s always rare to see a film so empty of any artfulness.

And what was Jack Warden doing in it? From The Verdict to The Presidio… it’s inexplicable.

All the President's Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula)

In an American history survey class, when we got to Nixon, one student asked if we could cover it. She felt we hadn’t covered it well enough. The professor said we would not be covering it–everyone knew it. He was–obviously–wrongly assuming some knowledge of history from college students, a foolish presumption (I have MFA instructors who know nothing about history). I actually have some sympathy for that student, since unless she read a book, she might not know a lot about Watergate. I read the book before I saw All the President’s Men and I still remember a couple things from that first viewing. One, the immediately odd opening credit: ‘A Robert Redford-Alan J. Pakula Film’, and the halving of the book. Given the historical importance of its contents, it’s hard not to look at President’s Men as a historical document, but it is not. It might very well be the Harry Potter of its day, actually.

From the beginning, following that odd credit, I noticed the perfection of the film’s production. Every shot is perfect, every edit. That scene with Redford on the phone (President’s Men, particularly in the first act, is probably Redford’s best work) is beautiful. Alan J. Pakula outdoes just about everyone with this film. Even after the first act, when the film’s odd pacing takes over (it’s made for a person familiar with the events, another comparison to Harry Potter), Pakula’s composition is still striking. David Shire’s score is very quiet and Pakula uses it sparingly, instead going for great sound.

Once into the film’s action, once it’s established there won’t be any real character relationships, since the principals of the film aren’t involved with the film’s major events, the film does begin to lose some steam. The wonderful character moments, when Redford and Hoffman interact with “real” people (the film’s filled with great small performances from Lindsay Crouse and Jane Alexander–Alexander in particular), stop and, while the film doesn’t get repetitive, it loses some of the charm. For that first seventy minutes, it establishes all these great little performances, then whisks them away from the viewer. Instead, there are other great performances, from Jason Robards, Jack Warden, and Martin Balsam, but somehow, those performances are less engaging. Especially when Warden effectively disappears from the film. Maybe in those more varied scenes, there’s some additional William Goldman goodness. All the President’s Men is Goldman at, if not his best then certainly his most skillful.

I thought watching the film today would be… not difficult, but somewhat sullied by the knowledge of the modern stooge media and knowing Nixon and his goons were nowhere near as bad as Republicans could get (in fact, they weren’t bad at all, all things considered), but it isn’t. The film stands on its own qualities and while it is a tad of the empty side of humaneness, it’s the best film ever made with that distance. It’s the kind of film Soderbergh wanted to make with Traffic, but couldn’t. Because he’s not Alan J. Pakula.

Everybody Wins (1990, Karel Reisz)

What a weird movie. Debra Winger cannot act. Don’t know exactly why Terms of Endearment worked, but she cannot act. She’s really terrible in this one. Arthur Miller adapted his play, which was from 1982–except it was a one act play. Somewhere in the adaptation, Everybody Wins becomes a ludicrous attempt at a thriller. It’s set in a Connecticut town, which looks a lot like Pennsylvania in the film, and Reisz gives the setting absolutely no personality.

Winger convinces Nick Nolte to investigate a case, except she’s a total flake and doesn’t tell him anything about the case until the last fifteen minutes. So, right away, it’s unbelievable for Nolte, playing a renowned investigator, would put up with Winger. Most of their scenes involve her hiding something from him, but he sticks around… because if he left, it’d be a one act movie. Will Patton shows up for a bit and he’s fine. He and Nolte have an interesting relationship for a few scenes. Poor Jack Warden stuck in a nothing role, just to pop in whenever you’ve forgotten he’s in the movie.

It’s not really a case of the film being predictable, but once some of the clues come out, it’s unbelievable Nolte the investigator wouldn’t piece anything together. Except he pieces absolutely nothing together–in the entire film–which dismisses it as a mystery or detective film. There’s no real jeopardy involved, so it’s not a thriller either. Winger’s so terrible it’s not a romance. The film’s only interesting with Nolte and Patton and Nolte and Judith Ivey, who plays his sister (the character’s got an interesting history, but none of it, apparently, gets to come through in the film).

I’ve seen Reisz and Nolte’s other collaboration, Who’ll Stop the Rain, and I guess Everybody Wins is better. Everybody Wins is shorter and, for the first half, it’s just boring, not particularly bad. In fact, I think some of the beginning might even be good. Nolte does a good job, but it’s definitely one of his autopilot performances. Reisz has some good moments (just can’t make the setting stick until the end, when it’s too late to fix the film). There’s even homage to Who’ll Stop the Rain, which I can’t believe anyone would pick up on, but who knows, maybe there’s somebody else out there going through all of MGM’s Nick Nolte releases too.