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March 15, 2006
'Guilty' Conscience: The Reeler Catches Up with Sidney Lumet
It is a rare film premiere that enables you to cross a goal off your "Things I Must Do to Die Happy" list, but that is how I would classify last night's Find Me Guilty event at the AMC Lincoln Square. After all, for exactly 56 seconds, I chatted with Sidney Lumet.
Technically, I guess I should still try to work out a conversation with the guy before I move on to Michael Herr, Harvey Weinstein and other interview subjects of my dreams, but it will do for now. Find Me Guilty has Lumet directing the true story of Giacomo "Jackie D." DiNorscio (Vin Diesel), a charismatic Lucchese crime family enforcer who, in the late '80s, defended himself in what became the longest (nearly two years) and most involved (20 defendants) trial in American history.
Despite the case's local legend, Lumet told The Reeler it was news to him. "I never knew anything about it until I got the screenplay," he said.
So he had to go back and revisit the record, right? Familiarize himself a little bit?
"No!" Lumet said. "The trial transcript was four feet high and there was no way. The trial lasted two years, so there was no way I was going to go through that."
OK, fair enough. But having two of cinema's best legal dramas (12 Angry Men and The Verdict) on his resume, what is it about this story that made Lumet want to revisit the genre?
"Well, it was such a unique case," he said. "It's the only picture I've ever done about a personailty so dominant they wiped out everythng else in the trial. And that's what happened here. That in itself is unique."
I know what you are thinking: "But Mr. Lumet, why cast Vin Diesel of all people as this 'dominant personality'?" Keeping in mind The Pacifier, The Chronicles of Riddick and the appalling hairpiece Diesel sports through Guilty, I do not necessarily hold your first impression against you. Nevertheless, you might be gettng a little ahead of yourself. Diesel has good roles in his past (Boiler Room, Saving Private Ryan), and Lumet coaxes just enough vulnerablity from DiNorscio to make the film Diesel's best in years. I mean, he is an actor's director--that is just what he does.
The many moods and faces of Find Me Guilty's Vin Diesel (Photos: STV)
If you don't believe me, ask Diesel. "I learned so much as an actor," he told me before last night's screening. "In many ways, it was the point of working with Sidney Lumet. As an actor, there are very few directors who are around today who actually take you to the next level and that allow you to grow as an actor. ... He created the environment. We had 300 people in this courtroom and never once hired an extra. He cast every single person in the scene. Every person you see in this movie was handpicked by Sidney Lumet. That's a testament to a director who appreciates the craft of acting so much that every person in the movie has to go through this process. The amount of confidence that instills in you, I think, helps you grow as an actor. Sometimes it can be harrowing to do a 10- or 15-minute scene in one take, but somehow it makes your performance."
But then there is Lumet as a director's director as well--another advantage not lost on his star. "As a director," Diesel said, "he was conscious of the fact that I was going to direct Hannibal and would take every opportunity to show me why he was picking the camera angles he was pickling, what tricks he was using--what dollies, multiple dollies, multiple cameras. He was so generous, so generous. So increíble."
The love was almost enough to fill two theaters ("Hey T!" Diesel shouted out of nowhere to a man heading upstairs on the escalator. "Oh my God! It's a family reunion! Bobby! Where's your mother, Bobby? Where's your mother, Bobby?"), and with a lumpy screenplay that reduces the story's nuance to hollow goombahs-vs.-the-world caricatures, Find Me Guilty will need all the love it can get. Still, Lumet draws remarkably rich work from Ron Silver as the Lucchese case's tortured judge, while Annabella Sciorra shines in a small part as DiNorscio's estranged wife. Just the structure of his long takes alone makes for fascinating viewing; in one sequence, Diesel flourishes with grudging restraint as the Lucchese boss effectively banishes him from the tribe over lunch. The silence that follows recalls his ascetic masterpieces Dog Day Afternoon and Network--the tone Lumet has long since abandoned for the incongruous jazz quartet underscoring portions of Guilty.
It is still Lumet, though, and if you cannot find something rewarding in one of his pictures--even in The Wiz or Gloria--you just are not paying close enough attention. Besides reacquainting themselves with Vin Diesel's chops, viewers face the bittersweet revelation that Lumet in 2006 only reminds us how great we all had it thirty years ago.
Posted by stvanairsdale at March 15, 2006 09:27 AM
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