Historic Films Stock Footage Archive: NT-3356

00:01:55 1.46	Slate and Countdown: The Eleventh Hour #356, Lumet, Length 28:11. Rec: 5/7/90. Dir: Andrew Wilk
00:02:04 9.69	Charitable funding by announcer and overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic.
00:02:17 23.37	The Eleventh Hour graphic and show opener
00:02:40 46.01	Host Robert Lipsyte sitting in the studio in front of small tv screens names the many movies that were directed by Sidney Lumet.
00:03:01 67.38	Lipsyte introduces famous director, 65 year old Sidney Lumet sitting in fron of TV screen "With Sidney Lumet". Close up on Lumet as Lipsyte announces his most recent film "Q&A" made in New York and cuts to a clip.
00:03:14 79.88	Clip from the Sidney Lumet film, Q&A, courtesy of Tristar.
00:04:04 129.89	Film clip ends. Wide shot looking down on the studio with Lipsyte and Lumet sitting at a triangular table.
00:04:11 136.57	INTERVIEW: Robert Lipsyte: in looking at the arc of your work from 12 Angry Men through Serpico and Prince of the city and now to q&a. There's a sense that in the beginning, one man as in 12, Angry Men wonderful courtroom drama, one man can and must make a difference in Serpico and then and Prince of the city, perhaps one somewhat crazy man, going outside the system can try to make the difference. And now in QA, you can't the fix is in it? Is it me? Or did something happen to you? Or the movies or New York in these 33 years? Sidney Lumet I think it's a combination of the three actually Mr. Lipsyte the I did, I must say always considered 12 Angry Men a bit romantic. I never really did believe that one man could turn around 11 others, especially when it also hinged on a racial, or there was a racial aspect of that. So I certainly didn't believe that. But at least I was young enough and, and Reginald Rose who wrote it is romantic enough to I know Reggie believed that completely. I think was also if it was possible, it wasn't possible then. You don't think it's possible now. I really don't I think that not by the way that has nothing to do with whether or not you try. I don't think there's I don't think you hold back or or reduce your own pressure and your own fight one iota. But I think it's almost impossible. Now. I think it's frightening. Now, Robert Lipsyte what has happened? I mean, you've you've seen a Sidney Lumet a lot of things, a lot of things for me, politically, this, there's been a tremendous swing to the right. Everything that Roosevelt represented, but I'm a depression, baby. So that was all a tremendous part of my life. And I think the accumulated years of Nixon and Reagan, have had their effect in the city specifically. I've always felt that Ed Koch was a disaster. And he seemed to have been going more becoming more and more as his ego sort of filled out. And, and it became more and more full of himself. He just really practically it seemed to me didn't even know what he was saying. I don't even think it was calculated. I think what we were seeing was the real man, just emerging under this tremendous egotistical burst and I think it's been extremely damaged. Robert Lipsyte Do you think he was reflecting the city in the time or he got away? Sidney Lumet I think he was revealing what was already there. And I I think if anything, he was going more with what he thought the city was. And he was quite right. He ran a number of elections on the basis of us against them. Robert Lipsyte Let me ask you this and I'll restart. What's your role in all this? I mean, as a filmmaker, realist fantasist, are you reflecting what's out there? Or what should be happening? Sidney Lumet I don't, I don't know whether sorry to use the word creative people ever really reflected. I think, you know, you you work out of yourself. You hope it's connected to the time you're living in. I don't know if I can really talk about this because I don't take a very cerebral approach to my work I I react instinctively accept the script or accept the project? Sure. Right on on the first reading, don't don't mull it over mull it overmold over. It's just Yes, right away or no right away. And it may not be till years later that I've even realized what I've been interested in for a period of time. So I don't know if I'm the best person to act, the deer to ask. But I think that most of us who do some good work are connected to the time even if we're denying it enormously.
00:08:17 383.44	Blank
00:08:18 384.05	Clip from the 1957 film, 12 Angry Men.
00:08:54 420.45	Blank
00:08:56 421.73	Back with Lipsyte and Lumet in the studio.
00:08:57 423.02	INTEVIEW; Robert Lipsyte: 12 Angry Men. Now, at a time when the Bensonhurst trial is going on? How would it have to be different? How could Oh, I would have a fight. I would have such a fight with Reggie rose about the ending of that movie. And if you won the fight, what would have happened at the end? Sidney Lumet I think what would have happened is that they have finally found a character would have done precisely what I do. I think he would have left discouraged, disheartened, but feeling absolutely obligated to to put up the fight he did. Robert Lipsyte But you bounce back every time. I mean, you've made 36 films, and you've made most of them right here in city. Right. So I mean, you get knocked down, but you come back. Yeah. You mean is that? Is that the message? The struggle is all? Sidney Lumet Well? Yeah, exactly. I just don't know how you can figure on winning all the time, or winning ever. Certainly, politically, I've lost for the last 25 years ago, except for odd breaks. So I think life is not it's not a question of of victory, or getting everything you want or part of what you want. You are a certain kind of person, you behave in a certain kind of way, and it's your obligation in a way to be yourself Robert Lipsyte You got this early? Yeah, I think so. I think you were a child actor, child of the depression. Your father was a star of the Yiddish Theater. What was happening? What was the message? Sidney Lumet I think the message that I got always or and certainly I behaved this way, was you keep working? That work is inviolate. That work is constant. The work is probably your best friend. That that work is noble. And there's just no question about it. Things can turn out disastrous. disastrously personally, or they can be unhappiness about this unhappiness about that. The work stays in violent, you keep that pure, and you keep working. Robert Lipsyte Well, let's let's take take q&a. That's about working men to these are working cops. And people in the Justice Department in the Justice business, which you have always had kind of a finger on your whole career. Sidney Lumet By the way, I don't seek q&a. Mr. website is dark as some people do. To me, the very fact that at the end of the movie, Timothy Hutton, this character al Riley, Al Riley is ready to acknowledge an unconscious racism on his part, on the most internal profound level. Something that he didn't even know existed is enormously meaningful, and one can hardly call it optimistic except that at least the acknowledgement of the state which I think is rad. happened in New York is the first step toward hopefully some correction somewhere down the line. Robert Lipsyte Do you do you think that's important? Because I remember I read the book when it originally came out, I guess when I was 77. Uh huh. And the racism didn't see. I mean, you really kind of jacked up when I drew from the book. Yeah. But I mean, you you made it your own. You made it 1990. I mean, is that what you sense going on here in New York now, a kind of racism that we're not willing to acknowledge,
00:12:28 634.2	Sidney Lumet all over the country .And I think it's being acknowledged in the most horrific sense of becoming completely overt. Whether it's on college campuses, and it's going across all levels of society. I can't believe what's going on in some of the campuses Now, also, whether it's districts of new districts of New York or ethnic districts, white ethnic districts, New York or college campuses, it seems to be rampant Robert Lipsyte a few days ago, Jimmy Breslin responding to an Asian reporter on his newspaper with racial epithets. In q&a, the racial epithets are kind of constant, it's kind of back and forth. The the audience that I saw it with over the weekend, we're both uncomfortable at moments, and yet getting off on saying all that stuff, they want them. Sidney Lumet exactly. And if you spent any kind of time in certainly in group male society, whether it's especially that particular kind of world of either cops or firemen or or the army, for that matter, that assault is constant. That is not exaggerated. That's there. And the picture, of course, tries to peel back. What that really represents. Robert Lipsyte Well, what does it really represent? I mean, is it is it meaningless, or is it corrosive? saying these things as people saying what they feel Sidney Lumet none of it is meaningless In my view. I I think it's there. I think it's there to a frightening degree. I think it's been there. People have lived with it so long. They don't even know that they've got it. They don't even know that those are their feelings, because it's just assumed. And I think it's destroying us. Certainly here in New York, and I think, great damage all over the country. Robert Lipsyte Well, you have a particularly personal connection with Jenny Lumet, your daughter was in the show the granddaughter of Lena Horne, a biracial child is is something that you found out that way. Sidney Lumet More and more. Yeah, I think as Jenny and Amy were growing up, there was we talked about it and and but I think it's something I've been aware of for a very long time. As I say even in 12 Angry Men, the one of the prime villains one of the ways the votes turns around, comes after a racial diatribe. The romanticism of 12 Angry Men is that in that scene, the Ed Begley character goes into this racial diatribe, and eight or nine men get up and walk away from the table.
00:15:12 798.22	Cut to another scene from the film, 12 Angry Men.
00:15:36 821.9	Back with Lipsyte and Lumet in the studio. Sidney Lumet have would happen now. Robert Lipsyte But you made it then. Sidney Lumet We made it then. And we made it with fancy footwork, we made it look acceptable and believable. Robert Lipsyte Yeah. But do you have any any second thoughts now? I mean, it's it's a classic. And in a sense, you're distancing yourself from one of your classics? Sidney Lumet No, I don't think I don't think that every piece you do has to be the reality. I think as long as it's the truth. I, I'm not playing with words here. There really is a difference between them. And for, at least for me, and I think 12 Angry Men is true. I just don't think it's real. Robert Lipsyte True in the sense, Sidney Lumet true in the sense that what it's fundamentally about is one man refuses to go with a group absolutely demands his own individual right of disagreement. The fact that in that case, it ends and victory doesn't take away from what the picture is fundamentally about any more than if it had ended in loss. Robert Lipsyte If you if you needed or wanted to shape things that are happening in the city now, the racial things in Teaneck, New Jersey central park. More recently the Bensonhurst trial is is this something in there for you? This is something that you would want to deal with as a filmmaker. Sidney Lumet It's an enormous question. You know, Bob, Lucy once said, an amazing thing to me about police corruption, Robert Lipsyte Bob Lucy of course, was the real, he was really Sidney Lumet a real person of Princeton city. And we spent a lot of time together. And he said a remarkable thing to me, he said it at any point. And on any given day in the police department, there are 5% of the cops are hopelessly corrupt and will never change. And on that same day, 5% of the cops will never be able to be reached, will always stay clean. And the other 90% will go with what the atmosphere of the department is like. Those are his numbers. And, and his opinion, I don't know how true they are. But I think given a variation in numbers, I don't know, let's call it 10% or 15%. I think that as one looks at New York today, maybe 15% was is hopelessly racist, and 15% will never be touched by racism. And the other 70% will just swing by the atmosphere of the city by the atmosphere of the leadership by Ed Koch. Robert Lipsyte And perhaps by Sidney Lumet. I mean, just what don't you think that there is a social conditioning in what you do in the so called creative arts?
00:18:28 993.94	Sidney Lumet I wish I wish I felt that were true. I wish it would be wonderful. If it were I don't think anybody's work affects one iota of anyone's opinion. I may be wrong about that. I don't know. I never have felt that Robert Lipsyte How can you go on if you don't think that you're having some sort of impact? Sidney Lumet Well because you're looking for victory again, you see, and I'm not I'm going on because I have to I want to I think that's what makes my life interesting. And, and I hope valuable. But it's not connected to victory, Robert Lipsyte you know, in terms of what was seemed like the most provocative New York movies right now, q&a, your your film, do the right thing, and possibly, Bonfire of the Vanities, especially if it expresses, you know, the book in terms of class, the justice system, and race, all dealing with the same thing. Had you thought about either of those projects, how you might have dealt with, first of all, was Bonfire of the Vanities, something that you would have been interested in making? Sidney Lumet No it wouldn't have been Robert Lipsyte why. Sidney Lumet I felt and and this has nothing to do with the movie because I don't know what the what the script of the movie is. I felt the book brilliantly written was also very mean spirited. I think that the use of all that for, for kind of, for a kind of wit, for a kind of humor. That wolf is Superbad, to use it in a satiric sense without really letting us know what he feels like. What is he really finally sat satirizing? How does Tom Wolfe feel about what I think I know just out I don't know the man at all, but just out of the nature of what I read. And and I think I might find that alarming. So that book wouldn't have interested me at all, no. Robert Lipsyte Which does get back to the responsibility of the creative artist. Sidney Lumet And up to each individual, you know, I can't make rules for Tom Wolfe, and he shouldn't make rules for me. And I would certainly not intend to I may be wrong in my interpretation of what he wrote. But that is right for me as the writing of that book was obviously right for him. Robert Lipsyte What about do the right thing? Sidney Lumet I thought that was a wonderful movie. I thought the hoopla about it was about its appeal to violence was all utter nonsense. It's to talk about our utter violence from what 13,14 an appeal to our violence from 13 to 14 blacks have been shot by the New York Police Department in the last five years and so is is patently silly. I did feel interestingly enough, and in relation to q&a, I think that the the two pictures deal with a different aspect of the same problem. I think Spike Lee's picture deals with that the potential for violence and what it takes to set it off. q&a doesn't deal with the violence of it. In that sense, it deals With it on the level of deals with the people are racist in it right across there. And it doesn't affect the moment by moment action, but it affects their entire life. It's not as if there is going to be one corrosive incident and an explosion on a kind of a level. It's just there on a day to day dull dull dull level part of the behavior. And it's the totality of the behavior which is destructive in q&a.
00:22:26 1231.84	Cut away to a clip from Lumet's most recent film (1990), Q & A.
00:22:48 1254.4	Cutaway from Q & A to a scene from Lumet's 1973 film, Serpico.
00:23:04 1270.27	Cutaway from Serpico to a scene from Lumet's 1981 crime drama film, Prince of the City.
00:23:42 1308.28	INTERVIEW. Sidney Lumet sounds strange coming from me because it seems like the pictures are enormously critical. When I've talked to I've spent a lot of time with him Mr. Lipsyte and when I've talked to them, we always get into the same argument. Which is I've always said to them, Well, you know, your job would be a lot easier in Russia. The problem being a cop is that you're a competent democracy. And the two are sometimes clashing. I love them, because I think they are incredibly brave. I think they live on a level that's that very few of us good. I've written with. And I tell you, I've gone out on this Friday and Saturday nights, and there's no way I could do it. As a way of life, one of the things I love always is that the men like it's the branch that doesn't like my pictures, the men love them. And because my respect my all of the world that they live in, and the sanity they keep in that world is enormous. But I must say it's changed in the past three or four years. They are shooting more frequently. I don't know whether that's a generational thing or what Robert Lipsyte do you think it's the racism? Is this bottom line of racism? Sidney Lumet I think? I think it's I think that's part of it. I think there are a lot of elements, it's, it's also, let's face it from their own points of view. It's a lot more dangerous out there. Since dope, they can walk into any situation and have absolutely no idea of, of what is predictable. Robert Lipsyte It's like in almost every one of your films a appealing But dad cop kind of almost looks at us and says, you know, if it wasn't for me, you know that the slime would be coming into your neighborhood, killing your daughter, and I'm bad. Because I'm in between I'm the thin blue line. Do you believe that's true? Sidney Lumet Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what I mean when I say they live on a on an edge that I couldn't conceive of myself living in and that I will always find moving and fundamentally makes me for them. Despite the pictures in a way. The pictures are an expression of that. I know, I know, that sounds like like I'm juggling ideas around but I really do feel that Robert Lipsyte Do you feel that the pictures or the expression of the fact that it's society that makes them the way they are? I mean, just just as way cop snicker if anyone dares to say that, you know the perps have been made this way by society. In a sense, you're almost saying this, that we've created these, you know, tainted heroes. Sidney Lumet I'm saying the situation in total becomes more and more impossible. Not just for us, just living in the city but but for cops living in the city. Nothing in the justice system was ever designed to handle what was being done today. I remember when I met Ed Torres who wrote q&a. He is an actor Judge in the United States in the state Supreme Court. And Ed was in charge of that Night Court when I was doing prints in the city and was my reference source. And it would take me through Night Court. And nothing in the system was ever designed for a cop to sit there for six hours, and a legal aid guy to go back into the pen area where they're kept before they're brought up in front of the judge and say, Rodriguez, which one of you is Rodriguez, he hasn't even had a moment to even meet the man he's going to defend two hours down the line. And the judge sitting there on a Friday or Saturday night, we'll be dealing with 30 second decisions, that's about what he will have the value of what they're trying to cope with. Nothing in the justice system was ever created. I came out of it with a feeling that it's a miracle it functions at all. Not that it's functioning badly. But it's simply that it can still exist seemed extraordinary. Robert Lipsyte To me your view is getting darker. Your view from your lense is getting darker. what are you going to do next? And where do you see? Where are you going to take us from here? Sidney Lumet I don't know. Mr. Lipsyte I, the next piece of work, whatever it will be, it will be reflecting I hope, if I do it, well, whatever I'm feeling at the time, as I said before, I I don't lay this out in advance. I really know. Afterwards, I'd look back and I say, Oh, that's what those pictures were about. That's what I was interested in at the time. So I can't answer. Robert Lipsyte What is the process in which you will make your next choice. Sidney Lumet I'll open a script, or I'll get an idea or read a book or I'll read it. See a newspaper article and I'll say, oh,wouldn't that be a good movie? Robert Lipsyte You back on the streets of New York with cops? Do you think? Sidney Lumet I sure wouldn't close it out as a part of my life. I hope not. Robert Lipsyte Sidney Lumet, thank you so very much for being with us. That's the 11th hour. I'm Robert Lipsyte.
00:28:48 1613.96	Close up on Lumet as Lipsyte unseen thanks him. Interview concludes.
00:28:50 1615.54	Host Robert Lipsyte announces the show and introduces himself. Show ends.
00:28:55 1621.47	Pan out from Lipsyte and Lumet in the studio. Credits overlay.
00:29:57 1683.3	Charitable funding by announcer and overlay the Eleventh Hour graphic.
00:30:13 1698.77	Reel Ends.