Un après-midi de chien

Il vient de ressortir dans quelques salles. Ce film est fascinant en très grande partie pour l'intensité du jeu d'Al Pacino, véritable point focal du film qui concentre le travail de toute l'équipe du film dans le personnage central de l'histoire. Le genre de réussite à couper la chique que trop peu de films atteignent.

One of the most difficult acting scenes I had to do was on Dog Day Afternoon. About two-thirds of the way through the movie, Pacino makes 2 phone calls (...) I knew Al would build up the fullest head of steam if we could do it in one take. The scene took place at night. The character had been in the bank for twelve hours. He had to seem spent, exhausted. When we're that tired amotions flow more easily. And that's what I wanted.
There was an immediate problem. The camera holds only a thousand feet of film. That's a bit over eleven minutes. The two phone calls ran almost fifteen minutes. I solved it by putting two cameras next to each other (...).
One more thing occured to me. One of the best way of accumulating emotion is to go as rapidly as possible from one take to the next. (...) I knew a second take would mean a serious interruption for Al. We'd have to reload one of the cameras. Reloading a magazine of film can be quite disruptive. (...) The whole process, done at top speed, takes two or three minutes, enough time for Al to cool off. So I put a black tent to block off both cameras and the men who operate them. We cut two holes for the lenses. And I had the second assistant cameraman hold an extra film magazine in his lap in case we needed it.
We rolled. As camera one reached 850 feet we rolled camera 2. The take ended. It was wonderful. But something told me to go again. Camera 2 had used only about 200 feet of film. I called out gently, "Al, back to the top. I want to go again." He looked at me as if he had gone mad. He had gone full out and was exhausted. He said, "What?! You're kidding." I said, "Al, we have to. Roll camera."
(...)By the end of the second take, Al didn't know where he was anymore. He finished his lines, and in sheer exhaustion, looked about helplessly. Then, by accident, he looked directly at me. Tears were rolling down my face because he'd moved me so. His eyes locked into mine and he burst into tears, then slumpped over the desk he had been sitting at. I called, "Cut! Print!" and leapt into the air. That scene is one of the best scene acting I have ever seen.


Sydney Lumet Making Movies