``Serpico'' Sidney Lumet and Al Pacino portray a gritty police drama that restores faith in law and justice.

The harsh filming that troubled Sidney Lumet

John G. Avildsen, known for `` Rocky '' (1976) and `` The Karate Kid '' (1984), was scheduled to direct the film, but he left the project due to disagreements with the producers. Sidney Lumet, who showed great skill in `` 12 Angry Men '' (1957), will take on the role.

There were a lot of problems. First of all, casting. In this movie, there were conversation scenes with 107 characters. Naturally, careful planning is required as to who will play which role. Lumet's conclusion was to hire unknown actors. He believed that in order to enhance the realism of a movie, it was important that ``when an actor appears, the audience cannot associate it with the character.''

In later years, Lumet made a film version of Agatha Christie's original mystery `` Murder on the Orient Express '' (1974), casting an all-star cast including Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, and Anthony Perkins. The calculation is that if all the suspects are famous actors, the culprit will not be discovered because of the cast. Although the approach is the complete opposite of that of ``Serpico,'' this bold casting is Lumet's specialty.

"Murder on the Orient Express" preview

Filming was also extremely difficult. Although the filming locations were concentrated in New York, it was necessary to shoot in every borough of New York except Staten Island, totaling 104 locations. They filmed in a few takes, retreated, and then headed to the next filming location. Even Al Pacino was initially taken aback by how busy he was.

What's more, the film was shot in the reverse order of its actual use. As time passes, Serpico's hair becomes unkempt and his beard becomes unkempt, but if I were to film them sequentially, I would have to wait for the hair to grow, which would take too long. Therefore, he adopted a strategy of trimming his hair and beard little by little for each scene. It must have been quite a hardship for Al Pacino. This is because the flow of emotions gets disrupted. In a sense, it's even more of a throwback than `` Tenet '' (2020).

Shi-ka-mo! Lumet and Pacino thought Waldo Salt's script had poor dialogue and improvised many scenes. There was too much improvisation, too many locations, and the filming was not done in order. However, even under such circumstances, this famous actor had a precise plan for each scene and performed a perfect act. This surprised the staff.

``Serpico'', which was completed after much painstaking efforts, was greeted with enthusiasm by Americans and became one of the most representative films of the 1970s. And this work is firmly imprinted with Sidney Lumet's signature: ``a hard, gritty social film set in New York.'' This is where Lumet's meteoric rise began.

Text: Rui Takeshima

A pop culture writer who wants to be kicked by Hit Girl. Host of the web magazine " POP MASTER ".

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