Sidney Lumet (1924 – 2011)
Sitting down and casting an eye over the filmography of Sidney Lumet, who died yesterday (April 9 2011) at the age of 86, several things strike me. Firstly there must be as many Lumet films I haven’t seen as those I have. Secondly, the sheer variety of the genres he tackled in his long career surprised me. Thirdly, a unifying thread – people pushed to the very limits of their emotional endurance, individuals against the group or the system. Think Network, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Hill, 12 Angry Men, The Verdict, Daniel.
But that’s only some if it. How do you explain a resumé that also includes musical remake of The Wizard of Oz? Or an all-star old-Hollywood glossy Agatha Christie whodunit? Or a quasi-euro art movie?
He is most likely to be remembered as cinema’s best exponent of a genre he made his own – the police corruption drama – particularly a New York set series of films, that began with Serpico (a film that, remarkably, he wasn’t originally set to direct), and continued with Prince of the City, Q&A, and Night Falls on Manhattan. His love of New York shone through in Bye, Bye, Braverman, The Anderson Tapes, Serpico, Network, Family Business and his final feature, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.
This passionately proud New Yorker was also able to brilliantly convey British attitudes and sensibilities. The Hill and The Offence showed a remarkable affinity for a particular Englishness both in emotional terms and in his visual language. The Deadly Affair, from a John Le Carre novel was a spy film that, like fellow American Martin Ritt’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold , was a grey, bleak antidote to the world of Bond.
Lumet’s skill lay in mastery of all of these cinematic paradigms and more (a gift with ensembles for instance), but above all he was an actors’ director. He had an innate gift to bring out career-best performances in his leads. Connery for certain was never better than under Lumet’s tutelage. Peter Finch won his Oscar (posthumously) for Network. Nick Nolte was astonishing as a corrupt cop on the verge of extinction in Q&A. Paul Newman was criminally overlooked for an award as the lawyer looking at a last shot for redemption in The Verdict, Pacino’s essay of a bank robber in over his head and driven to distraction by his partner, his hostages, his gay lover, his wife and the cops in Dog Day Afternoon; Henry Fonda as the dogged voice of reason in 12 Angry Men. Lumet had the gift of teasing greatness from his casts like few other directors of his generation.
And then there’s the overlooked Lumet. James Coburn in Last of the Mobile Hotshots, James Mason in Child’s Play and The Seagull, Raf Vallone in Vue du Pont, Tony Perkins in Lovin’ Molly, Ali MacGraw in Just Tell Me What You Want; it’s scarcely believable that such a high profile and admired director should have so many little-known films on his CV.
Bu now that he’s sadly gone, maybe we can all look back and admire Lumet’s career in its entirety, and a man who loved his craft with a passion.
I had the good fortune to meet Lumet at a dinner given in his honour in New York a couple of years back. He was genuinely touched by the love in the room – the great and the good coming up one after another to offer their appreciation of one of the last great directors in American cinema.
Sidney Lumet, June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011.
Read more about The Hill here.
Comments
Steve, you left a comment on my blog, but maybe somehow you got spammed and the spammy thing left a comment. I’m not always sure how the technology works, but wordpress thinks your comment was spam.
In any case, the whole thing led me here and I like your blog. I don’t have much time to watch movies, new or old, but this is a great resource. I will put you on my blogroll. If you have a moment, I’d love to know if you really did comment or not….
Thanks for your work and good attention to the movies you love. twinkly
HI, thanks for commenting. This is really weird, its becoming increasingly obvious someone has spammed a whole heap of WordPress users with my blog – why I don’t know. Someone else left a kind comment yesterday and I replied how kind it was of them, and they too had had what looked like spam with a link to a specific post on my blog – he gave me the email address of the sender and I tried to contact them but the email address was fake.
Whats weird is I don’t know why they did it. For me I’ve had an unbeleivable spike in traffic in the last couple of days, but I feel like people have been cheated in dropping by. But the few comments that have been left don’t seem cross, so again, I’m perplexed as to the motive of the spammer and how they worded it. I’m half expecting an email from someone saying “hey did you enjoy all that exta traffic, well for $$$$ a month we can guarantee that” or some such rubbish. I can figure out the how, just not the why!
I’m glad you like the site though and hope you didn’t feel duped into looking! I don’t get too much of a chance to make many updates as I’m writing a book at present. Its more a hobby than anything, but thanks anyway!
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