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Sidney Lumet
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Filmmaker Sidney Lumet (born 1924) has made some of America's most memorable movies, including "Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon", and "Network". His films have received more than 50 Academy Award nominations. Often called "an actor's director," Lumet is known for the superior performances he draws from his actors.
Sidney Lumet's films often deal with social themes, such as the police, law, or Jewish life. Most of his films are shot in New York City and are often rough and emotional. Lumet treats the camera as an actor, making sure that the camerawork relates to what is happening dramatically. His vast technical knowledge allows him to use the tools of camera, lighting, and set design in a subtle yet distinctive style that is all his own.
A Child of the Theater
Lumet was born on June 25, 1924, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were actor Baruch Lumet and dancer Eugenia Wermus Lumet, both performers in Yiddish theater. Eugenia Lumet passed away when her son was a child. Lumet began his acting career at age four at the Yiddish Art Theater in New York City. He played many roles on radio and on Broadway, where he first performed in 1935. Lumet appeared in his only film role at the age of 15 in One Third of a Nation, in 1939. World War II interrupted Lumet's acting career; he spent three years in the U.S. army, including stints in Burma and India, where he served as a radio repairman. He often got into fights with his fellow servicemen, many of whom were from the South.
From Actor to Director
Lumet studied acting with Sanford Meisner, a famous acting teacher. In 1947 Lumet founded an off-Broadway theater troupe that included Yul Brynner and Eli Wallach, taught acting, and directed plays. In 1950 he joined the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and became a respected director of live television programs, including a crime series called Danger and a program titled You Are There. New York City was the heart of television production during the Golden Age of television of the 1950s, and many talented writers, actors, and directors lived and worked there. At the time, television was a medium that allowed intimate direction, much like the theater. Many television directors, like Lumet, progressed to films, often focusing on complex social and psychological themes and retaining a style derived from their informal origins in television.
Lumet creates "message pictures," movies that tackle social problems, and has been viewed as among the most perceptive and unsentimental directors of this genre. His films often feature actors who studied "Method" acting, characterized by an earthy, introspective style. And along with cinematographer Boris Kaufman, Lumet creates the appearance of spontaneity, an improvisational look achieved by shooting much of his work on location.
Lumet's work falls into several categories: the message picture; adaptations of plays and novels; large, showy pictures; films about families; tense melodramas; and New York-based black comedies. According to Gerald Mast and Bruce Kawin in their A Short History of the Movies, "Lumet's sensitivity to actors and to the rhythms of the city have made him America's longest-lived descendant of the 1950s Neorealist tradition and its urgent commitment to ethical responsibility. … Beneath the social conflicts of Lumet's best films lies the conviction that love and reason will eventually prevail in human affairs, that law and justice will eventually be served - or not."
In 1957 Lumet directed his first film, Twelve Angry Men, a courtroom drama that was based on a TV play. The film received the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for Academy awards for best picture, best director, and best screenplay adaptation. In this film Lumet used a theme that would reappear later in his work: the motif of the enclosed space. Twelve Angry Men was filmed almost entirely in a single room, and in his book Making Movies, the director described the feeling he was trying to create. "One of the most important dramatic elements for me was the sense of entrapment those men must have felt in that room. … As the picture unfolded, I wanted the room to seem smaller and smaller. … The sense of increasing claustrophobia did a lot to raise the tension of the last part of the movie."
Theatrical Adaptations
Harkening back to his roots in the theater, Lumet proceeded to direct three films that were adapted from plays. In 1960 he made The Fugitive Kind, based on the play Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams and starring Marlon Brando. The theme, according to Lumet, was "the struggle to preserve what is sensitive and vulnerable both in ourselves and in the world." Next came A View from a Bridge, an adaptation of a play by Arthur Miller. Long Day's Journey into Night, based on the Eugene O'Neill play, starred Katharine Hepburn and Jason Robards in a tale of a family's downward spiral into tragedy. In 1965 Lumet made the film The Pawnbroker, a powerful work about a Holocaust survivor haunted by his past and trapped in a lonely present that starred Rod Steiger. In this film, Lumet once again used the theme of the enclosed space, showing the main character caught in his own prison of pain.
From Slump to Apex
After The Pawnbroker Lumet's career entered a slump. He made a number of films in the second half of the 1960s, but not until 1971 did he have another hit with The Anderson Tapes, starring Sean Connery in a crime caper, followed by The Offense, a film about police brutality. Lumet's next work, Serpico, about police corruption, marked the beginning of the most respected period of his career. Lumet described the film as "a portrait of a real rebel with a cause." In 1974 he made Murder on the Orient Express, based on the Agatha Christie mystery, for which Ingrid Bergman won an Academy award. In this period piece, Lumet noted, "The object was to thrust the audience into a world it never knew - to create a feeling of how glamorous things used to be.… Richness was the order of the day. … Nodetail was spared in creating a glamorous look."
Dog Day Afternoon, which received Academy Award nominations for best picture and best director, is a dark comedy about a bank robbery. The film, made in 1975, was based on actual events involving a bisexual man who wanted to rob a bank to finance his male lover's sex-change operation. Film critic Pauline Kael called the film "one of the best 'New York' movies ever made." Regarding Dog Day Afternoon, Lumet explained that because the material was so shocking, he felt his first obligation was to indicate to the audience that these events really happened. To do so, Lumet shot the entire beginning section with a hidden camera, filming ordinary people on the streets of New York.
In 1976 Lumet made Network, a satire about television. The film received ten Academy Award nominations and won four, including best actor, best actress, best original screenplay, and best supporting actress. Lumet also walked away with a Golden Globe and two Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards for Network. In a 1995 interview with Rick Schultz, the director asserted that television has anesthetized the American consciousness and blurred the line between reality and fiction.
In 1981 Lumet won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for best director for Prince of the City, a three-hour film about police corruption. He also receive an Oscar nomination for the screenplay, which he co-wrote. The theme of this work, Lumet noted in his book, is that "When we try to control everything, everything winds up controlling us. Nothing is what it seems." Lumet's The Verdict, a courtroom drama starring Paul Newman, was nominated for best picture and best director in 1982. The 1980s also saw release of Lumet's Deathtrap, Daniel, Garbo Talks, Power, The Morning After, Running on Empty, and Family Business. Running on Empty, about a family on the run from the FBI, won awards for two actors, and the screenplay won a Golden Globe.
In the 1990s Lumet directed Q&A, A Stranger among Us, Guilty as Sin, Night Falls on Manhattan, Critical Care, and Gloria. In 2000 Lumet directed The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenmann, the story of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jewish woman who attempts to use her Nordic looks to escape the concentration camps during World War II. Reflecting on the director's body of work as a whole, film critic Leonard Maltin noted that "Lumet's films are generally intelligent and marked by a clean, unobtrusive directing style, but his signature is the caliber of the performance he elicits from his actors who speak of him - and his theater-based rehearsal process - in the most glowing terms."
A Return to Television
For the 2000-2001 television season, the A&E Network featured 100 Centre Street, a series created by Lumet, who also directed and served as executive producer as well as writing several episodes. The series concerns prosecutors, defense attorneys, and accused criminals as their lives unfold in the night court of the city of New York. The show broke new ground in high-definition video as one of the first major TV series to use Sony's 24P technology.
A Messy Personal Life
Lumet has been married four times. His first marriage, to Rita Gam, a television actress, ended in divorce. His second wife was Gloria Vanderbilt, the heiress who made a name for herself as a very successful designer. Married on August 27, 1956, the couple remained together for seven years. When Vanderbilt ended the union, Lumet attempted suicide by taking an overdose of pills. He telephoned Gail Jones, the daughter of singer Lena Horne, to tell her what he had done, and she called the police. Lumet and Jones, a journalist and author, were married from 1963 until 1978 and have two daughters, Amy and Jenny, both actors. After his third marriage ended in divorce, Lumet married Mary Gimbel in 1980.
Aram Saroyan, in Trio: Oona Chaplin, Carol Matthau, Gloria Vanderbilt. Portraits of an Intimate Friendship, described Lumet's personality as crisp and kinetic. "He really seemed to be, quite naturally, the Hollywood idea of the 'director'," noted Saroyan, " - always hugging everybody and calling them 'baby' and 'sweetheart.' And yet there was something genuinely sweet and generous in the way he did it."
Books
Cunningham, Frank R., Sidney Lumet: Film and Literary Vision, University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
Lumet, Sidney, Making Movies, Knopf, 1995.
Maltin, Leonard, Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia, Signet, 1994.
Mast, Gerald, and Bruce F. Kawin, A Short History of the Movies, Allyn & Bacon, 2000.
Matthau, Carol, Among the Porcupines: A Memoir, Turtle Bay Books, 1992.
Saroyan, Aram, Trio: Oona Chaplin, Carol Matthau, Gloria Vanderbilt. Portraits of an Intimate Friendship, Linden Press, 1985.
Periodicals
People Weekly, June 10, 1985.
Online
Mr. Showbiz,http://www.mrshowbiz.go.com/ (October 25, 2001).
| Director: Sidney Lumet |
- Born: Jun 25, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Occupation: Director, Writer, Actor
- Active: '60s-2000s
- Major Genres: Drama, Comedy Drama
- Career Highlights: Serpico, The Pawnbroker, Prince of the City
- First Major Screen Credit: One Third of a Nation (1939)
Biography
American director Sidney Lumet originally planned to follow in the footsteps of his father, Yiddish Art Theatre actor Baruch Lumet. On-stage from the age of five, the younger Lumet studied at New York's Professional Children's School and acted in numerous Broadway productions, most notably Dead End. With several other New York-based actors, Lumet was featured in the agitprop film drama One Third of a Nation (1939); he played Sylvia Sidney's crippled kid brother, sparking the film's climax by setting fire to a disease-ridden tenement house and perishing in the conflagration.After wartime service, Lumet decided he'd had enough of acting and started to focus on the production end of the business. Working his way up the summer stock ladder, Lumet began directing for live television in 1950, working on such distinguished series as Omnibus and Studio One, and filmed anthologies like Alcoa-Goodyear Theatre. He directed his first film, Twelve Angry Men (1957), at the request of producer/star Henry Fonda; the director later confessed that it was a grueling learning experience for both himself and novice producer Fonda, though he took pride in finishing the film in 19 days and under budget. For his efforts, he garnered a Best Director Oscar nomination. Lumet directed a few more films, but drew more satisfaction out of stage and TV work. In 1960, he gained notoriety for directing The Sacco-Vanzetti Story on NBC; the drama drew flack from the state of Massachusetts (where Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were tried and executed) because it was thought to postulate that the condemned murderers were, in fact, wholly innocent. But the brouhaha actually did Lumet more good than harm, sending several prestigious film assignments his way, including his 1962 artistic triumph Long Day's Journey Into Night.
Proponents of the "auteur" theory, who insist that a director should leave his personal signature on each film, have long been confounded by Lumet, who has refused to do anything twice in his movie work. After directing the Cold War suspense dramaFail-Safe (1964) and the tense war-guilt character study The Pawnbroker (1965), he went on to explore Jewish middle-aged angst in Bye Bye Braverman (1969); tried his hand at a roller coaster police-thriller with Serpico (1973); made the shaggy-dog bank robbery account Dog Day Afternoon (1974); ventured into mystery with the slick, stylish Murder on the Orient Express (1974); won awards for his media satire Network (1976); explored the battle between the sexes in the hilarious Just Tell Me What You Want (1980); and looked at the grim arena of underworld crime in The Family Business (1989).
Lumet handled these diverse projects with considerable skill, managing to turn out a body of remarkably diverse work. In 1993, the director, as full of surprises as ever, delivered a nail-biting whodunit, Guilty As Sin. Plagued with numerous plot holes and illogical character behavior, it was not his best, but after a couple of years of inactivity, Lumet was back at work, producing and directing 1997's Critical Care, and writing and directing Night Falls on Manhattan the same year. The former, a hospital satire starring Albert Brooks, James Spader, and Helen Mirren, failed to make much of a critical or commercial impression, but the latter, a crime thriller featuring Andy Garcia, Richard Dreyfuss, Lena Olin, and Ian Holm, enjoyed some measure of critical acclaim. Lumet's next effort was a 1999 remake of John Cassavetes' 1980 film Gloria. Starring Sharon Stone in the title role that was originally played by Gena Rowlands, the film met an unfortunate critical and commercial fate, netting bad reviews and audience indifference. However, Lumet -- who had, by this point, been nominated for five Oscars (four for Best Director and one for Best Adapted Screenplay) over the course of his career -- managed to survive this relative failure with his reputation pretty much intact; in fact, many acknowledged that even a second-rate Lumet was better than the first-rate work of many other directors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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| Sidney Lumet | |
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 Lumet at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival |
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| Born | June 25, 1924 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Years active | 1939 - present |
| Spouse(s) | Rita Gam (1949-1954) Gloria Vanderbilt (1956-1963) Gail Jones (1963-1978) Mary Gimbel (1980-) |
Sidney Lumet (pronounced [luˈmɛt], loo-MET; born June 25, 1924) is an American film director, with over 50 films to his name, including 12 Angry Men (1957), Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976) and The Verdict (1982), all of which, except for Serpico (1973), earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Director.
According to The Encyclopedia of Hollywood, Lumet is one of the most prolific directors of the modern era making more than one movie per year on average since his directorial debut in 1957. He is especially noted for his ability to draw major actors to his projects. "Because of his visual economy, strong direction of actors, vigorous storytelling and use of the camera to accent themes," states Turner Classic Movies. "Lumet produced a body of work that could only be defined as extraordinary."[1]
One of his steady themes during his career has been the "fragility of justice and the police and their corruption," according to Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film. He can deliver "powerhouse performances from lead actors," and fine work from character actors and is today one of the foremost figures of New York moviemaking. His sensitivity to actors and to the rhythms of the city have made him "America’s longest-lived descendant of the 1950s Neorealist tradition and its urgent commitment to ethical responsibility."
Lumet began as an off-Broadway director, then became a highly efficient TV director. His first movie was typical of his best work: a well-acted, tightly written, deeply considered "problem picture," 12 Angry Men (1957). Since then, Lumet has divided his energies among other idealistic problem pictures along with literate adaptations of plays and novels, big stylish pictures, and New York-based black comedies. As a result of directing 12 Angry Men, he is also responsible for leading the first wave of directors who made a successful transition from TV to movies. For being one of the most reliable and dependable directors of the last half-century, in 2005 he received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement for his "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers, and the art of the motion picture."
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Early years
Lumet was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 25, 1924. He studied theater acting at the Professional Children's School of New York and Columbia University.
His parents were Baruch Lumet and Eugenia Wermus, both veteran players of the Yiddish stage. His father was an actor, director, producer and writer, while his mother was a dancer. His mother died when he was still a child. Lumet made his professional debut on radio at age four and stage debut at the Yiddish Art Theatre at five. As a child he also appeared in many Broadway plays, including Dead end and Kurt Weill's The Eternal Road. In 1935 at age 11, Lumet appeared in a Henry Lynn short film, Papirossen co-produced by radio star Herman Yablokoff. The film was shown in a theatrical play with the same title, based on a hit song, Papirosn. The play and short film appeared in the Bronx McKinley Square Theatre. [2] In 1939 he made his only feature-length film appearance, at age 15, in One Third of a Nation. [3][4] In 1939, World War II interrupted his early acting career, and he spent three years with the U.S. army.
After returning from World War II service (1942–46) as a radar repairman stationed in India and Burma, he became involved with the Actor's Studio, and then formed his own theater workshop. He organized an off-Broadway group and became its director, and continued directing in Summer stock theatre, while teaching acting at the High School of Professional Arts. [3]
Personal life
His first wife was actress Rita Gam (1949-54); his second, was socialite Gloria Vanderbilt (1956-63); his third, Gail Jones (1963-78), who was the daughter of singer-actress Lena Horne; and his fourth marriage was to Mary Gimbel (1980 - present). His marriage to Gail Jones produced two daughters, Amy, who was married briefly (1990-1993) to P.J. O'Rourke, and actress/screenwriter Jenny who had a leading role in his film Q & A. She also wrote the screenplay for the 2008 film Rachel Getting Married.[3][5]
Career in directing
Early career
Lumet began his career as a director with Off-Broadway productions and then evolved into a highly respected TV director. After gaining valuable experience working Off-Broadway and in summer stock, he began to direct in the new medium of television in 1950, after working as an assistant to friend and then-directory Yul Brynner. He soon developed a "lightning quick" method for shooting due to the high turnover required by television. As a result, while working for CBS he directed hundreds of episodes of "Danger" (1950-55), "I Remember Mama" (1948-1957), and "You Are There" (1953-57), a weekly series which co-starred Walter Cronkite in one of his earliest leading roles. He chose Cronkite for the role of anchorman "because the premise of the show was so silly, was so outrageous, that we needed somebody with the most American, homespun, warm ease about him," Lumet said.[6]
He also directed original plays for "Playhouse 90," "Kraft Television Theatre" and "Studio One," filming around 200 episodes, which established him as "one of the most prolific and respected directors in the business," according to TCM. His abilities to work quickly while shooting carried over to his film career.[1] Because the quality of many of the television dramas was so impressive, several of them were later adapted as motion pictures.
His first movie was typical of his best work: "a well-acted, tightly written, deeply considered 'problem picture,' 12 Angry Men (1957)."[7] Writes film historian Stephen Bowles, "Twelve Angry Men was an auspicious beginning for Lumet. It was a critical and commercial success and established Lumet as a director skilled at adapting theatrical properties to motion pictures. Fully half of Lumet's complement of films have originated in the theater.
As a result of directing Twelve Angry Men, "he led the first wave of directors who made a successful transition from TV to movies." [8] He then divided his energies among other idealistic problem pictures, adaptations of plays and novels, big stylish pictures, tense melodramas, and New York-based black comedies dealing with society and American culture. A controversial TV show he directed in 1960 gained him notoriety: The Sacco-Vanzetti Story on NBC; According to the NY Times, "the drama drew flack from the state of Massachusetts (where Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were tried and executed) because it was thought to postulate that the condemned murderers were, in fact, wholly innocent. But the brouhaha actually did Lumet more good than harm, sending several prestigious film assignments his way.[9]
He soon began by adapting classic plays for both film and television. In 1959, he directed Marlon Brando and Joanne Woodward in The Fugitive Kind, based on the Tennessee Williams play "Orpheus Descending." He later directed a live television version of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, which was followed by his 1962 film, A View From the Bridge, another psychological drama play written by Arthur Miller. This was followed by another Eugene O'Neill play turned to cinema, Long Day's Journey Into Night, in 1962, with Katharine Hepburn gaining an Oscar nomination for her role. It was also voted one of the year's "Ten Best Films" by the New York Times.
Directing style and subjects
Lumet believes that movies are an art, and this was where his interest in the medium and his ambitions for it began, and once stated that "The amount of attention paid to movies is directly related to pictures of quality."[10] Because he started his career as an actor, he has become known as an "actor's director," and he has worked with the best of them over the years, a roster probably unequaled by any other director."[11] According to film historians Gerald Mast and Bruce Kawin, Lumet’s "sensitivity to actors and to the rhythms of the city have made him America’s longest-lived descendant of the 1950s Neorealist tradition and its urgent commitment to ethical responsibility."[7] They cite his early film The Hill (1965) as "one of the most politically and morally radical films of the 1960s."
They add that beneath the social conflicts of Lumet’s films lies the "conviction that love and reason will eventually prevail in human affairs," and that "law and justice will eventually be served – or not.” [7] His debut film, Twelve Angry Men, was an acclaimed picture in its day: it was a model for liberal reason and fellowship in the Eisenhower era; or maybe it was an alarming example of how easily any jury could be swayed.” [12] The film and its director were nominated for Academy Awards. Lumet won the Director’s Guild Award and the film was widely praised by critics. [3]
The Encyclopedia of World Biography states that his films often feature actors who studied "Method acting", "characterized by an earthy, introspective style. A leading example of such "Method" actors would be Al Pacino, who, early in his career, studied under Method acting guru Lee Strasberg. Lumet also prefers the appearance of spontaneity in both his actors and settings, an "improvisational look achieved by shooting much of his work on location."[13]
Rehearsal and preparation
Lumet is a strong believer in rehearsal, and feels that if you rehearse correctly the actor won't lose spontaneity. According to acting author Ian Bernard, he feels that it gives actors the "entire arc of the role," which gives them the freedom to find that "magical accident."[14] Director Peter Bogdanovich asked him whether he rehearses extensively before shooting, and Lumet replied "I like to rehearse a minimum of two weeks before I shoot."[11]
He was able to prepare and execute a production in rapid order, allowing him to consistently stay within a modest budget. When filming Prince of the City, for example, although there were over 130 speaking roles and 135 different locations, he was able to coordinate the entire shoot in fifty-two days. As a result, write historians Charles Harpole and Thomas Schatz, performers were eager to work with him as they considered him to be an "outstanding director of actors." And they note that "whereas many directors disliked rehearsals or advising actors on how to build their character, Lumet excelled at both." [10] As a result, he was able to give his performers a cinematic showcase for their abilities and help them deepen their acting contribution.
Joanna Rapf, writing about the filming of The Verdict, states that Lumet gives a lot of personal attention to his actors, "listening to them, touching them." She describes how Lumet and star Paul Newman sat on a bench secluded from the main set, where Newman had taken his shoes off, in order to privately discuss an important scene about to be shot. . . . The actors walk through their scenes before the camera rolls. Lumet likes to shoot a scene in one take, two at the most. "I call him Speedy Gonzales, the only man I know who'll double-park in front of a whorehouse," kids Paul Newman privately. "He's arrogant about not shooting more than he has to. He doesn't give himself any protection. I know I would," Newman adds.[11]
Actor Christopher Reeve, who co-starred in Deathtrap, said that Lumet "knows how to talk technical language—if you want to work that way—he knows how to talk Method, he knows how to improvise, and he does it all equally well."[11]
Character development
According to biographer Joanna Rapf, Lumet has always been an "independent director," and liked to make films about "men who summon courage to challenge the system, about the little guy against the system."[11]:Intro This also includes the women characters in his films, such as Garbo Talks. "Anne Bancroft embodies the kind of character to whom Lumet is attracted: a committed activist for all kinds of causes, who stands up for the rights of the oppressed, who is lively, outspoken, courageous, who refuses to conform for the sake of convenience, and whose understanding of life allows her to die with dignity.... Garbo Talks in many ways is a valentine to New York."[11]
Throughout a 2006 interview, he reiterated that "he is fascinated by the human cost involved in following passions and commitments, and the cost those passions and commitments inflict on others." This theme is at the "core" of most of his movies, notes Rapf, "including his stories of corruption in the New York police department and family dramas such as in Daniel.
Psychodramas
According to film historian Stephen Bowles, he has proven himself "most comfortable and effective as a director of serious psychodramas and was most vulnerable when attempting light entertainments. His Academy Award nominations, for example, have all been for character studies of men in crisis, from his first film, Twelve Angry Men, to The Verdict. Lumet was, literally, a child of the drama." He notes that "nearly all the characters in Lumet's gallery are driven by obsessions or passions that range from the pursuit of justice, honesty, and truth to the clutches of jealousy, memory, or guilt. It is not so much the object of their fixations but the obsessive condition itself that intrigues Lumet."[15]
Therefore, Bowles adds, "Lumet's protagonists tend to be isolated, unexceptional men who oppose a group or institution. Whether the protagonist is a member of a jury or party to a bungled robbery, he follows his instincts and intuition in an effort to find solutions. Lumet's most important criterion is not whether the actions of these men are right or wrong but whether the actions are genuine. If these actions are justified by the individual's conscience, this gives his heroes uncommon strength and courage to endure the pressures, abuses, and injustices of others. Frank Serpico, for example, is the quintessential Lumet hero in his defiance of peer group authority and the assertion of his own code of moral values."[15] Lumet in his autobiography described the film Serpico as "a portrait of a real rebel with a cause."[16]
Issues of social justice
According to Turner Classic Movies, "it was the social realism which permeated his greatest work that truly defined Lumet — the themes of youthful idealism beaten down by corruption and the hopelessness of inept social institutions allowed him to produce several trenchant and potent films that no other director could have made."[1] Serpico (1973), was the first of four "seminal" films he made in the 1970s that marked him as "one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation." It was the story of power and betrayal in the New York City police force, and was coupled with the "idea that innocence is lost in the face of corruption." The movie became a blueprint that Lumet would use to portray the inner world of cops, lawyers and street criminals, with only an "idealistic lone wolf battling seemingly impossible odds."[1]
"As a child of the Depression," writes Joanna Rapf, "growing up poor in New York City with poverty and corruption all around him, Lumet became concerned with the importance of justice to a democracy. He says he likes questioning things, people, institutions, what is considered by society as 'right' and 'wrong.'" [11] He admits, however, that he does not believe that art itself has the power to change anything. "There is, as he says, a lot of 'shit' to deal with in the entertainment industry, but the secret of good work is to maintain your honesty and your passion."[11]
Film historian David Thomson writes "He has steady themes: the fragility of justice, and the police and their corruption.". He adds, "Lumet quickly became esteemed…[and he] got a habit for big issues – Fail-Safe, The Pawnbroker, The Hill, – and seemed torn between dullness and pathos. … Network …was the closest he had come to a successful comedy. He was that rarity of the 1970s, a director happy to serve his material—yet seemingly not touched or changed by it."[12]
Lumet, discussing one of his primary film subjects, police corruption, described his feelings for film magazine, Cinema Nation:
- "I have just finished a movie called Prince of the City. It’s a long, complex film and one of the most difficult and satisfying movies I’ve ever made. It’s about a cop informing on other cops. . . [It’s] not only about informing, however. It is also about cops and the complexity of their lives. I’ve known a lot of cops, most of whom join the force with a good deal of idealism. They wind up with the highest suicide and alcoholism rates of any profession." [16]
New York settings
Lumet always prefers to work in New York, notes Lumet biographer Joanna Rapf, "shunning the dominance of Hollywood. By refusing to "go Hollywood," he soon became strongly identified with New York and filmed the majority of his films there. Like Woody Allen, he defines himself as a New Yorker. "I always like being in Woody Allen's world," he said. He claims "the diversity of the City, its many ethnic neighborhoods, its art and its crime, its sophistication and its corruption, its beauty and its ugliness, all feed into what inspires him." [11] He feels that in order to create it's important to confront reality on a daily basis. For Lumet, "New York is filled with reality; Hollywood is a fantasyland."[11]
He used New York time and again as the backdrop—if not the symbol—of his "preoccupation with America’s decline," according to film historians Scott and Barbara Siegel.[8] In discussing the significance of urban settings to Lumet, Bowles notes, "Within this context, Lumet is consistently attracted to situations in which crime provides the occasion for a group of characters to come together. Typically these characters are caught in a vortex of events they can neither understand nor control but which they must work to resolve."[15]
In a 2007 interview with New York Magazine, he was asked, "Almost all of your films—from The Pawnbroker to your latest—have an intense level of that famous New York grit. Is being streetwise really such a difference between us and Hollywood?" Lumet replied: "In L.A., there’s no streets! No sense of a neighborhood! They talk about us not knowing who lives in the same apartment complex as us—bullshit! I know who lives in my building. In L.A., how much can you really find out about anybody else? ... Really, it’s just about human contact. It seems to me that our greatest problems today are coming out of the increasing isolation of people, everywhere."[17]
Directing techniques
Lumet has always preferred naturalism and/or realism, according to Joanna Rapf. He does not like the "decorator's look"; rarely does he want "the camera to call attention to itself; the editing must be unobtrusive." His cinematographer, Ron Fortunato, said "Sidney flips if he sees a look that's too artsy."[11]
Partly because he has been willing and able to take on so many significant social issues and problems, "he can deliver powerhouse performances from lead actors, and fine work from character actors," writes film historian Thomson. He is "one of the stalwart figures of New York moviemaking. He abides by good scripts, when he gets them."[12]
According to Katz's Film Encyclopedia, “Although critical evaluation of Lumet’s work wavered widely from film to film, on the whole the director’s body of work has been held in high esteem. Critical opinion has generally viewed him as a sensitive and intelligent director who possesses considerable good taste, the courage to experiment with a variety of techniques and styles, and an uncommon gift for handling actors." [3]
In a quote from his book, Lumet emphasized the logistics of directing:
- "Someone once asked me what making a movie was like. I said it was like making a mosaic. Each setup is like a tiny tile (a setup, the basic component of a film’s production, consists of one camera position and its associated lighting). You color it, shape it, polish it as best you can. You’ll do six or seven hundred of these, maybe a thousand. (There can easily be that many setups in a movie.) Then you literally paste them together and hope it’s what you set out to do." [18]
In 1970, Lumet said, “If you’re a director, then you’ve got to direct…. I don’t believe that you should sit back and wait until circumstances are perfect before you and it’s all gorgeous and marvelous…. I never did a picture because I was hungry…. Every picture I did was an active, believable, passionate wish. Every picture I did I wanted to do…. I’m having a good time.”
Lumet, in a statement posted on IMDB, said, “If I don't have a script I adore, I do one I like. If I don't have one I like, I do one that has an actor I like or that presents some technical challenge.”
Vision of future films
In the same interview with NY Magazine, when asked what he foresaw as the next wave of filmmaking, he responded, "Well, we were shooting out in Astoria, and one day I was watching all these kids standing outside a school near the studio. It was just marvelous: Indian girls in saris, kids from Pakistan, Korea, kids from all over. So I think you’ll see more directors from these communities, telling their stories. You know, I started out making films about Jews and Italians and Irish because I didn’t know anything else." [17]
Legacy
According to film historian Bowles, Lumet has succeeded in becoming a leading drama filmmaker partly because "his most important criterion [when directing] is not whether the actions of his protagonists are right or wrong, but whether their actions are genuine." And where those actions are "justified by the individual's conscience, this gives his heroes uncommon strength and courage to endure the pressures, abuses, and injustices of others." His films have thereby continually given us the "quintessential hero acting in defiance of peer group authority and asserting his own code of moral values."[15]
Lumet's published memoir about his life in film, Making Movies (1996), is "extremely lighthearted and infectious in its enthusiasm for the craft of moviemaking itself," writes Bowles, "and is in marked contrast to the tone and style of most of his films. Perhaps Lumet's signature as a director is his work with actors—and his exceptional ability to draw high-quality, sometimes extraordinary performances from even the most unexpected quarters"[15] Jake Coyle, Associated Press writer, agrees: "While Lumet has for years gone relatively underappreciated, actors have consistently turned in some of their most memorable performances under his stewardship. From Katharine Hepburn to Faye Dunaway, Henry Fonda to Paul Newman, Lumet was known as an actor's director." [19]
Academy of Motion Pictures President Frank Pierson said, "Lumet is one of the most important film directors in the history of American cinema, and his work has left an indelible mark on both audiences and the history of film itself." [20] And James Verniere, of the Boston Herald wrote, "At a time when the American film industry is intent on seeing how low it can go, Sidney Lumet remains a master of the morally complex American drama."[21]
Film author Joanna Rapf, completing her interviews with Lumet in 2006, wrote, "Still intensely energetic, youthful, and passionate about life, ... [he seeks out] 'real' people, and 'real' situations, and the stories he can tell about them, 'human, honest and occasionally illustrative of some major point about living."[11]
- Quotes by others
- "Would that there were more true heroes willing to stand up to the absurd received thinking in Hollywood regarding scripts, casting and storytelling." -- Craig Lucas (Screenwriter)
- "What amazes me about Lumet is his enduring intellectual vigor. While most of the other lions of the '70s were taking paychecks for commercial flotsam in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Lumet was still making movies with social ambition: Prince of the City, The Verdict, Running on Empty, Q&A, Night Falls on Manhattan... he never stopped looking for stories about flaws in the human condition. Few have mastered the medium as well as Lumet, and here’s the best part: he ain’t done yet." -- Jack Mathews (Film critic, New York Daily News)
- "Lumet has brought you so completely into the world and point-of-view of the main characters that you understand and accept it all. He's one of the few directors who can blur the line between the everyday insanity we encounter and the over-the-top possibilities of drama, showing that there's not always a difference. Gregg Goldstein (Journalist, The Hollywood Reporter)
- "Though he’s made films in Europe and Hollywood, Sidney Lumet is the heart and soul of New York City filmmaking. ... I greatly respect that he’s almost always made movies for audiences, not for the critics. Lou Lumenick (Chief film critic, New York Post)
- "...the thing that is the most special about Lumet is his taste. He finds the most extraordinary writing and then gets actors who will be challenged to do career-best work in it—really image-changing work from Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Treat Williams, Nick Nolte, Faye Dunaway, Bill Holden, Ned Beatty, Rod Steiger, Dustin Hoffman, Vin Diesel, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei and many others. And that doesn't touch the simply amazing performances and ensemble work in films of real substance that he has chosen to make." -- David Poland (Editor, Movie City News)
- "... I doubt that anyone else will soon supplant him. He is the master of cinematic pressure-cooking; in 12 Angry Men, Failsafe, The Hill, Murder on the Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Equus, and on and on, he takes his characters hostage, placing a group of particular people under duress in a confined space as the clock ticks—always with a surprisingly cathartic result. And the man is still working. Amazing! Lee, TheReeler - NY City Cinema
Filmography
Notes
- ^ a b c d "TCM Biography"
- ^ Bridge of Light (Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds), page 208, 209, J. Hoberman, Museum of Modern Art, Published by Shocken Books, 1991, YIVO translations
- ^ a b c d e Katz, Ephraim. The Film Encyclopedia (1998) Harper Collins, 856
- ^ Filmreference.com[1]Sidney Lumet Biography
- ^ Sidney Lumet biography on AMCTV.com. Accessed August 30, 2006.
- ^ "Walter Cronkite - In Memoriam 1916 - 2009" PBS, July 20, 2009
- ^ a b c Mast, Gerald, and Kawin, Bruce F. A Short History of the Movies (2006) Pearson Education, Inc. 538
- ^ a b Siegel, Scott and Barbara. The Encyclopedia of Hollywood (2004) Checkmark Books, 256
- ^ New York Times Movie Biographies [2]
- ^ a b Harpole, Charles, and Schatz, Thomas. History of the American Cinema: A New Pot of Gold, Simon and Schuster (2000)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rapf, Joanna E. Sidney Lumet: Interviews, Univ. Press of Mississippi (2006)
- ^ a b c Thomson, David. “A Biographical Dictionary of Film” (1995) Alfred A. Knopf, 459
- ^ "Sidney Lumet". Encyclopedia of World Biography, (2004) Thomson Gale. [3]
- ^ Bernard, Ian. Film and Television Acting: From Stage to Screen, Focal Press (1998)
- ^ a b c d e Bowles, Stephen E. International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, (2001) The Gale Group Inc.
- ^ a b Lumet, Sidney. Cinema Nation (2000) Avalon Publishing, pgs. 271 - 275
- ^ a b "Dog Day Afternoons: Sidney Lumet," New York Magazine, Sept. 24, 2007 [4]
- ^ Lumet, Sidney. “Making Movies” (1996) Vintage Books, 58
- ^ Coyle, Jack. AP Worldstream, February 28, 2005
- ^ Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [5]
- ^ Verniere, James. "Moral Complexity Remains Director Sidney Lumet's Speciality," The Boston Herald, May 16, 1997
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sidney Lumet |
- Sidney Lumet at the Internet Movie Database
- Sidney Lumet at the Internet Broadway Database
- Sidney Lumet at the Internet off-Broadway Database
- Archive of American Television, TV Legends interview, 1999 video, 6-parts, 3 hours
- Making of "Dog Day Afternoon" video, 10 min.
- TV interview about "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" video, 5 min.
- Lumet discussing replacement of film with digital production, 2007 video, 4 min.
- FilmForce profile
- A serious voice in American Cinema
- FilmStew interview
- On the digital revolution NYFF07
- Fresh Air interview from 2006 (audio)
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
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