Goodnight Sidney

Sidney Lumet, one of the great directors in the history of American cinema, died this morning of lymphoma. He was 86.

What George Cukor was for actresses, Lumet was for actors, as this video proves. But pay careful attention to the issues addressed in these films — and others he directed like them, including Serpico, The Verdict and his final masterpiece, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Lumet was not afraid to make movies that dealt with prejudice, corruption and betrayal.

“While the goal of all movies is to entertain,” Lumet once wrote, “the kind of film in which I believe goes one step further. It compels the spectator to examine one facet or another of his own conscience. It stimulates thought and sets the mental juices flowing.”

Film historian Stephen Bowles wrote: “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.”

Lumet preferred to shoot his films in New York City and I’m convinced his shunning of Hollywood is the main reason he never received an Academy Award for any of his films, although he was nominated four times. In 2005, however, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Oscar for his “brilliant services to screenwriters, performers, and the art of the motion picture.” In a 2007 interview in New York magazine, Lumet said “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.”
 
Here’s my list of the 20-best Lumet-directed films:
1. Network (1976)
2. 12 Angry Men (1957)
3. Dog Day Afternoon (1976)
4. The Verdict (1982)
5. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)
6. The Pawnbroker (1965)
7. Fail-Safe (1964)
8. Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
9. The Hill (1965)
10. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962)
11. Serpico (1973)
12. Running on Empty (1988)
13. The Group (1966)
14. Prince of the City (1981)
15. Equus (1977)
16. Daniel (1983)
17. The Anderson Tapes (1971)
18. Q&A (1990)
19. The Morning After (1986)
20. Deathtrap (1982)