Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)

Sidney Lumet is a name that should be long remembered.  A film maker for half a century, Lumet directed everyone from Henry Fonda to Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Many of the screen’s most luminous stars did their best work under his instruction.  Katharine Hepburn never gave a finer dramatic performance than “Long Day’s Journey into Night”.  Rod Steiger’s  intensity was given fullest expression in “The Pawnbroker”.  Sean Connery was liberated from the yoke of Bond in Lumet’s “The Hill” and further expanded his range in “The Offence”.

Lumet excelled when in charge of ensemble casts.  Debuting with “12 Angry Men” in 1957, he demonstrated skill not only with leading man Fonda but a solid phalanx of supporting players.  From the first Lumet was sensitive to all acting styles, working with both established Hollywood veterans and emerging method performers like Brando and Steiger and, during his 1970s peak years, Al Pacino.  Lumet brought out Pacino’s quieter, more interesting side, extracting his most subtle performance as an incorruptible cop in “Serpico” and his most layered one as the homosexual bank robber in “Dog Day Afternoon”.

Amongst many good films and quite a few undeniable classics Lumet’s masterpiece is “Network”.  It’s true that Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay is a work of satirical genius yet Lumet interprets it to perfection, balancing the dark humour and potentially over-the-top dialogue with moments of human observation and warmth.  Most remember Peter Finch’s “I’m mad as hell” monologues but just as strong is the scene where William Holden leaves wife Beatrice Straight, or the caustic farewell delivered to his “television incarnate” mistress, Faye Dunaway.  No other screen satire is so grounded in believable, sympathetic characters.

Of course Lumet was much more than a superior director of actors.  Often contributing to screenplays, he was a complete film maker.  That his New York dramas are not as celebrated as Scorsese’s reflects the fact that he was a less personal one and less stylistically experimental and perhaps also his willingness to take on projects not entirely suited to his talents.  “The Wiz”, for example, an all black re-imagining of “The Wizard of Oz” with an overage Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the scarecrow, is at best a camp embarrassment.

It’s pleasing though that Lumet went out on a high note.  Awarded an honorary Oscar in 2005, his final two features, made when he was well over 80, were both critical successes.