Sidney Lumet was always at his best when examining fleshy, realistic characters placed under extraordinary duress
SIDNEY LUMET, the American film director, who has died at the age of 86, may not have had a recognisable visual style – there is no such thing as a “Lumet camera move” – but he did exhibit a taste for certain recurring themes.
Films such as 12 Angry Men(1957), Prince of the City(1981) and The Verdict(1981) demonstrated his interest in justice (a hangover from growing up during the Great Depression, perhaps). Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon(1975) and The Pawnbroker(1965) showed his enthusiasm for investigating New York City's shadier corners. Yet his resume remains extraordinarily varied. Many film fans will need to be reminded that Lumet, that hard-boiled director of method actors, was also behind the camera for Murder on the Orient Express(1974), a glossy Agatha Christie adaptation; The Group(1966), a cinematic take on Mary McCarthy's great feminist novel; and a fitful version of the rock musical The Wiz(1978).
Perhaps the thing that really set Lumet aside was his longevity and consistency. As recently as 2007, he directed Philip Seymour Hoffman in a successful crime picture entitled Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. There's more. Mention should be made of Network(1976), The Hill(1965) and Fail-Safe(1964). Few other film-makers – Alfred Hitchcock is one – delivered so many good movies over such a long period.
Lumet, the son of two Yiddish actors, was born in Philadelphia. He made his stage debut at just five years old and went on to play a handful of juvenile roles before serving in the second World War as a radio operator. On his return, he became associated with the Actor’s Studio in New York City, the school that was forwarding the new method style, and went on to form his own theatre workshop. A period directing in the challenging new medium of television followed.
12 Angry Menwas his first feature and remains among his most admired pictures. Like much of Lumet's work, it was based on a play and, almost entirely set in one sweaty jury room, wears those theatrical origins conspicuously. But the piece, a study of the deliberations in a murder trial – starring Henry Fonda as the voice of reason – proved both thought-provoking and relentlessly tense.
From that point on, Lumet was known as an actor's director. There is scarcely a performer of note who has not distinguished himself or herself in a Lumet film. Rod Steiger delivered a career-best turn as a Holocaust survivor in The Pawnbroker.Al Pacino, holding up a bank to secure funds for his male lover's sex change, revealed a taste for black comedy in Dog Day Afternoon. Many film directors, striving for spontaneity, have little to do with rehearsal. But Lumet liked to drill his actors for at least two weeks before permitting the cameras to roll.
“Someone once asked me what making a movie was like,” he wrote. “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 colour 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.”
It is tempting to separate the "real Lumet films" from his less characteristic, glossier productions. Enjoyable as are such entertainments as Murder on the Orient Express,Lumet was always at his best when examining fleshy, realistic characters placed under extraordinary duress.
Not all were hoodlums or policemen. Network,based on a coruscating script by Paddy Chayefsky, offered early pointers towards the coming trivialisation and decadence of television news. The Deadly Affair(1966) remains one of the best – and most overlooked – adaptations of a John Le Carré espionage novel.
Though hardly a habitue of the gossip columns, Lumet did manage to marry interestingly. Among his four wives were Gail Jones, daughter of Lena Horne; and Gloria Vanderbilt, the starry heiress and socialite. His marriage to Gail Jones produced two daughters. Jenny Lumet recently followed in her father's footsteps by writing the script for Jonathan Demme's acclaimed Rachel Getting Married.
Not for the first time, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences failed, despite five nominations in Lumet's case, to provide one of its best directors with a competitive Oscar (though an honorary award was granted in 2005). Lumet has, however, remained popular with younger audiences. 12 Angry Menretains a regular place in the top 10 of films voted for by visitors to the Internet Movie Database. At the time of writing, placed at No 7, it sits proudly between Inceptionand Schindler's List.
