Sidney Lumet: 1924-2011

[blogslut]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/movies/sidney-lumet-director-of-american-classics-dies-at-86.html

Sidney Lumet, a director who preferred the streets of New York to the back lots of Hollywood and whose stories of conscience — “12 Angry Men,” “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Verdict,” “Network” — became modern American film classics, died Saturday morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 86.

His stepdaughter, Leslie Gimbel, said the cause was lymphoma.

“While the goal of all movies is to entertain,” Mr. 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.”

Social issues set his own mental juices flowing, and his best films not only probed the consequences of prejudice, corruption and betrayal but also celebrated individual acts of courage...

[yellerpup]

RIP, Sidney.

We will miss your creativity and conscience. :cry:

[whatchamacallit]

1. :(

RIP Sidney...

[hfojvt]

2. Dog Day Afternoon was a story of conscience?

I must have missed that somewhere. A hostage drama, but no John Q.

[Bjorn Against]

10. I would prefer forget about Dog Day Afternoon

I will remember Lumet for films like Network and Twelve Angry Men, that is what I am sure he would want to be remembered by. While I don't know that he ever said so publicly I would guess that he had regrets about Dog Day Afternoon as it is one of the most homophobic films I have ever seen, it was made before many people understood gay Americans and I think Lumet likely became more enlightened on that issue in later years. Despite that one stain in his film career however most of his movies were stories of conscience, he had a lot of good social commentary in most of his films. Actually even Dog Day Afternoon contained a lot of good commentary on the media, it was just diminished by the not so good commentary on gay culture.

[xchrom]

12. i agree with re: dog day but -- he was a great talent --

especially against the backdrop of times when he made network or twelve angry men.
there was a lot of boring stuff at that time.

bye mr lumet -- you will be missed.

[Bjorn Against]

14. I agree fully, despite Dog Day he is still one of my favorite directors

[TomClash]

17. All great directors made bad films

But Network, Serpico and 12 Angry Men were brilliant and there are other smaller films I liked a lot, Like A View From the Bridge and A Stranger Among US.

He was a real NY director.

[fishwax]

22. I doubt he regretted it, and I think there is much to admire in it

I'm not saying there aren't problems with the movie, but it was pretty unusual (groundbreaking even) in depicting a gay/bisexual character with nuance and depth and in creating a bisexual (anti-)hero that the audience is encouraged to identify with. (By the time the audience learns that Sonny has a male lover/wife and is robbing the bank to pay for his lover's sex-change operation, the film is half over and the audience has already been charmed by the man.)

Sometimes the film has been criticized for sensationalism, but Lumet worked to avoid that, refusing to film scenes that he knew the studio would exploit to make the film notorious for marketing purposes. Frank Pierson (who wrote the screenplay) said that the original script included a variety of sex-oriented jokes about the relationship between Sonny and his transsexual wife, as well as an onscreen kiss between the characters. Al Pacino talked him into removing the innuendo, believing that it would prevent the audience from identifying with the character and would ultimately establish their relationship as a subject of ridicule instead of treating it with respect. As a result, they cut out much of the crude humor and had Sonny say goodbye to his lover on the phone in an emotional conversation that, rather than being about sex, is about the emotional connection between these two men. (Sidney Lumet has said that the resulting phone call, which comes back to back with Sonny's phone call to his legal wife, is among the best/most moving things he's ever seen on screen.)

Probably the film's most memorable scene is when Sonny screams "Attica! Attica!" The crowd behind the police barricades is galvanized by the chant. It's a diverse crowd, including gay rights protesters, blue collar workers, African-Americans, and so on, but they are united in a sense of injustice, and I think the inclusion of the question of gay rights in that discussion of injustice was pretty unusual for a film in 1975.

Like I said, it isn't perfect, but at the time it was generally seen as a pretty groundbreaking film, I think. Also, I don't know whether it marked the first time a bisexual male character or a transsexual character earned an Academy Award nomination (both Pacino and Chris Sarandon, who played his lover, were nominated), but I'm sure there couldn't have been many prior to that.

[Logical]

3. Loved his films! n-t

[villager]

4. Ah, shit....

RIP, Sidney.

Time to re-watch "Prince of the City," perhaps...

[GigiMommy]

5. R.I.P. Mr. Lumet

Another Hollywood legend is gone.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

6. What a talent! Go gently.

[ReggieVeggie]

7. Fantastic director

one of the all time greats

RIP, Sidney

http://media.dvdtown.com/images/displaymedia.php?id=17587&sizew=500&cat=3&type=1&page=0

[Faygo Kid]

8. Superb talent. Just watched "The Verdict" again a couple weeks ago.

One of my favorites, but so many of his are in that category.

[Bjorn Against]

9. One of the greatest directors of all time

Anyone who has not seen Network needs to watch it, it is one of the best movies ever made and it is even more relevant today than it was when it first came out more than three decades ago.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. A great director of great movies

He shall be missed.

[gateley]

13. He entertained and he contributed. He made a difference. RIP, Mr. Lumet, thank you. nt

[BeyondGeography]

15. A great American

RIP.

:patriot:

[EFerrari]

16. .

[WillyT]

18. Thank You Sidney, RIP...

:grouphug:

[fishwax]

19. sad to hear -- RIP n/t

[JackRiddler]

20. YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE!

Rest in Peace, Sidney Lumet.

Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Howard Beale: Why me?

Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

.

[dixiegrrrrl]

21. Frighteningly prescient, that was.

[Blue_Tires]

23. One of my favorites...

I've had fun introducing his movies to my friends who only know Al Pacino from The Godfather or Scarface...