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Sidney Lumet — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Early career

Lumet began his directorial career with Off-Broadway productions and evolved into a highly efficient television director. He began directing television in 1950 after working as an assistant to friend and then-director 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 (1950–1955), Mama (1949–1957) and You Are There (1953–1957), the latter a weekly series that featured Walter Cronkite in one of his early television appearances. Lumet 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", he said.

He also directed original plays for Playhouse 90, Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One, directing approximately 200 episodes, which established him as "one of the most prolific and respected directors in the business", according to Turner Classic Movies. His ability to work quickly while shooting carried over to his film career. Because the quality of many television dramas was so impressive, several of them were later adapted as motion pictures.

His first movie, 12 Angry Men (1957), a courtroom drama centered on a tense jury deliberation that was based on a CBS live play, was an auspicious beginning for Lumet. It was a critical success and established him as a director skilled at adapting properties from other mediums to motion pictures. Fully half of Lumet's complement of films originated in the theater.

Following his first film, Lumet divided his energies among political and social drama films, as well as adaptations of literary plays and novels, big stylish stories, New York-based black comedies and realistic crime dramas (including Serpico and Prince of the City). As a result of directing 12 Angry Men, he was also responsible for leading the first wave of directors who made a successful transition from TV to movies.

A controversial TV show that he directed in 1960 gained some notoriety: Sacco-Vanzetti Story on NBC. According to The New York Times, the drama drew flack from the state of Massachusetts (where Sacco and Vanzetti were tried and executed) because it was thought to postulate that the condemned murderers were, in fact, wholly innocent. However, the resulting controversy did Lumet more good than harm, sending several prestigious film assignments his way.

He began adapting classic plays for both film and television, directing Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward and Anna Magnani in the feature film The Fugitive Kind (1959), based on the Tennessee Williams play Orpheus Descending. He directed a live television version of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, which was followed by his film A View from the Bridge (1962), another psychological drama, from the play written by Arthur Miller. This was followed by another Eugene O'Neill play-turned-to-cinema, Long Day's Journey into Night (1962), with Katharine Hepburn earning an Oscar nomination for her performance as a drug-addicted housewife; the four principal actors swept the acting awards at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival.

Collaboration

"Lumet generally insisted on the collaborative nature of the film, sometimes ridiculing the dominance of the 'personal' director," wrote film historian Frank R. Cunningham. As a result, Lumet became renowned among both actors and cinematographers for his openness to sharing creative ideas with the writer, actors and other artists. Lumet "has no equal in the distinguished direction of superior actors", added Cunningham, with many coming from the theater. He was able to draw powerful performances from actors, such as Ralph Richardson, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Katharine Hepburn, James Mason, Sophia Loren, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Blythe Danner, Rod Steiger, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Newman, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Albert Finney, Simone Signoret and Anne Bancroft. "Give him a good actor, and he just might find the great actor lurking within," wrote film critic Mick LaSalle.

When necessary, Lumet chose untrained actors, but he stated that "over ninety percent of the time, I want the best tools I can get: actors, writers, lighting men, cameramen, propmen". Nonetheless, when he did use less experienced actors, he could still bring out superior and memorable acting performances. He did with Nick Nolte, Anthony Perkins, Armand Assante, Jane Fonda, Faye Dunaway, Timothy Hutton and Ali MacGraw, who referred to him as "every actor's dream". In Jane Fonda's opinion, "He was a master. Such control of his craft. He had strong, progressive values and never betrayed them."

Lumet believed that movies are an art, and "the amount of attention paid to movies is directly related to pictures of quality". Because he started his career as an actor, he became known as an "actor's director" and worked with the best of them over the years, a roster probably unequaled by any other director. Acting scholar Frank P. Tomasulo agreed and pointed out that many directors who are able to understand acting from an actor's perspective were all "great communicators".

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". They cited his film The Hill (1965) as "one of the most politically and morally radical films of the 1960s". They added 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". His debut film Twelve Angry Men was an acclaimed picture in its day, representing a model for liberal reason and fellowship during the 1950s. The film and Lumet were nominated for Academy Awards, and he was nominated for the Director's Guild Award.

The Encyclopedia of World Biography states that his films often featured actors who studied "Method acting", noted for portraying 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 preferred the appearance of spontaneity in both his actors and settings, which gave his films an improvisational look by shooting much of his work on location.

Rehearsal and preparation

Lumet was a strong believer in rehearsal and felt that if an actor rehearsed correctly, the actor would not lose spontaneity. According to critic Ian Bernard, Lumet felt that it gives actors the "entire arc of the role", which gives them the freedom to find that "magical accident". Director Peter Bogdanovich asked him whether he rehearsed extensively before shooting, and Lumet said that he liked to rehearse a minimum of two weeks before filming. During those weeks, recalls Faye Dunaway, who starred in Network (1976), he also blocked the scenes with his cameraman. As a result, she added that "not a minute is wasted while he's shooting, and that shows not only on the studio's budget, but it shows on the impetus of performance". She praised his style of directing in Network, in which she won her only Academy Award:

Sidney, let me say, is one of, if not, the most talented and professional men in the world...and acting in Network was one of the happiest experiences I have ever had...He's a really gifted man who contributed a good deal to my performance.

Partly because his actors were well rehearsed, he could execute a production in rapid order, which kept his productions within their modest budgets. When filming Prince of the City (1981), for example, although there were over 130 speaking roles and 135 different locations, he was able to coordinate the entire shoot in 52 days. As a result, wrote historians Charles Harpole and Thomas Schatz, performers were eager to work with him, for they considered him to be an "outstanding director of actors". The film's star Treat Williams said that Lumet was known for being "energetic":

He was just a ball of fire. He had passion for what he did and he "came to work" with all barrels burning. He's probably the most prepared director I've ever worked with emotionally. His films always came in under schedule and under budget. And everybody got home for dinner.

Harpole added that "whereas many directors disliked rehearsals or advising actors on how to build their character, Lumet excelled at both". He could thereby more easily give his performers a cinematic showcase for their abilities and help them deepen their acting contribution. Actor Christopher Reeve, who co-starred in Deathtrap (1982), also pointed out that Lumet knew 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".

Joanna Rapf, writing about the filming of The Verdict (1982), states that Lumet gave plenty of personal attention to his actors, whether listening to them or 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, to privately discuss an important scene about to be shot. Lumet's actors walked through their scenes before the camera rolled. This preparation was done because Lumet liked to shoot a scene in one take or two at the most. Newman liked to call him "Speedy Gonzales", adding that Lumet did not shoot more than he had to. "He doesn't give himself any protection. I know I would," Newman said.

Film critic Betsy Sharkey agreed, adding that "he was a maestro of one or two takes years before Clint Eastwood would turn it into a respected specialty". Sharkey recalls, "[Faye] Dunaway once told me that Lumet worked so fast it was as if he were on roller skates. A racing pulse generated by a big heart."

Reputation and legacy

According to film historian Stephen Bowles, Lumet 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".

According to The Encyclopedia of Hollywood, Lumet was one of the most prolific filmmakers of the modern era, directing, on average, more than one movie a year since his directorial debut in 1957. Turner Classic Movies notes his "strong direction of actors", "vigorous storytelling" and the "social realism" in his best work. Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert described him as "one of the finest craftsmen and warmest humanitarians among all film directors". Lumet was also known as an "actor's director", having worked with the best of them during his career, probably more than "any other director". Sean Connery, who acted in five of his films, considered him one of his favorite directors, and one who had that "vision thing".

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." Jake Coyle, a writer for the Associated Press, agreed: "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 is known as an actor's director," and to some, like Ali MacGraw, he was considered "every actor's dream".

In the belief that Lumet's "compelling stories and unforgettable performances were his strong suit", director and producer Steven Spielberg described Lumet as "one of the greatest directors in the long history of film". Al Pacino, on hearing of Lumet's death, stated that with his films, "He leaves a great legacy, but more than that, to the people close to him, he will remain the most civilized of humans and the kindest man I have ever known." Boston Herald writer James Verniere observed that "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". Following his death, fellow New York directors Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese both paid tribute to Lumet. Allen called him the "quintessential New York film-maker", while Scorsese said that "our vision of the city has been enhanced and deepened by classics like Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and, above all, the remarkable Prince of the City". Lumet also drew praise from New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who called him "one of the great chroniclers of our city".

He did not win an individual Academy Award, although he did receive an Academy Honorary Award in 2005, and 14 of his films were nominated for various Oscars, such as Network, which was nominated for 10, winning 4. In 2005, Lumet received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement for his "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers, and the art of the motion picture".

A few months after Lumet's death in April 2011, TV commentator Lawrence O'Donnell aired a tribute to Lumet, and a retrospective celebration of his work was held at New York's Lincoln Center, with the appearance of numerous speakers and film stars. In October 2011, the organization Human Rights First inaugurated its "Sidney Lumet Award for Integrity in Entertainment" for the TV show The Good Wife, along with giving awards to two Middle East activists who had worked for freedom and democracy. Lumet had worked with Human Rights First on a media project related to the depiction of torture and interrogation on television.