Sidney Lumet - Biography

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A product of both the stage and the early days of TV, consummate craftsman Sidney Lumet borrowed from each genre in developing his distinct filmmaking style. From the theater, he learned how to work with actors, earning a reputation as an actor's director and (to date) drawing 18 Oscar-nominated performances from his charges. His high regard for the script and insistence on a rehearsal period before shooting has enabled him to translate classic plays to the screen, including Tennessee Williams' "Orpheus Descending" (released as "The Fugitive Kind" 1960), Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge" (1961) and Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (1962). Television provided him his facility with the camera and a penchant for working quickly, the one habit his detractors decry most. Famous for bringing in his projects on or ahead of schedule (and under budget), Lumet has rarely shot more than four or five takes before moving on to the next setup, causing some to fault his approach as too complacent, even careless.

The son of Baruch Lumet and Eugenia Wermus, veterans of the Yiddish stage, Lumet made his professional debut on radio at age four and his stage debut at the Yiddish Art Theatre at five. For two years during the Depression (1931-32), he played the son in a Yiddish radio serial scripted and directed by his father called "The Rabbi From Brownsville", which also featured his mother as the leading lady and his father in two roles. Lumet first appeared on Broadway in "Dead End" (1935), written by family friend Sidney Kingsley who penned a part especially for him since he was too young to play one of the Dead End Kids. His first important role, Jesus Christ in Max Reinhardt's production of "The Eternal Road" (1937), attracted attention and a string of Broadway parts, including one in "One Third of a Nation" (1939), which became his only film credit as an actor when lensed later that year. Lumet played Jesus as a boy again in Maxwell Anderson's "Journey to Jerusalem" (1940), and his close identification with the character explains why years later he wanted to bring Nikos Kazantzakis' book "The Last Temptation of Christ" to the screen. Unable to secure financing, he dropped his option on it after three years, allowing Martin Scorsese to eventually film it in 1988.

After service in World War II, Lumet returned to the New York stage and, irritated by the pretensions of the Actors Studio, formed his own Off-Broadway acting group, which gave him his first experience directing. In 1950, Lumet's friend Yul Brynner, then a staff director with CBS-TV, invited him to join the network as an assistant director. After his promotion to staff director, he went on to helm about 150 episodes of the series "Danger" between 1951 and 1953 as well as episodes of "I Remember Mama" and "You Are There". In 1953, Lumet began directing original plays for "Playhouse 90", "Kraft Television Theatre" and "Studio One", filming about 200 during TV's "Golden Age" and establishing himself as one of the most prolific and respected directors in the business. He even found time to direct for the theater, staging productions of Shaw's "The Doctor's Dilemma" (1955) and Arch Oboler's "Night of the Auk" (1956). The success of the motion picture "Marty" (1955), originally written and made for TV, paved the way for Lumet's first feature, the small-scale work of social realism "12 Angry Men" (1957), which had already been filmed for television.

With his background, Lumet never envisioned shooting an entire picture in one room as a problem. In fact, he turned it into an advantage, emphasizing the jurors' sense of entrapment by using longer and longer lenses as the movie progressed, so that the ceiling became closer to their heads, the walls closer to their chairs. In addition, he shot the first third of the movie above eye level, the second third at eye level and the final third below eye level so that the ceiling appeared more and more, creating a sense of increasing claustrophobia that raised the tension in the film. Producer Henry Fonda's faith in neophyte Lumet had paid off. Made in 19 days for $343,000, "12 Angry Men" brought Lumet an Oscar nomination for Best Director. He had come to movies fully prepared technically for the task, yet it would take him many years to adjust in terms of scale, filling up a thirty-five foot screen as opposed to a seventeen inch piece of glass. This may explain why his early film successes were adapted stage plays, which he shot mostly in the comforting confines of the studio, and why he continued to do some of his best work for the small screen (i.e., his four hour version of Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh", starring Jason Robards).

Lumet's reputation was still far from secure when he achieved a technical triumph in the editing room with his adaptation of Lewis Wallant's novel "The Pawnbroker" (1965). Working with editor Ralph Rosenblum and employing a juxtaposition of images that became known as "subliminal" cutting, Lumet was able to suggest the awakening of concentration camp survivor Sol Nazerman, who is morally numbed by suffering and the guilt he feels as the only member of his family to escape the Holocaust. The reigning wisdom of the time was that the brain could not retain or comprehend an image that lasted less than three frames, one eighth of a second. As Lumet flashed to the horror of Auschwitz, he began with two-frame cuts, repeated as often as he felt necessary for the picture to became clear, and then lengthened the images to four frames, eight frames, sixteen frames, and so on in a mathematical progression until the scene played in its entirety. In this way, he cut back and forth from the subway car in which Nazerman was riding to the railway car of his subconscious mind that carried his family to the extermination camp. The gradual transition took a minute before the subway car WAS the railway car, leaving Nazerman no escape from his memories. Within a year of the film's release, it seemed all commercials were using the breakthrough technique, and "subliminal" cutting is still a common trick of the trade. Although some critics did not like "The Pawnbroker", Lumet earned the British Academy Award as Best Director.

After generating "The Hill" (1965), a powerful drama of wretched life in a British military prison that starred Sean Connery, Lumet entered a middling phase of his now prominent career. He showed signs of breaking out of his pattern of failure with "The Anderson Tapes" (1971), which reunited him with Connery, then promptly returned to mediocrity with "Child's Play" (1972) and "The Offense" (1973), failed adaptations of stage plays. Just when his career had reached an all-time nadir, Lumet resurrected himself with "Serpico" (1973), the first of four 70s hits that represent the zenith of his career. Sinking his teeth into this story of power and betrayal in the NYC police force, he developed an interest in how the flaws of a criminal justice system negatively impact on democracy. Having found a theme that resonated for him (i.e., loss of innocence in the face of corruption), he would return again and again to the world of cops, lawyers and hoods to explore it. Based on Peter Maas' best-selling biography, "Serpico" starred Al Pacino who dominated the film, vividly presenting his inner personal torment as the idealism of his rookie cop eroded in the face of a stifling, hypocritical bureaucracy. Lumet drew almost universal praise for adeptly combining gritty action and thought-provoking comment in what many consider his finest work.

After momentarily faltering with "Lovin' Molly" (1974), Lumet scored big with the star-studded "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974), the most ambitious British film in years and a thoroughly enjoyable box-office romp. Aided by Paul Dehn's script, Tony Walton's production design and costumes and Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography, Lumet, along with his above-title players, pulled the period film off to perfection. A number of critics preferred "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975) to "Serpico", finding it richer in characterization and its social implications. The original script by Frank Pierson, based on a true story of three young criminals' disastrous attempt to rob a Brooklyn bank one August afternoon in 1972, began as farce and ended in tragedy. Lumet, in order to let his audience know that this event really happened, used no artificial light, relying instead on natural fluorescence for interiors, and augmenting the light for certain dark scenes just enough to get an exposure. "Dog Day Afternoon" boasted outstanding performances by John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon and James Broderick, but Pacino, as the ringleader, stole the show. In back-to-back phone calls made to his gay lover and wife, shot consecutively without cutting away, he delivered perhaps the most remarkable film acting of his career.

The Lumet juggernaut rolled on with the brilliant satire on television "Network" (1976), his greatest commercial success. Scripted by Paddy Chayefsky, "Network" chronicled the story of fading anchorman Howard Beale's messianic rise in the ratings, denouncing the hypocrisies of his time, and his subsequent fall from grace when his public rantings put off the audience. Despite its popularity, some critics despised it for its crazy preposterousness. Years later, others would accuse it of pretentiousness, both views failing to recognize hyperbole as a necessary ingredient in the tale. While often preachy, hysterical, shrill and bizarre, "Network" also made a compelling statement from within the mad bombast. Outrageous as it all seemed on the surface, the story possessed more than a kernel of truth, and on certain levels was eerily plausible and predicted many of the coming changes in the industry. Fueled by strong performances from a stellar cast that featured William Holden, Ned Beatty, Peter Finch (in his last screen role), Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight, "Network" earned 10 Oscar nominations (including one for Lumet's direction) and went on to win four statutes for Finch, Dunaway, Straight and Chayefsky.

With his next film, the screen version of Peter Shaffer's play "Equus" (1977), Lumet's luck ran out. Although generally admired, particularly for Richard Burton's portrayal of the psychiatrist, it fell well below the standard Lumet had been setting. No one had a good word either for the universally loathed, ill-conceived "The Wiz" (1978), a bomb based on a hit Broadway musical that could have destroyed a lesser career. "Just Tell Me What You Want" (1980), though notable for a fine performance by Alan King, also failed to generate much enthusiasm.

Lumet was back in familiar territory with "Prince of the City" (1981), picking up his first writing credit for the script he penned with Jay Presson Allen. Another story of power and betrayal among NYC cops, this logical progression from "Serpico" told the true story of Bob Leuci, whose undercover work with the Knapp Commission led to 52 indictments and two suicides. Leuci feels he's in complete control and believes he can cooperate without involving his close friends, but once the wheels are in motion, his world comes crashing down around him. To emphasize the cop's increasing sense of alienation, Lumet once again divided his movie into thirds, keeping the background behind him in the first third extremely busy. As the movie develops, there are less and less people in the background until for the last third, there is no one. He is all alone, sleeping in the bed he made for himself. A rewarding experience for Lumet and considered by some a culmination of his work, its sheer ambition doomed it in many eyes. With a nearly three hour running time and a host of characters to keep straight, it made for tedious viewing for some while others applauded its detail.

"The Verdict" (1982), an excellent courtroom drama scripted by David Mamet and buoyed by one of Paul Newman's best screen performances, earned Lumet his fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Director. For this story of a man's redemption, the director wanted as "old" a look as possible, drawing inspiration from a book of Caravaggio's paintings. Polish cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak, studying the pictures, pinpointed what the director had in mind as chiaroscuro (a very strong light source, almost always from the side, and on the opposite side, no soft fill light, only shadows) and carried that out in the lighting of the movie. "Daniel" (1983), loosely based on the lives of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (fictionalized as the Isaacsons), followed the attempts of the Isaacson children to come to terms with their appalling family legacy. Though some critics hated Lumet's bleeding-heart presentation of the condemned couple, most agreed that, despite its flaws, "Daniel" was a provocative, extremely well-made film. After three sub-par films ("Garbo Talks" 1984, "Power" 1986 and "The Morning After" 1986), he returned to form with "Running on Empty" (1988), a quiet and believable tale of 60s radicals still on the run, featuring superb performances from Judd Hirsch, Christine Lahti and most notably River Phoenix.

Lumet returned to the NYC police milieu for "Q & A" (1980), picking up his first solo screenwriting credit adapting the Edward Torres novel. Unfortunately, the gritty, graphic, well-acted story bogged down as it approached its predictable conclusion. He inhabited similar terrain, though less successfully, with "A Stranger Among Us" (1992), which (mis)cast Melanie Griffith as a NYC cop who goes to live among Brooklyn's Hasidic community to uncover a murderer. The farfetched finale made it one of Lumet's least satisfying cop dramas, and it does not really belong alongside "Serpico" or "Prince of the City" as it did not deal with the larger issues of innocence lost and police corruption. He provided a better movie with "Night Falls on Manhattan" (1997), which seemed to pick up where "Prince of the City" left off, depicting the ethical compromises of middle-aged cops who are not inherently bad. Again solo scripted by Lumet, it depicted a compromise with evil at the end, leaving some people cold, but one wonders if it would have sizzled more with another actor instead of Andy Garcia in the lead role. He continued addressing ethical concerns, this time in the medical profession, with "Critical Care" (1997).

Sidney Lumet's virtues have far outweighed his vices in a protean feature directing career now in its fifth decade. For all the visual sloppiness and liberal moralizing, his strong direction of actors, vigorous storytelling and use of the camera to accent his themes have produced a body of work that can not be taken lightly. Refusing to "go Hollywood", he remained in NYC and filmed three out of every four pictures in Gotham, never duplicating locations. The amazing feel for New York that he has transmitted to the screen is certainly an abiding legacy. Perhaps it is hard to reconcile the Lumet of "Serpico" and "Network" with the man who helmed "The Wiz" and "Garbo Talks", but all directors have their flops. Comparing his movies to those of his contemporaries like John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn and Alan Pakula, one sees how well Lumet stacks up, and when mining the vein of social realism that was an early influence, Lumet has delivered some trenchant pictures no other director could have provided. Though he sometimes disappoints, he continues to entertain, so much so that when he has finally directed his last project, one wonders if anyone will be able to fill his very large shoes. Fortunately, he has preserved his impressions on filmmaking in a book "Making Movies" (1995).