Sidney Lumet

His last film. I rewatched it about a month ago and I cannot recommend it enough. It's been on my mind.

It's gloriously, relentlessly bleak and intense. You get the feeling that none of this should be happening and this isn't what the world should be like, even though it is. It's got this dark, somewhat classical score, making it stand out among movies of its time.

Performances are fantastic across the board, with PSH at the top. He's emotionally muted with a seeping tension that could unravel at any moment. The plot is straightforward, revolving around a heist, but the characters and their individual perspectives, and the faint picture you get of this family and its history, is what sells the movie.

It had an interesting look as well. The outdoor scenes in particular reminded me of the 70s, movies like Network and Dog Day Afternoon.

If you feel like diving into the darker side of the human experience watch this movie.

With the Sidney Lumet at 100 episode due to come out at the end of the month, I've been catching up on much of Lumet's filmography. The likes of Network, Dog Day Afternoon and 12 Angry Men are obviously incredible, but is there any of his lesser known films you would recommend watching in advance?

I just purchased and watched the Premium Collection copy of Deathrap on Blu Ray and was blown away, so if there was anything of a similar quality hiding away in his filmography let me know.

My favorite type of boxset is a "director's collection" set. There's nothing more that I love than seeing a director's work collected, and then working my way through them all and comparing and contrasting the films, seeing what stays consistent and what changes. In that spirit, I went off and made my own "wish list" boxset of one of my favorite directors ever, Sidney Lumet. Inspired by the Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection which is comprised of 15 movies, that was the number I decided to limit myself to. I could've slimmed it down even more to 12, but with a feature film career that lasted exactly 50 years (1957-2007) and had 53 feature films (not counting shorts or docs), 15 seemed like a good number. And if the name of the game is "Essential" Lumet, then the movies have to be important, revelatory, interesting, and vital to understanding one of the greatest american directors to ever do it. With that in mind, I picked these 15 titles:

1. 12 Angry Men. His debut film speaks for itself.

2. Fail-Safe. Something of a companion piece not just to Strangelove, but to his debut film as well.

3. The Hill. His first and perhaps finest collaboration with Sean Connery, and an atypical war/prison movie.

4. The Pawnbroker. One of the first movies to deal with the Holocaust, to show a gay character, to show nudity, and helped propelled the career of Rod Steiger.

5. Long Day's Journey Into Night. The movie that Lumet considered his finest, and the pinnacle of his many stage play adaptations.

6. Murder on the Orient Express. A light and fluffy whodunnit that was his most mainstream movie, while informing the more blithe approach he would take in future endeavors.

7. Serpico. One of the most influential cop movies ever made, and his first collaboration with Al Pacino.

8. Dog Day Afternoon. Speaks for itself

9. Network. Also speaks for itself

10. Prince of the City. One of the most operatic Lumet films, one of only 4 times he was also the screenwriter, and a sort of companion and response to Serpico.

11. The Verdict. The last Lumet movie that was BOTH a major critical and commercial success, which saw him teamed him with Paul Newman for the first and last time.

12. Daniel. Despite it's critical and commercial failure, Lumet considers it one of his best pictures, and looking into his personal life reveals Daniel to be perhaps his most intimate picture.

13. Running On Empty. Another personal picture that brought an oscar nod to rising star River Phoenix. (Akira Kurosawa, a mutual admirer of Lumet, ranked this among his favorite movies.)

14. Q&A. One movie from the 90's belongs on here, and this Lumet-written story, according to his book Making Movies, "involved every particle of his being."

15. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Released exactly 50 years after his first movie, Lumet's swan song is proof that in any time period, with any technology, working with any kind of actor(s), his methods are unmatched.

Even with 15 movies, I still feel that there's more to be said. How could I leave out Fugitive Kind, which is his only collaboration with Marlon Brando? Was The Offence a better choice to showcase Connery's talent? Are there too many cop pictures in this list? When I first started this list I limited it to 12, and to that end Serpico and Q&A were both absent, since I felt that Dog Day Afternoon and Prince of the City covered similar enough ground. I also thought about including Strip Search and Find Me Guilty, the former to see Lumet's foray into 21st century issues, and the latter for the sheer novelty of seeing Vin Diesel in a non-blockbuster dramatic role (and Peter Dinklage pre-Game of Thrones fame). We could also include The Wiz just for kicks and giggles. Perhaps these and more could be included in a dream "Lumet's Cinema" type set comprised of 20, 30, or even 40 movies. But in terms of painting a portrait of Lumet and his career, I think these 15 are as good as any in doing the trick. All are some combination of being great movies, reveal something interesting about Lumet's character, remain interesting/important to film history as a whole, and show what mattered to him: stories about individuals trapped by the confines of their own flaws and/or society, struggling to break free. What do y'all think? What comprise the "essential" Lumet movies to you?

This movie seems to get lost in the shuffle, which is unfortunate but makes sense considering Lumet’s amazing filmography. He co-write the screenplay and assembled an impressive cast, led by Andy Garcia and Ian Holm (Richard Dreyfuss and James Gandolfini co-star). Part courtroom thriller, part mystery, part character study, the film moves along at a steady pace and (unsurprisingly) features stellar acting all around.

When Lumet is good there aren’t many better. The Verdict. Network. Serpico. Dog Day Afternoon. Q & A. The Hill. The Offence. 12 Angry Men. The Pawnbroker is probably my favorite.

He has so many. Surprising there’s only 3 in the collection.

What are his best that aren’t as well known?

Sidney Lumet was a lot of things. An actor's director. An efficient workhorse. Socially and politically minded. One of the best to ever do it. But he wasn't a provocateur. Despite the often incendiary subject matter he undertook, whether it was the trauma of the holocaust (The Pawnbroker) the marginalization of the LGBTQ+ community (Dog Day Afternoon) or the corruption of police (take your pick), Lumet did not believe in making shocking material for its own sake. Rather, shocking events or subject matter should serve the purposes of the plot, reveal character, make a comment on an idea, or all three at once. He reminisced about how one of the live tv shows he worked on shocked audiences because of a single slap, whereas other tv shows were regularly showing more violent actions more often. The difference, he said, is that he made the single slap mean something, and didn't desensitize his audience.

I say all of this because in his 50 year long career covering all manner of subjects, the most daring story he ever undertook, and by extension the most stylistic film he ever made, was that of Equus, an adaptation of the Peter Schaffer play of the same name. It's a disquieting tale of a boy who blinded 6 horses with a spike, and of the psychiatrist assigned to understand why. That's the simple question that is the main driver of the film throughout its 2 hour and 17 minute runtime, and through it, the film raises just as many questions as it answers. We find out the boy has an unhealthy obsession with horses, quite literally replacing Jesus with the horses and worshipping them. Things... happen, and we're left wondering; if this boy loves these horses so much, why did he so horrifically mutilate them?

Needless to say that the subject matter is frequently disturbing, with maximalist showcases of love towards animals and a brutal blinding scene that is every bit as horrifying as something like the chestburster scene from Alien, see Lumet's previous comment on his approach to violence. But it's not merely in WHAT it shows, but HOW it shows it. Lumet steps outside his naturalistic wheel house to make a movie that deals more in feverish dream/nightmare logic, with unnatural lighting that noticeably shifts in the middle of scenes, and cuts back and forth from the present, real world conversation of our two main characters, to the past, tangled memories of the patient's psyche. Rodney Bennet's score is not just the most that Lumet used in any of his movies, but it's so striking and well made that it holds up as it's own piece of music. It all comes together to create the greatest and most affecting of Lumet's "psychodramas", films that visually portray the psychology of it's characters.

It's not just Lumet's filmmaking that carries the movie, but its actors as well. Richard Burton gives the last great performance of his career, making it so that the pages of dialogue he speaks remain entrancing without being tiring. Peter Firth, by contrast, says less but is physically pushed even more, taking wild risks that border on overacting, but are supported by the circumstances he finds himself in. The two make for a fascinating trio as we get lost in their reminiscing and their baggage. The words they speak were adapted by the play from Peter Schaffer himself, who lets the actors have their day without making the film overwrought.

The vast majority of the film's criticism comes from those who have seen the source play, which is famously Brechtian in scope, that is to say, minimalist and unreal. There are no real horses in the play (obviously), but heavily built men in tribal masks, and the blinding of the horses is not literal as in the movie, but done in pantomime. Many critics protest that the "realism" of the film version intrudes on the quiet genius of the play. I have never seen the play so I can't comment on these changes, but I maintain that A. the realism does not detract from the story, it enhances it, and B. the film remains stylistic and unnatural in the scenes that matter, namely in the patient's flashbacks.

At the same time, even Lumet said that making the movie was a mistake, not because he was dissatisfied with the final product, but because of his own personal view of movies. He believed that the psychology of the characters should be subtly expressed through their actions and through the filmmaking, instead of being simply talked about. Because of the nature of the story and because of Lumet's own evolving method of filmmaking, he didn't look back too fondly on Equus. Truth be told, he seems to imply that much of his early work, from 12 Angry Men to Fail-Safe to The Pawnbroker, is too obvious in its approach, seeking too easy a catharsis. It's a topic for it's own post, but regardless, I maintain that all of those films remain fine pieces of work, and that what he sometimes sees as weakness are in fact strengths.

All in all, Equus is no slouch when paired against many other movies of it's era, Lumet or otherwise. It's proof that his method knows no boundaries, no subject matter was too difficult, and there was no style he was unable to adapt to in service of his story. In a filmography chock full of underseen gems, Equus may just take the cake, and stands as one of his crowning achievements.

I recently watched this movie again. I first saw in the 80s when I was a young idealistic leftie, watched it again in the late 90s and this time around.

The movie is based on a 1972 real life bank robbery with hostage taking that turned bad, especially for the robbers. I’ve always rated it very highly as time goes by, for different reasons. As we are in the middle of this cold and wet winter and keep hearing about heat waves in the northern hemisphere the Dog Days keep popping up into my mind. Time for a rewatch.

The Dog Days are a few weeks in July and August when the ancients noted that the summer heat becomes very unpleasant, and can affect people’s behaviour, making them either sluggish or irritable, to the point of triggering violent episodes attributed to heat madness. The expression comes from the fact that during that time the Sirius (the Dog Star) becomes visible just before sunrise in the east. It is the hottest part of summer, heat waves and wildfires are common and were recognised by all peoples of Europe, the Mediterranean and Near East civilisations like ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans but also in northern Europe. This is why the expression also exists in English, or French (la canicule). There’s even a French crime movie called Canicule - a twisted thriller with Lee Marvin possibley an inspiration for the Coen brothers Fargo universe - which again uses this trope of the unbearable heat’s connection with extreme violence.

When I hear all the screeching about heat waves, I am always reminded of the Dog Days, how everyone used to know about them in Europe and it was an accepted part of the climate. People just resigned themselves to suffer through these sultry weeks.

The movie tells the story of three men who attempt to rob a bank in Brooklyn on a hot summer afternoon. One loses his nerve very quickly and leaves the other two floundering; the bank doesn’t hold as much cash as they expected, and the cops turn up too quickly, so the panicked robbers take all the employees hostage. During intense negotiations it emerges that the leader wanted money to pay for his wife’s sex change surgery. He is gay and his “wife” Leon, - played by Chris Sarandon, better known for his portrayal of Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride - has attempted suicide.

As the stand off drags on, a large crowd surrounds the bank. The robbers have treated the hostages relatively well while the crowd becomes rowdier, more and more supportive of them, and hostile to the negotiating team and the FBI. The real events took place in 1972 in Brooklyn, a year after the Attica prison riots in which 43 people died including 10 hostages who were shot by the authorities during the retaking of the prison by State Troopers and soldiers.

The entire cast’s acting is faultless, it’s Al Pacino’s best performance. John Cazale is perfect as his shy but threatening associate. The movie feels real and raw, as if we were there.

This film is nearly 50 years old and seems more modern than ever now. It includes themes that are more relevant today than they have been in a long time. Heat waves, sexuality/gender, crime, the public taking sides with the criminals, police over reacting. I think the seventies in general, and this movie in particular marked a turning point in society, when hostility to authority and societal norms became mainstream. For better and for worse. If you have teens or young adults in your family, I think it would be great to watch or rewatch it with them.