I just logged on and was shocked and saddened to see the great Sidney Lumet has passed on. What a collection of masterpieces this man created. From "12 Angry Men" to his last "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead."
There are too many moments to choose from but if there is one that will live for the ages, it's this one. The slow, one-camera zoom into Finch as his anger escalates and stays low when he suddenly rises and becomes both prophet and madman is a hallmark of the genius of simplicity that Lumet was revered for:
Director Sidney Lumet, whose gritty portraits of New York City earned him four Oscar nominations for Best Director for films such as Dog Day Afternoon and Network, died Saturday of lymphoma at his home in Manhattan; he was 86. Synonymous with the New York filmmaking scene, Lumet prowled the streets of his adopted hometown in a wide variety of films, working in the nascent medium of television in the early 1950s before making his feature film directorial debut in 1957 with the cinematic adaptation of the jury room classic 12 Angry Men, starring Henry Fonda. That film earned Lumet his first Oscar nomination and started a prolific career that would take him through crime dramas, Broadway and literary adaptations, occasional Hollywood films, and lacerating satires.
There are too many moments to choose from but if there is one that will live for the ages, it's this one. The slow, one-camera zoom into Finch as his anger escalates and stays low when he suddenly rises and becomes both prophet and madman is a hallmark of the genius of simplicity that Lumet was revered for:
Director Sidney Lumet, whose gritty portraits of New York City earned him four Oscar nominations for Best Director for films such as Dog Day Afternoon and Network, died Saturday of lymphoma at his home in Manhattan; he was 86. Synonymous with the New York filmmaking scene, Lumet prowled the streets of his adopted hometown in a wide variety of films, working in the nascent medium of television in the early 1950s before making his feature film directorial debut in 1957 with the cinematic adaptation of the jury room classic 12 Angry Men, starring Henry Fonda. That film earned Lumet his first Oscar nomination and started a prolific career that would take him through crime dramas, Broadway and literary adaptations, occasional Hollywood films, and lacerating satires.
