Sidney Lumet
Sidney Arthur Lumet (/luːˈmɛt/ loo-MET;[1] June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. Lumet started his career in theatre before moving to film where he gained a reputation for making realistic and gritty New York dramas which focused on the working class, tackled social injustices, and often questioned authority.
Sidney Lumet
June 25, 1924
April 9, 2011 (aged 86)
- Film director
- screenwriter
- producer
1930–2007
2, including Jenny
- Baruch Lumet (father)
Jake Cannavale (grandson)
He was nominated five times for Academy Awards: four for Best Director for 12 Angry Men (1957), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), and The Verdict (1982) and one for Best Adapted Screenplay for Prince of the City (1981). Other films include A View from the Bridge (1962), Long Day's Journey into Night (1962), The Pawnbroker (1964), Fail Safe (1964), The Hill (1965), Serpico (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Equus (1977), The Wiz (1978), The Morning After (1986), Running on Empty (1988), and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007). He received the Academy Honorary Award in 2004.[2]
A member of the inaugural class at New York's Actors Studio,[3] Lumet started acting off-Broadway and made his Broadway acting debut in the 1935 play Dead End. He later went on to direct the Broadway plays Night of the Auk (1956), Caligula (1960), and Nowhere to Go But Up (1962). Lumet is also known for his work on television. He received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series nomination for NBC Sunday Showcase (1961). He also directed for Goodyear Television Playhouse, Kraft Television Theatre, and Playhouse 90.
Directing style and subjects[edit]
Realism and energetic style[edit]
Film critic Owen Gleiberman has observed that Lumet was a "hardboiled straight-shooter", who, because he was trained during the golden Age of television in the 1950s, became noted for his energetic style of directing. The words "Sidney Lumet" and "energy", he adds, became synonymous: "The energy was there in the quietest moments. It was an inner energy, a hum of existence that Lumet observed in people and brought out in them...[when he] went into the New York streets...he made them electric:[21]
Lumet has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the following films:
Lumet has also received the Berlin International Film Festival's Golden Bear for 12 Angry Men. He received four nominations for the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or for the films Long Day's Journey into Night (1962), The Hill (1965), The Appointment (1969), and A Stranger Among Us (1992). He also received a Venice Film Festival Golden Lion award nomination for Prince of the City (1981).