Sidney Lumet: biography and work of the director

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

He is called the most prolific film director in the US in the second half of the twentieth century. As the best director, he was approved for the Oscar four times. What is known about Sidney Lumet?

Birth

Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) gave one of the main sculptors of American dreams of the second half of the 20th century - 1924-25-06 actors Baruch Lumet and Eugenia Gitl Vermus, Jews by origin, just a year before the birth of their son Sidney came to America from Poland.

Already at the age of four, Sidney delighted radio listeners with his voice. He was on the radio show Grandpa from Brownsville. As a teenager on Second Avenue, he played in the Jewish Art Theater. Performed in New York on Broadway.

His mother died early.

Short biography

Sidney's acquaintance with the film set occurred in 1935 on the set of the short film Cigarettes. He is only 11 years old at the moment. He met feature films at the age of 15, when he and his father starred in the film A Third of the Nation.

Studied at Columbia University (dramatic literature). The Second World War has come and Sidney Lumet is sent to serve in the army. ATHe repairs radars in Burma and India.

In 1946, upon returning home, he created an acting troupe off-Broadway and became its director. Directing career begins on television. His performances and films appear on the blue screens. He gained invaluable experience working on films with Frankenheim.

Sidney Lumet made his directorial debut in 1957 with Twelve Angry Men. He was flawless in terms of bloopers. The time he worked at CBS is called the "golden era".

Sidney Lumet's films don't put him forward as a director. He is more concerned with the stylistic authenticity of every detail, atmosphere, without the slightest deviation from the text. In his statements, there was often a statement that theatrical dramaturgy, good literature is what cinema needs. He believed in the power of the word on the screen.

He did not leave the directing field until his death in 2011 (he lived 86 years).

Beloved New York

Lumet made most of his films in New York. He was sure that the Hollywood companies would not give him enough creative freedom in which he could fully realize his ideas. In The Big Apple, Sidney was able to recruit real actors, even for extras, which reflected his scrupulousness in relation to details. The very plots of the films directed by Sidney Lumet often unfold within the city and with a small number of characters.

Awards

During his long career, he was nominated as the bestdirector for an Oscar for Dog Afternoon (1975). The film is based on real events, starring Al Pacino (about the Brooklyn bank robbery). Three losers try to rob a bank on a hot day, but they fail to do it quickly, and they take hostages. As a result of long negotiations and concessions from both sides - the police and the robbers - they go with the hostages to the airport, where the plane is waiting for them. At the end of the film, one of the robbers dies and the others are arrested. The drama is also in the reasons why they decided to rob.

In 1976, the Golden Globe was brought to him in several categories by the picture Network. In addition, Network became the first film to win three Oscars at once for Best Actor. Moreover, one of the roles was the shortest in time (five minutes, forty seconds). In 2005, Sidney Lumet receives an "Honorary Oscar".

He won the Directors Guild of America award seven times. The first of them - in 1957 for the painting "12 Angry Men", which is considered one of the greatest legal paintings in history. The film tells the story of twelve jurors who must vote for the guilt of a teenager of Italian origin from the slums in the murder of his father. By law, the decision must be unanimous. But one of them, the eighth, votes against, despite the fact that everyone is hurrying home about their business, they are nervous. He smashes the circumstantial evidence of the prosecution to smithereens. Gradually, the majority of the jury goes over to his side, and as a result, the boy is found not guilty.

Shoot to the grave

Lumet has made more than fifty-three films, not counting those where he acted as a producer or screenwriter. In eleven of them he plays himself. One of his latest works is The Devil's Games, released in 2007, when he was already 83 years old. The film was shot in one of Sidney Lumet's favorite genres - a robbery film. The robbers are two brothers. The dream of a carefree life on the coast of Rio de Janeiro and hiding their expenses in the company of one brother, paying bills for alimony - the other, are pushing young people to commit a daring crime. One of them proposes to rob the parent's jewelry store, which is insured. They are joined by an experienced burglar. But their plans go to waste, and their mother dies through their fault. As a result of further misadventures, one of the brothers is killed by his father, having learned about their guilt.

Sidney Lumet's filmography is without a doubt worth seeing. Until his very last days, no longer physically capable of directing films, he continued to write scripts.