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It was a working class outer-borough energy. Lumet's streets were just as mean as Scorsese's, but Lumet's seemed plain rather than poetic. He channeled that New York skeezy vitality with such natural force that it was easy to overlook what was truly involved in the achievement. He captured that New York vibe like no one else because he saw it, lived it, breathed it – but then he had to go out and stage it, or re-create it, almost as if he were staging a documentary, letting his actors square off like random predators, insisting on the most natural light possible, making offices look as ugly and bureaucratic as they were because he knew, beneath that, that they weren't just offices but lairs, and that there was a deeper intensity, almost a kind of beauty, to catching the coarseness of reality as it truly looked. [21]
"Lumet generally insisted on the collaborative nature of the film, sometimes ridiculing the dominance of the 'personal' director," wrote film historian Frank R. Cunningham. As a result, Lumet became renowned among both actors and cinematographers for his openness to sharing creative ideas with the writer, actors and other artists. [22] Lumet "has no equal in the distinguished direction of superior actors", added Cunningham, with many coming from the theater. He was able to draw powerful performances from actors, such as Ralph Richardson, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Katharine Hepburn, James Mason, Sophia Loren, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Blythe Danner, Rod Steiger, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Newman, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Albert Finney, Simone Signoret and Anne Bancroft. "Give him a good actor, and he just might find the great actor lurking within," wrote film critic Mick LaSalle. [23]
When necessary, Lumet chose untrained actors, but he stated that "over ninety percent of the time, I want the best tools I can get: actors, writers, lighting men, cameramen, propmen". [22] Nonetheless, when he did use less experienced actors, he could still bring out superior and memorable acting performances. He did with Nick Nolte, Anthony Perkins, Armand Assante, Jane Fonda, Faye Dunaway, Timothy Hutton and Ali MacGraw, who referred to him as "every actor's dream". [24] In Jane Fonda's opinion, "He was a master. Such control of his craft. He had strong, progressive values and never betrayed them." [25]
While the goal of all movies is to entertain, the kind of film in which I believe goes one step further. It compels the spectator to examine one facet or another of his own conscience. It stimulates thought and sets the mental juices flowing.
Lumet believed that movies are an art, and "the amount of attention paid to movies is directly related to pictures of quality". [27] Because he started his career as an actor, he became known as an "actor's director" and worked with the best of them over the years, a roster probably unequaled by any other director. [28] Acting scholar Frank P. Tomasulo agreed and pointed out that many directors who are able to understand acting from an actor's perspective were all "great communicators". [29]
According to film historians Gerald Mast and Bruce Kawin, Lumet's "sensitivity to actors and to the rhythms of the city have made him America's longest-lived descendant of the 1950s Neorealist tradition and its urgent commitment to ethical responsibility". [30] They cited his film The Hill (1965) as "one of the most politically and morally radical films of the 1960s". They added that beneath the social conflicts of Lumet's films lies the "conviction that love and reason will eventually prevail in human affairs", and that "law and justice will eventually be served – or not". [30] His debut film Twelve Angry Men was an acclaimed picture in its day, representing a model for liberal reason and fellowship during the 1950s. [31] The film and Lumet were nominated for Academy Awards, and he was nominated for the Director's Guild Award. [12]
The Encyclopedia of World Biography states that his films often featured actors who studied "Method acting", noted for portraying an earthy, introspective style. A leading example of such "Method" actors would be Al Pacino, who, early in his career, studied under Method acting guru Lee Strasberg. Lumet also preferred the appearance of spontaneity in both his actors and settings, which gave his films an improvisational look by shooting much of his work on location. [32]
Lumet was a strong believer in rehearsal and felt that if an actor rehearsed correctly, the actor would not lose spontaneity. According to critic Ian Bernard, Lumet felt that it gives actors the "entire arc of the role", which gives them the freedom to find that "magical accident". [33] Director Peter Bogdanovich asked him whether he rehearsed extensively before shooting, and Lumet said that he liked to rehearse a minimum of two weeks before filming. [28] During those weeks, recalls Faye Dunaway, who starred in Network (1976), he also blocked the scenes with his cameraman. As a result, she added that "not a minute is wasted while he's shooting, and that shows not only on the studio's budget, but it shows on the impetus of performance". [34] She praised his style of directing in Network, in which she won her only Academy Award:
Sidney, let me say, is one of, if not, the most talented and professional men in the world...and acting in Network was one of the happiest experiences I have ever had...He's a really gifted man who contributed a good deal to my performance. [34]
Partly because his actors were well rehearsed, he could execute a production in rapid order, which kept his productions within their modest budgets. When filming Prince of the City (1981), for example, although there were over 130 speaking roles and 135 different locations, he was able to coordinate the entire shoot in 52 days. As a result, wrote historians Charles Harpole and Thomas Schatz, performers were eager to work with him, for they considered him to be an "outstanding director of actors". The film's star Treat Williams said that Lumet was known for being "energetic":
He was just a ball of fire. He had passion for what he did and he "came to work" with all barrels burning. He's probably the most prepared director I've ever worked with emotionally. His films always came in under schedule and under budget. And everybody got home for dinner. [35]
Harpole added that "whereas many directors disliked rehearsals or advising actors on how to build their character, Lumet excelled at both". [27] He could thereby more easily give his performers a cinematic showcase for their abilities and help them deepen their acting contribution. Actor Christopher Reeve, who co-starred in Deathtrap (1982), also pointed out that Lumet knew how to talk technical language: "If you want to work that way – he knows how to talk Method, he knows how to improvise, and he does it all equally well". [28]
As a movie goes on, it gets more and more grueling and you really need a director who will help remind you where your character is at all times. Sidney Lumet was like that. All wonderful directors will do that.
Joanna Rapf, writing about the filming of The Verdict (1982), states that Lumet gave plenty of personal attention to his actors, whether listening to them or touching them. She describes how Lumet and star Paul Newman sat on a bench secluded from the main set, where Newman had taken his shoes off, to privately discuss an important scene about to be shot. Lumet's actors walked through their scenes before the camera rolled. This preparation was done because Lumet liked to shoot a scene in one take or two at the most. Newman liked to call him "Speedy Gonzales", adding that Lumet did not shoot more than he had to. "He doesn't give himself any protection. I know I would," Newman said. [28]
Film critic Betsey Sharkey agreed, adding that "he was a maestro of one or two takes years before Clint Eastwood would turn it into a respected specialty". Sharkey recalls, "[Faye] Dunaway once told me that Lumet worked so fast it was as if he were on roller skates. A racing pulse generated by a big heart." [37]
Biographer Joanna Rapf observes that Lumet had always been an independent director, and liked to make films about "men who summon courage to challenge the system, about the little guy against the system". [28] : Intro This includes the women characters, as in Garbo Talks (1984). Its star Anne Bancroft embodied the kind of character portrayal that attracted him: "a committed activist for all kinds of causes, who stands up for the rights of the oppressed, who is lively, outspoken, courageous, who refuses to conform for the sake of convenience, and whose understanding of life allows her to die with dignity ... Garbo Talks in many ways is a valentine to New York". [28]
In an interview in 2006, Lumet said that he had always been "fascinated by the human cost involved in following passions and commitments, and the cost those passions and commitments inflict on others". [28] This theme is at the core of most of his movies, notes Rapf, such as his true-life films about corruption in the New York City Police Department or in family dramas such as Daniel (1983).
Film historian Stephen Bowles believes that Lumet was most comfortable and effective as a director of serious psychodramas, as opposed to light entertainments. His Academy Award nominations, for example, were all for character studies of men in crisis, from his first film, Twelve Angry Men, to The Verdict. Lumet excelled at putting drama on the screen. [17] Most of his characters are driven by obsessions or passions, such as the pursuit of justice, honesty and truth, or jealousy, memory or guilt. [17] Lumet was intrigued by obsessive conditions, writes Bowles. [17]
Lumet's protagonists tended to be antiheroes, isolated and unexceptional men who rebel against a group or institution. The most important criterion for Lumet was not simply whether the actions of the people are right or wrong, but whether they were genuine and justified by the individual's conscience. Whistleblower Frank Serpico, for example, is the quintessential Lumet hero, who he described as a "rebel with a cause". [38]
An earlier example of psychodrama was The Pawnbroker (1964), starring Rod Steiger. In it, Steiger plays a Holocaust survivor whose spirit has been broken and who lives day-to-day as a pawn shop manager in Harlem. Lumet used the film to examine, with flashbacks, the psychological and spiritual scars with which Steiger's character lives, including his lost capacity to feel pleasure. [39] Steiger, who made nearly 80 films, said during a TV interview that the film was his favorite as an actor. [40]
It was the social realism which permeated his greatest work that truly defined Lumet – the themes of youthful idealism beaten down by corruption and the hopelessness of inept social institutions allowed him to produce several trenchant and potent films that no other director could have made.
Serpico (1973) was the first of four "seminal" films that Lumet made during the 1970s that marked him as "one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation". [16] It was the story of power and betrayal in the New York City police force, with an idealistic policeman battling impossible odds. [16]
Lumet was a child during the Depression, and grew up poor in New York City, witnessing poverty and corruption. [28] It instilled in him at an early age a belief in the importance of justice for a democracy, a subject that he tried to put in his films. He admitted, however, that he did not believe that the movie business itself has the power to change anything. Rapf writes, "There is, as he says, a lot of 'shit' to deal with in the entertainment industry, but the secret of good work is to maintain your honesty and your passion." [28] Film historian David Thomson writes of his films:
He has steady themes: the fragility of justice, and the police and their corruption. Lumet quickly became esteemed ... [and he] got a habit for big issues – Fail Safe, The Pawnbroker, The Hill, – and seemed torn between dullness and pathos. ... He was that rarity of the 1970s, a director happy to serve his material – yet seemingly not touched or changed by it. ... His sensitivity to actors and to the rhythms of the city have made him America's longest-lived descendant of the 1950s Neorealist tradition and its urgent commitment to ethical responsibility. [31]
Lumet preferred to work in New York City and shunned the dominance of Hollywood. [28] As a director, he became strongly identified with New York City. "I always like being in Woody Allen's world," he said. He claimed that "the diversity of the City, its many ethnic neighborhoods, its art and its crime, its sophistication and its corruption, its beauty and its ugliness, all feed into what inspires him". [28] He felt that in order to create, it is important to confront reality on a daily basis. For Lumet, "New York is filled with reality; Hollywood is a fantasyland." [28]
He often used New York City as the backdrop—if not the symbol—of his "preoccupation with America's decline", according to film historians Scott and Barbara Siegel. [41] Lumet was attracted to crime-related stories in New York City urban settings, where the criminals get caught in a vortex of events that they can neither understand nor control but are forced to resolve. [17]
Like other Jewish directors from New York, such as Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Paul Mazursky, Lumet's characters often speak overtly about controversial issues of the times. They felt unconstrained as filmmakers, and their art became "filtered through their Jewish consciousness", wrote film historian David Desser. Lumet, like the others, sometimes turned to Jewish themes to develop ethnic sensibilities that were characteristic of American culture, [42] : 3 by dynamically highlighting its "unique tensions and cultural diversity". This was partly reflected in Lumet's preoccupation with city life. [42] : 6 A Stranger Among Us (1992), for example, is the story of a woman undercover police officer and her experiences in a Hasidic community in New York City.
The subject of "guilt", explains Desser, dominates many of Lumet's films. From his first feature film, 12 Angry Men (1957), in which a jury must decide the guilt or innocence of a young man, to Q&A (1990), in which a lawyer must determine the question of guilt and responsibility of a maverick policeman, guilt is a common thread that runs through many of his films. In Murder on the Orient Express (1974), all of the suspects are guilty. [42] : 172
His films are also characterized by a strong emphasis on family life, often showing tensions within the family. [42] : 172 This emphasis on the family included "surrogate families", as in the police trilogy consisting of Serpico (1973), Prince of the City (1981), and Q&A. An "untraditional family" is also portrayed in Dog Day Afternoon (1975). [42] : 172
Sidney was a visionary film-maker whose movies made an indelible mark on our popular culture with their stirring commentary on our society. Future generations of film-makers will look to Sidney's work for guidance and inspiration but there will never be another who comes close to him.
Lumet preferred naturalism or realism, according to Joanna Rapf. He did not like the "decorator's look", for which the camera could call attention to itself. He edited his films so that the camera was unobtrusive. His cinematographer Ron Fortunato said, "Sidney flips if he sees a look that's too artsy."[ citation needed ] Lumet disliked CinemaScope and never filmed in an aspect ratio wider than 1.85:1.[ citation needed ]
Partly because he was willing and able to take on so many significant social issues and problems, he achieved strong performances from lead actors with fine work from character actors. He is "one of the stalwart figures of New York moviemaking. He abides by good scripts, when he gets them," said critic David Thomson. [31] Although critics gave varying opinions of his films, Lumet's body of work is generally held in high esteem. [12] Most critics have described him as a sensitive and intelligent director, having good taste, the courage to experiment with his style, and with a "gift for handling actors". [12]
In a quote from his book, Lumet emphasized the logistics of directing:
Someone once asked me what making a movie was like. I said it was like making a mosaic. Each setup is like a tiny tile (a setup, the basic component of a film's production, consists of one camera position and its associated lighting). You color it, shape it, polish it as best you can. You'll do six or seven hundred of these, maybe a thousand. (There can easily be that many setups in a movie.) Then you literally paste them together and hope it's what you set out to do. [44]
Critic Justin Chang adds that Lumet's skill as a director and in developing strong stories continued up to his last film in 2007, writing of his "nimble touch with performers, his ability to draw out great warmth and zesty humor with one hand and coax them toward ever darker, more anguished extremes of emotion with the other, was on gratifying display in his ironically titled final film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead ". [45] [46]
In an interview with New York magazine, Lumet said that he expects to see more directors from different ethnic backgrounds and communities telling their stories. "You know, I started out making films about Jews and Italians and Irish because I didn't know anything else." [47]
Lumet was married four times; the first three marriages ended in divorce. He was married to actress Rita Gam from 1949 to 1955; [16] to artist and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt from 1956 to 1963; to Gail Jones (daughter of Lena Horne) from 1963 to 1978; and to Mary Bailey Gimbel (ex-wife of Peter Gimbel) from 1980 until his death. He had two daughters by Jones: Amy, who was married to P.J. O'Rourke from 1990 to 1993, and actress and screenwriter Jenny, who had a leading role in his film Q&A. She also wrote the screenplay for the film Rachel Getting Married (2008), [12] [48] as well as co-creating two television series with Alex Kurtzman: The Silence of the Lambs sequel Clarice and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds .
Lumet died from lymphoma at age 86 on April 9, 2011, in his residence in Manhattan. [5] [26] When asked in a 1997 interview about how he wanted to "go out", Lumet responded, "I don't think about it. I'm not religious. I do know that I don't want to take up any space. Burn me up and scatter my ashes over Katz's Delicatessen." [49] A few months after Lumet's death, a retrospective celebration of his work was held at New York's Lincoln Center with numerous speakers and film stars. [50] In 2015, Nancy Buirski directed By Sidney Lumet, a documentary about his career [51] [52] that aired in January 2017 as part of PBS's American Masters series. [35] [53] [54]
According to film historian Stephen Bowles, Lumet succeeded in becoming a leading drama filmmaker partly because "his most important criterion [when directing] is not whether the actions of his protagonists are right or wrong, but whether their actions are genuine". And where those actions are "justified by the individual's conscience, this gives his heroes uncommon strength and courage to endure the pressures, abuses, and injustices of others". His films have thereby continually given us the "quintessential hero acting in defiance of peer group authority and asserting his own code of moral values". [17]
According to The Encyclopedia of Hollywood, Lumet was one of the most prolific filmmakers of the modern era, directing, on average, more than one movie a year since his directorial debut in 1957. [41] Turner Classic Movies notes his "strong direction of actors", "vigorous storytelling" and the "social realism" in his best work. [16] Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert described him as "one of the finest craftsmen and warmest humanitarians among all film directors". [55] Lumet was also known as an "actor's director", having worked with the best of them during his career, probably more than "any other director". [28] Sean Connery, who acted in five of his films, considered him one of his favorite directors, and one who had that "vision thing". [56]
Lumet's published memoir about his life in film, Making Movies (1996), is "extremely lighthearted and infectious in its enthusiasm for the craft of moviemaking itself", writes Bowles, "and is in marked contrast to the tone and style of most of his films. Perhaps Lumet's signature as a director is his work with actors – and his exceptional ability to draw high-quality, sometimes extraordinary performances from even the most unexpected quarters." [17] Jake Coyle, a writer for the Associated Press, agreed: "While Lumet has for years gone relatively underappreciated, actors have consistently turned in some of their most memorable performances under his stewardship. From Katharine Hepburn to Faye Dunaway, Henry Fonda to Paul Newman, Lumet is known as an actor's director," [57] and to some, like Ali MacGraw, he was considered "every actor's dream". [24]
Lumet is one of the most important film directors in the history of American cinema, and his work has left an indelible mark on both audiences and the history of film itself.
In the belief that Lumet's "compelling stories and unforgettable performances were his strong suit", director and producer Steven Spielberg described Lumet as "one of the greatest directors in the long history of film". [59] Al Pacino, on hearing of Lumet's death, stated that with his films, "He leaves a great legacy, but more than that, to the people close to him, he will remain the most civilized of humans and the kindest man I have ever known." [59] Boston Herald writer James Verniere observed that "at a time when the American film industry is intent on seeing how low it can go, Sidney Lumet remains a master of the morally complex American drama". [60] Following his death, fellow New York directors Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese both paid tribute to Lumet. Allen called him the "quintessential New York film-maker", while Scorsese said that "our vision of the city has been enhanced and deepened by classics like Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and, above all, the remarkable Prince of the City". [43] Lumet also drew praise from New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who called him "one of the great chroniclers of our city". [43]
He did not win an individual Academy Award, although he did receive an Academy Honorary Award in 2005, and 14 of his films were nominated for various Oscars, such as Network, which was nominated for 10, winning 4. In 2005, Lumet received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement for his "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers, and the art of the motion picture". [61]
A few months after Lumet's death in April 2011, TV commentator Lawrence O'Donnell aired a tribute to Lumet, [62] and a retrospective celebration of his work was held at New York's Lincoln Center, with the appearance of numerous speakers and film stars. [50] In October 2011, the organization Human Rights First inaugurated its "Sidney Lumet Award for Integrity in Entertainment" for the TV show The Good Wife, along with giving awards to two Middle East activists who had worked for freedom and democracy. Lumet had worked with Human Rights First on a media project related to the depiction of torture and interrogation on television. [63]
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).
Year | Title | Academy Awards | BAFTA Awards | Golden Globe Awards | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
1957 | 12 Angry Men | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | ||
1962 | Long Day's Journey into Night | 1 | 1 | ||||
1964 | The Pawnbroker | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
Fail Safe | 1 | ||||||
1965 | The Hill | 6 | 1 | ||||
1966 | The Group | 1 | 1 | ||||
1967 | The Deadly Affair | 5 | |||||
1970 | King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis | 1 | |||||
1973 | The Offence | 1 | |||||
Serpico | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | |||
1974 | Murder on the Orient Express | 6 | 1 | 10 | 3 | ||
1975 | Dog Day Afternoon | 6 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 7 | |
1976 | Network | 10 | 4 | 9 | 1 | 5 | 4 |
1977 | Equus | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |
1978 | The Wiz | 4 | 2 | ||||
1981 | Prince of the City | 1 | 3 | ||||
1982 | The Verdict | 5 | 5 | ||||
1984 | Garbo Talks | 1 | |||||
1986 | The Morning After | 1 | 3 | ||||
1988 | Running on Empty | 2 | 5 | 1 | |||
1990 | Q&A | 1 | |||||
Total | 46 | 6 | 56 | 11 | 43 | 10 |
Eli Herschel Wallach was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. Known for his character actor roles, his entertainment career spanned over six decades. He received a BAFTA Award, a Tony Award, and an Emmy Award. He also was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1988 and received the Academy Honorary Award in 2010.
Alfredo James Pacino is an American actor. Considered one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century, Pacino has received many accolades including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, achieving the Triple Crown of Acting. He has also received four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2001, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2007, the National Medal of Arts in 2011, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2016.
Sidney Poitier was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first Black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received two competitive Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, and a Grammy Award as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award. In 1999, he was ranked among the "American Film Institute's 100 Stars". Poitier was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.
Rodney Stephen Steiger was an American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. Ranked as "one of Hollywood's most charismatic and dynamic stars", he is closely associated with the art of method acting, embodying the characters he played, which at times led to clashes with directors and co-stars. He starred as Marlon Brando's mobster brother Charley in On the Waterfront (1954), the title character Sol Nazerman in The Pawnbroker (1964) which won him the Silver Bear for Best Actor, and as police chief Bill Gillespie opposite Sidney Poitier in the film In the Heat of the Night (1967) which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
12 Angry Men is a 1957 American legal drama film directed by Sidney Lumet in his feature directorial debut, adapted by Reginald Rose from his 1954 teleplay. A critique of the American jury system during the McCarthy Era, the film tells the story of a jury of twelve men as they deliberate the conviction or acquittal of a teenager charged with murder on the basis of reasonable doubt; disagreement and conflict among the jurors forces them to question their morals and values. It stars an ensemble cast, featuring Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, and Jack Warden.
Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 American biographical crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Martin Bregman and Martin Elfand. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, James Broderick and Charles Durning. The screenplay is written by Frank Pierson and is based on the Life magazine article "The Boys in the Bank" by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore. The feature chronicles the 1972 robbery and hostage situation led by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile at a Chase Manhattan branch in Brooklyn.
Network is a 1976 American satirical black comedy drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Paddy Chayefsky. It is about a fictional television network and its struggle with poor ratings. The film stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty, and Beatrice Straight.
The Verdict is a 1982 American legal drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and written by David Mamet, adapted from Barry Reed's 1980 novel of the same name. The film stars Paul Newman as a down-on-his-luck alcoholic lawyer who accepts a medical malpractice case to improve his own situation, but discovers along the way that he is doing the right thing. Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, Milo O'Shea and Lindsay Crouse also star in supporting roles.
Serpico is a 1973 American biographical crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Al Pacino in the title role. The screenplay was adapted by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler from the book written by Peter Maas, with the assistance of its subject Frank Serpico. The story details Serpico's struggle with corruption within the New York City Police Department during his eleven years of service, and his work as a whistleblower that led to the investigation by the Knapp Commission.
John Holland Cazale was an American actor. He appeared in five films over seven years, each of which was nominated as Best Picture at their respective Academy Awards. Cazale started as a theater actor in New York City, ranging from regional, to off-Broadway, to Broadway acting alongside Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Sam Waterston. Cazale soon became one of Hollywood's premier character actors, starting with his role as the doomed, weak-minded Fredo Corleone opposite longtime friend Pacino in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974). He acted in Coppola's The Conversation (1974) and Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon (1975). In 1977, Cazale was diagnosed with lung cancer, but he chose to complete his role in The Deer Hunter (1978). He died shortly after, in New York City on March 13, 1978.
Lovin' Molly is a 1974 American drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Anthony Perkins, Beau Bridges, Blythe Danner in the title role, Ed Binns, and Susan Sarandon. The film is based on Larry McMurtry's second novel, Leaving Cheyenne (1963). Prior to release, the film was also known as Molly, Gid, and Johnny and The Wild and The Sweet.
Prince of the City is a 1981 American epic neo-noir crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet. It is based on the life of Robert Leuci, called ‘Daniel Ciello’ in the film, an officer of the New York Police Department who chooses, for idealistic reasons, to expose corruption in the force. The screenplay, written by Lumet and Jay Presson Allen, is based on a 1978 non-fiction book, by former NYPD Deputy Commissioner Robert Daley.
Long Day's Journey into Night is a 1962 American drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, adapted from Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer-winning play of the same name. It stars Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and Dean Stockwell. The story deals with themes of addiction and the resulting dysfunction of the nuclear family, and is drawn from O'Neill's own experiences. It was shot at Chelsea Studios in New York, with exteriors filmed on City Island.
The Fugitive Kind is a 1960 American drama film starring Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, and Joanne Woodward, directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Meade Roberts and Tennessee Williams was based on the latter's 1957 play Orpheus Descending, itself a revision of his 1940 work Battle of Angels, which closed after its Boston tryout. Frank Thompson designed the costumes for the film.
The Pawnbroker is a 1964 American drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Jaime Sánchez and Morgan Freeman in his feature film debut. The screenplay was an adaptation by Morton S. Fine and David Friedkin from the 1961 novel of the same name by Edward Lewis Wallant.
Jenny Lumet is an American actress and screenwriter. She is the daughter of director Sidney Lumet and granddaughter of Lena Horne. Lumet is perhaps most known for writing the original screenplay of the 2008 Jonathan Demme film Rachel Getting Married, and her work on the Star Trek franchise.
Martin Leon "Marty" Bregman was an American film producer and personal manager. He produced many films, including Scarface, Sea of Love, Venom, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, The Four Seasons, Betsy's Wedding, Carlito's Way, Carlito's Way: Rise to Power, The Bone Collector, and The Adventures of Pluto Nash.
Edythe Landau was an American film and television producer and executive, known for such films as Long Day's Journey Into Night,The Pawnbroker, King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis, The Chosen and the fourteen movies of the American Film Theatre which she produced with her husband Ely Landau.
Sidney Lumet (1924–2011) was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter.
Lewis' class included Herbert Berghof, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Mildred Dunnock, Tom Ewell, John Forsythe, Anne Jackson, Sidney Lumet, Kevin McCarthy, Karl Malden, E.G. Marshall, Patricia Neal, William Redfield, Jerome Robbins, Maureen Stapleton, Beatrice Straight, Eli Wallach, and David Wayne.