Film buffs mark your calendars for Saturday the fourteenth of November for a screening of BY SIDNEY LUMET, a superb documentary on the super luminary cineast Sidney Lumet, courtesy of the Jewish International Film Festival at Event Bondi Junction.
Basically a talking head interview interspersed with clips from his films, BY SIDNEY LUMET, is a fascinating documentary book-ended by an appalling story Lumet witnessed as a young GI, a tale that goes some way to inform us what underlying issues inform his subsequent work.
Raised in a theatrical family, his father was at the forefront of Yiddish theatre. Sidney was appearing in shows from the age of five and was a child star in the movies, at one stage mooted as the successor of Freddie Bartholomew.
Lumet thinks there’s no harm in being a child actor, citing that the sooner someone is exposed to creativity the better. He is certainly an exemplary example of this.
It looked like Lumet was going to continue his career as an actor after returning from service after World War II. He joined the Actors Studio but was thrown out after espousing that the “method” may be too limiting, and started up his own acting studio where he ended up directing by default.
His esteem as a helmer prompted Yul Brynner to coax him over to television in the golden era of live broadcast plays.
In 1957 he was offered to direct his first feature film, 12 ANGRY MEN, an auspicious production that spawned a cinema career that would span fifty years.
BY SIDNEY LUMET utilises clips from many of his estimable canon, from his first, 12 ANGRY MEN to his last, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD. These two titles attest he began and ended with a bang, but the films in between also show an enormous amount of emotional, social, and moral punch.
He was Oscar nominated four times for directing – 12 Angry Men, The Verdict, Network and Dog Day Afternoon, and once for screenplay, as co writer of Prince of the City.
He steered actors Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, Beatrice Straight and Ingrid Bergman to Oscar wins.
Hearing him talk and watching his work is truly inspiring.
BY SIDNEY LUMET is a tremendous reminder of the scope of an illustrious career and a trigger to rediscover the many gems that constitute his fabulous legacy.