Sidney Lumet

by Tony Dayoub

The first time I ever visited New York City, relatively recently in 2003, my very first impression was that I had finally found the place where I belong. There was an energy coursing through my veins as I climbed up the stairs of Penn Station and onto a noisy Eighth Avenue. I didn't need a map. I knew how to get around (admittedly, Manhattan's geography is fairly easy), and more than that, knew where the neighborhoods, even specific buildings, business establishments, and places of interest were located. My education had mostly come from all of the New York films directed by Sidney Lumet. "If a director comes in from California and doesn't know the city at all," he said, "he picks the Empire State Building and all the postcard shots, and that, of course, isn't the city." Lumet was arguably the finest filmmaker to have ever captured the feel of the city, beautiful in its griminess, alluring yet, at times, frustratingly deadly.

Dede Allen

by Tony Dayoub

We often speak of the auteurial era of the seventies that was ushered in by director Arthur Penn and actor-producer (and future direcor) Warren Beatty with their collaboration on Bonnie and Clyde. But surely one of the seminal moments in the launch of that chapter is the explosive, grim, and finally violent, finale of this "lovers-on-the-run" landmark. In honor of Dede Allen, the editor who crafted some of the most suspenseful sequences in film (the recommendations I list at the end are only the ones I've actually seen; her filmography is even more illustrious than what I give her credit for), here is the sequence she is best known for (if you've never seen it, viewer discretion is advised)...