Something Like the Truth

Six underrated films by master director Sidney Lumet

by Tony Dayoub

One [year] ago, cinema lost director Sidney Lumet, "a leading American realist," according to David Thomson in his essay, "The Fugitive Kind: When Sidney Went to Tennessee." Thomson describes Lumet as "a master of complex working situations, of limited time and space, of plot intrigue, of real-life settings and natural drama." I'd add that Lumet was fascinated by iconoclasts and how they confronted injustice. In movie after movie, his heroes often found themselves at odds with societal norms despite the fact that they tended to stick to a moral code that society had itself established. Whether it was Juror Number 8 (Henry Fonda) in 12 Angry Men, the eponymous cop (Al Pacino) of Serpico, or producer Max Schumacher (William Holden) in Network, the protagonist demanded fairness while ensconced in a corrupted system that had long ago abandoned the notion. One finds this recurring theme in some form or another in all of Lumet's films.

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.