Sidney Lumet

Weston Reading About Director Lumet

     Last Saturday, Sidney Lumet died in New Your City.  The man who made quite possibly the best drama ever filmed, The Verdict, is gone.  Everyone thinks, at least everyone I've spoken to, that The Verdict was Paul Newman's film, but it wasn't, it belonged to Lumet.  Every frame, every angle, every cut and every lingering wide shot that stayed on the actor's faces -which were dwarfed by the expanse of every element included in each frame- belonged to Lumet.
      Where some directors feel the need to make constant cuts and establish multiple locations and hundreds of angles, Lumet could make the dialogue, the acting and the craft pop with a single well composed shot.  In short, he could tell a story anywhere.  From the courtroom where the church's and the legal system's crimes were going to go unpunished to a jaded and washed up attorney's final meltdown in a hotel bathroom, it didn't take much more than Lumet's keen eye and his ability to tell a story to bring every second of the film to life; and to make that life real and unforgettable.  Lumet is dead.
He will be missed.