A master hard at work
We all know who Al Pacino is. He is one of the greatest actors of our time. It has been said that an actor can only be as great as the script that has been written or the director that directs. Of course this is only an opinion and not a firm standard, although there is evidence to support the theory. Two of Pacino’s finest films were in the first decade of his career on the screen. The first was immediately following the success of “The Godfather,” it was the film of a true story called “Serpico.” The next was later in the same decade and amongst the best films ever made, “Dog Day Afternoon.”
What do these two films share in common besides the fact they display Pacino at his finest?
They were directed by one of the greatest filmmakers to every grace the medium.
That man was Sidney Lumet who left us this month at the age of 86. When I say that this man was one of the greatest that ever graced the medium, I truly mean that he was amongst the greatest. “Dog Day Afternoon” was the first film from Lumet that I had ever seen. It left from the indelible impression on me. From that point on, I wanted to make films. I wanted to work with the master, and I had to watch everything he ever made.
Most directors are but mere directors. There are few particularly in this modern era of films that are more than directors, there are few that have achieved the label as a true filmmakers. To add to that, most pictures that are made these days are not even made with enough quality to me considered a film, they are merely movies.
Sydney Lumet was a filmmaker in every sense of the word. The quality that was on the screen, the performances that he was able to get from his actors, and the finest casts that he worked with in all of his films.
Having worked with some of the finest actors in Hollywood, Lumet turned most of these performances that would have been otherwise run of the mill performances. It took the Lumet style to make these the “one of a kind” performances that would be remembered for generations.
Lumet’s most recent film was the crime thriller “When the Devil Knows you’re Dead.” The cast was led by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, and Marissa Tomei. With the exception of Hoffman, no one else in the cast is typically as masterful but under the direction of Lumet’s rigorous rehearsals everyone’s performance was ingenious.
Precious few filmmakers have more than one masterpiece to their credit; Lumet was one of them. His first film back in 1957 was “12 Angry Men.” This focused on what happens when there are 12 jurors held up in the grand jury room because of the one person that decides that he wants to disagree and take the moral high ground rather than make a decision just to hurry up and get to a baseball game.
Another phenomenal film that Lumet brought to the screen was in 1976. It spawned that famous saying: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
That film was “Network” and it focused on the television industry bastardization of the news industry. No longer was it to be about truth, it was only to be a profit center. Lumet directed a performance so masterfully delivered by actor Peter Finch, that he became the first man to win an Oscar for Best Actor posthumously. The cast consisted of fine performances from William Holden, Robert Duvall, Faye Dunaway, and Ned Beatty.
Peter Finch in the legendary "mad as hell" scene
Lumet didn’t make films to make money, he made them to entertain and enlighten audiences. Every single one of his film had the highest in entertainment values and at the same time challenged the thoughts of anyone who watched. The films of Lumet possessed performances that hit emotional heights that other some other could only dream of doing. When Sidney Lumet died, a part of film died with him. To know and believe that there will be a legion of imitators without a doubt makes sense.
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