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| Sidney Lumet at the September 2007 Toronto International Film Festival (Photo: gdcgraphics) |
Saturday, 9 April 2011
Sidney Lumet, who directed such Hollywood film classics as Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Network, has died at the age of 86.
Lumet, with more than 50 films to his credit over the last six decades, died Saturday of lymphoma at his home in New York.
Lumet began his professional career at the age of 4, on a radio show in the late 1920s, and later appeared in Broadway plays in New York. But he achieved his greatest success as a film director. One of his best was his first, the 1957 courtroom drama 12 Angry Men. It portrayed 12 jurors as they tried to reach a verdict in the trial of a young Hispanic man wrongly accused of murder.
Lumet's films often depicted the grittier side of New York, such as Dog Day Afternoon, the true-life story of two social misfits who tried to rob a bank on a hot summer afternoon. Another film, Serpico, explored the corruptibility of New York police officers.
Critics often said his most memorable film was Network, a scathing view of the television business. American film aficionados can often recall a memorable line from the movie, when a crazed newscaster, played by actor Peter Finch, exhorted his audience to open their windows and shout, “I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!”
Lumet received four best director nominations for Oscars in Hollywood's annual celebration of the film industry but never won. He was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2005 for “brilliant services” to screenwriters and actors over the years.
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