Sidney Lumet, the critically acclaimed director of classics such as Serpico, 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon, died early this morning in his Manhattan home at the age of 86. His stepdaughter said the cause was lymphoma.
Lumet was born in Philadelphia in 1924, but moved to New York with his family when he was a baby. His father joined the Yiddish Art Theater, where Lumet frequently took the stage. After acting in a few Broadway shows, Lumet took to directing Off Broadway productions, and eventually broke into movies with films like The Fugitive Kind and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. However, he is perhaps best known for his classic films featuring New York City, such as Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Prince of the City and even The Wiz. By 1996, 29 of his 38 films were shot on location in the city. "Locations are characters in my movies,” he wrote. “The city is capable of portraying the mood a scene requires."
Though his movies received many Oscar nominations, Lumet was only awarded an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 2005. However, the told the Times in an online interview that he was never into making movies to make a statement: “I don’t think art changes anything. I think we are primarily camp followers. We’re not in advance of anything. I do it because I like it, and it’s a wonderful way to spend your life." Below are clips from three of his most famous movies, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico and Network:
