New York’s leading movie house for independent premieres and repertory programming
A nonprofit cinema since 1970
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New York’s leading movie house for independent premieres and repertory programming
A nonprofit cinema since 1970
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| PREVIOUSLY AT FILM FORUM | |||||||
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SIDNEY LUMET (born 1924) has always eschewed categorization, moving from a supposedly closeup-happy “TV director” stereotype to startling filmic innovator; from a theatrical adaptation specialist to gritty chronicler of the city’s underside; from New York and Jewish concerns to a whole series of British works. The respected master of every aspect of moviemaking (“the only filmmaker I’ve worked with who could tell me cut-for-cut what he wanted in a scene” – editor Ralph Rosenblum), a conscious stylist whose touches are always in service to the story, as well as the ultimate Actor’s Director; the least of his works remain a pleasure for the pure skill of filmmaking. But the overriding seriousness, maturity, depth, intensity — the guts — of his work has enabled him to create an oeuvre that places him in the pantheon of American directors. As adamantly a New York filmmaker as Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese, with pictures that have depicted a great city through five parlous decades, Lumet has compiled, as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. once wrote in American Heritage, “as comprehensive a sociology of New York City as Balzac or Zola did of Paris.” "A timely retrospective." – A. O. Scott, The New York Times “I would like to make the case that this jarring yin-and-yang artist, this supercollider of disparate and nonnegotiable entities, is the most underrated director with a personal sensibility to emerge from the modern studio system." "Lumet eludes his admirers as easily as he does his detractors. Attempts to pigeonhole, mock, or honor him with the supercilious praise we accord an entertainer or canny technician are routinely undermined by his best work, which exudes vibrancy matched by assurance, efficiency, and an unerring sense of time and place...A number of projects, highly regarded in their day, hold new promise now: fifty years is a long time to captain actors, writers, photographers, and so forth, and time plays havoc with memory and assumption. Lumet's presumed failures or overlooked films offer moments of intelligence and insight, often enough to warrant reappraisal....many have grown, not shrunk, in stature." “The poet laureate of urban police corruption” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times |
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Special Thanks to Ross Klein (MGM); Schawn Belston, Caitlin Robertson (Twentieth Century Fox); Melanie Valera, Barry Allen, Chase Shulte (Paramount); Marilee Womack (Warner Bros.); Suzanne Leroy, Grover Crisp, Helena Brissenden (Sony Pictures); Mike Mashon (Library of Congress); Rick Yankowski (Criterion Pictures); Ron Simon (Paley Media Center); Todd Wiener (UCLA Film Archive); Mark Mcelhatten (Sikelia Productions); Martin Scorsese; Margaret Deriaz, Fleur Buckley (British Film Institute); John Martello (The Players); Lilith Jacobs; And Sidney Lumet. Available at Amazon: |
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FEBRUARY 8-11 FRI/SAT/SUN/MON
Click here to see the trailer for NETWORK "Network could hardly be more relevant… It's just the ticket in a season of dumbed down campaign coverage and nonstop celebrity meltdown 'news.' Finch's Howard Beale is a precursor to Jon Stewart, at those precious moments when Mr. Stewart drops his cool and gives voice to his civic rage. Go to your window, open it up, stick your head out and yell: 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore.' Oh, we'll take a lot more, but at least we'll feel a little better about it." FEBRUARY 11 MON - SOLD OUT We welcome Sidney Lumet in person, for an evening of conversation moderated by film historian Foster Hirsch. Mr. Lumet will discuss his long career, beginning in the 1930s as a child actor; the beginning of his directorial career in live television in the early 1950s; his stunning film debut, 12 Angry Men; and his astounding body of work (44 features in 50 years), right up through this year’s Oscar contender Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. FEBRUARY 12 TUE (1966) The lives and loves of eight Depression-era Vassar graduates in the years leading up to WWII: Shirley Knight falls for married doctor Hal Holbrook (in his first film role); Jessica Walter (Arrested Development - pictured right) rises in the NYC literary circle, but falters in her personal life; Joanna Pettet goes nuts dealing with alcoholic Larry Hagman; Joan Hackett gets mixed up with an inveterate skirt chaser; Elizabeth Hartman contends with motherhood; a debuting Candice Bergen becomes a … Often satirical adaptation of Mary McCarthy’s bestseller was Lumet’s first real commercial hit. "A strange, inclusive, no-holds-barred movie that runs the gamut from scenes that are almost soap-opera or satire, to outrageously frank scenes that are almost voyeuristic. It is greatly exhilarating while it provokes thought and pushes the viewer into examining his own conscience." "Generally fascinating series of interwoven sketches and character studies; good attention to period detail, and a dazzling array of new talent." FEBRUARY 13 WED (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) (1965) In a WWII British military stockade stuck in the middle of the North African desert, chief jailer Harry Andrews’ idea of discipline consists of having sadistic Ian Hendry run supposed offenders up a man-made hill in full pack under the midday sun. Sean Connery’s insubordinate inmate was designed to distance him from his Bond persona. Lumet’s filming with successively wider-angled lenses turned a hard-hitting prison drama into a visual tour-de-force. Best Screenplay, Cannes Festival. Notable supporting performance by Ossie Davis. BAFTA award for Oswald Morris' striking b&w cinematography. Click here to see the trailer for THE HILL "A vivid and harrowing hate triangle among a rebellious soldier played by Mr. Connery, a martinet played by Harry Andrews, and a sadistic guard played by Ian Hendry. In concert with the cinematographer Oswald Morris — a frequent John Huston collaborator and one of the unsung innovators of motion picture photography — Mr. Lumet infused what was originally a stage play with a muscular camera craft and gutsy visual brio that rivals the similarly tough and smart 1960s camera audacity of fellow live-television graduate John Frankenheimer and permanent British relocater Kubrick." "An oddly overlooked film that, preceding Cool Hand Luke, emerged as one of the first films to attack authority. Now the specific references to the mounting frustrations of the Sixties are impossible to ignore. Ossie Davis's performance is one of the glories of black acting in a period otherwise dominated by Sidney Poitier. Lumet avoids the mythologizing that Luke savored; his hero, is no better or worse than he seems." (1973) "One hundred percent right!" blusters veteran third-string detective Sean Connery—in arguably his greatest performance—although neither colleagues nor superiors are still listening. After he starts interrogating a possible child molester against orders, he finds sardonic suspect Ian Bannen seeming to understand him only too well; and inspector Trevor Howard has to be called in to clean up the mess. Connery’s self-generated project (part of his price to come back as Bond in Diamonds are Forever.) "Shot in a skillfully suffocating style, The Offence demonstrates the evolving brilliance of an uncompromising journeyman of American cinema who, though based in New York, is creatively at home wherever he goes." FEBRUARY 14 THU (1982) Burntout ambulance chaser Paul Newman figures he’ll just settle out his medical malpractice case against the Boston archdiocese, but as those Polaroids of his helpless client start to fade in, something else starts to fade into him. Riveting courtroom drama, with Newman contending with too-smooth opposing counsel James Mason, mysterious Charlotte Rampling and himself. Five Oscar nominations for Actor, Supporting Actor, Director, Picture, and Adapted Screenplay—written by David Mamet. Click here to see the trailer for THE VERDICT "Newman gives one of his finest performances… Lumet's direction and David Mamet's pitch-perfect script make this a cut above your typical legal drama." “A Frank Capra setup given art-film treatment.” – Pauline Kael FEBRUARY 15/16 FRI/SAT THE PAWNBROKER (1965) Harlem pawnbroker and concentration camp survivor Rod Steiger has cut himself from all human emotion in the wake of his personal tragedies, but unwanted memories keep flooding back. In this case, via the shockingly innovative editing schemes worked out in collaboration with the great editor Ralph Rosenblum (A Thousand Clowns [see April 23], The Producers, Annie Hall [see April 10/11], etc.), flashbacks beginning as flashcuts—some as short as 4 frames—slowly leading up to often slow-motion shot remembrances. “Lumet is the only filmmaker I've worked with who could tell me cut-for-cut what he wanted in a scene and even come up with tricks I had never considered" - Rosenblum. Steiger's legendary performance won British and German awards and was Oscar-nominated; while the graphic nudity occasioned a Production Code seal battle. Features the first-ever original film score composed by Quincy Jones. "Steiger's performance somehow manages to be both stunning and scenery chow-down… Amazing shots of old-school New York in the background, courtesy of Jean Vigo's cinematographer Boris Kaufman." FEBRUARY 17/18 SUN/MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) (1957) “No jury can declare a man guilty unless it's SURE.” Open and shut case, right? But Juror #8 Henry Fonda just isn’t convinced, in the ultimate jury room drama. Adapting from a TV play, Lumet eschewed “opening out” while making the stifling jury room progressively even more claustrophobic via lighting and lens changes. Golden Bear, Berlin Film Festival, Oscar nominations for Screenplay, Film, and Director. Click here to see the trailer for 12 ANGRY MEN "With so many great actors (Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Ed Begley, Martin Balsam) delivering so many hot-tempered monologues, it's still pretty much irresistible." - (1964) “That will be the sound of your telephone melting.” Ultimate Cold War nightmare, with President Henry Fonda desperately getting on the Moscow Hotline after our bombers get the very wrong message; even as think tanker Walter Matthau assesses potential damage. Expressionistic camerawork, intense long takes alternating with sharp montages, even the most painful of freeze frames: what Strangelove (made the same year and released by the same studio) was to black humor, this is to suspense, and ultimately gut-wrenching horror. "It’s almost heretical to say so, but in some ways Fail-Safe holds up better than the similarly themed Dr. Strangelove, which was also released in 1964." FEBRUARY 19 TUE (1974) The supremely luxurious Orient Express is ignominiously trapped in a snowdrift, and even worse, one of the passengers has turned up dead — but not to worry: master detective Hercule Poirot is on board. Agatha Christie’s mystery classic proves a triumph of style, with Albert Finney’s Poirot topping an incredible all-star cast: Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, et al.*, with Ingrid Bergman Oscaring amid five other nominations (Cinematography, Costume Design, Original Score, Adapted Screenplay, and a Best Actor nod for Finney). Click here to see the trailer for MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS “A sumptuous spread.” – Pauline Kael “A terrifically entertaining super-valentine to a kind of whodunit that may well be one of the last fixed points in our inflationary universe. It has the kind of all-star cast that only MGM could have afforded 40 years ago.” FEBRUARY 20 WED (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) THE ANDERSON TAPES (1971) Everybody seems to be listening as safecracker Sean Connery, fresh from the pen, decides to clean out ex-mistress Dyan Cannon's entire apartment building while the city's deserted for Labor Day weekend. Classic big-caper entertainment, with Connery's team including gay antique dealer Martin Balsam and electronics expert Christopher Walken (in his debut), with a tape-erasure scene the most powerful murder by machine since Hal's lobotomy in 2001. Featuring another original score by Quincy Jones. “There is superb pacing, tactful understatement of the location shooting, and a sharp feel of the city. THE DEADLY AFFAIR (1967) Shortly after spy James Mason's uneventful interview about an official's supposed Red background, the guy ends up dead, an apparent suicide, to the cynical disgust of his widow, concentration camp survivor Simone Signoret. But was it murder? Aided by ex-cop Harry Andrews, Mason tries to find out, despite the infidelities of wife Harriet Andersson. Lumet's adaptation of John LeCarré’s Call for the Dead is highlighted by an incredible cast—including Maximilian Schell—and Quincy Jones' striking score. "Tense, shifty-eyed older guys in crumpled overcoats, passing each other manila folders ad coming in from the cold. Both incredibly underrated and ultimately satisfying in a spy-versus-spy kinda way." FEBRUARY 21 THU (1968) A sun-dappled summer by the lake — and after — with aspiring playwright David Warner’s maiden effort scoffed at by Mom, actress Simone Signoret, even as he agonizes through a tormented, hopeless love for Vanessa Redgrave, and avoids the futile advances of the black-clad, snuff-sniffing Kathleen Widdoes. With James Mason etching the most memorable of Trigorins. A practically all-star cast in this adaptation of Chekhov’s turn-of-the-20th-century Russian classic. “Redgrave is an extraordinarily grave and girlish Nina. She’s almost too brilliant.” – Pauline Kael "Lumet's tactful, tasteful direction serves Chekov admirably... he has understood Chekov's subtler nuances sufficiently to render them more naturally than they could ever be rendered on the stage. Everyone has their moments of merciless illumination in Lumet's tableau vivant." FEBRUARY 22/23 FRI/SAT (1973) Set up for a fall by his partners, Al Pacino, as real-life Frank Serpico, flashes back from his beginnings as a naive, idealistic police recruit to a bearded, hippie-like undercover detective on a relentless mission against police corruption. Lumet powerfully delivers his first butt-kicking action picture, with Pacino’s blowtorch performance vaulting him to the front rank of American actors.
"A quintessential New York director makes a quintessential New York movie... as compelling as the factual events its based on." "A landmark policier that serves up the definitive '70s-actor Jesus Christ pose. Lumet is at the peak of his fanatical pursuit of New York realism, benefitting from his expert eye for unglamorous locations, low-key casting, and. most immeasurably, the ace contribution of editor Dede Allen, chomping down hard on the end of takes with snappy punctuation. Springstreen sang in the year of the film's release: 'It's hard to be a saint in the city.’ Serpico nails saint and city both." "You can practically taste the sizzle and stink on the mean streets of this classic police-corruption thriller. Endures as one of the great Rotten Apple flicks. Less political expose than existential docu-drama, an examination of the shivers of space between different kinds of rocks and hard places. Gloweringly intense, Mr. Pacino skates the edge between righteous and paranoid. His trapped-animal ferocity is riveting, method acting at crystal-meth intensity. Serpico gets its charge by running this live wire through the expressionist decrepitude of Mr. Lumet's New York, an edgy, abject metropolis of grubby tenements, shabby boho street life, brutalist architecture, and dingy Manhattan skylines." FEBRUARY 24 SUN (1975) As a scorcher unravels from day to night in Gotham (actually, Windsor Terrance, Brooklyn), the motive for Sonny Wortzig's (Al Pacino) botched bank robbery and hostage situation is revealed to be the funding of his second (male) wife's sex-change operation. Based on a real —only in New York! —incident this is Lumet's ultimate exercise in realism, with all-natural lighting and 60% percent of the dialogue improvised by the cast –and with the 300 extras augmented by actual city-dwellers joining the throng outside the bank set built inside an abandoned warehouse. Improvisation extended to Pacino's phone calls to his wives, shot in a single, 15-minute take via a two-camera piggyback. One Oscar win (Frank Pierson, Original Screenplay) amid six nominations: Acting nods for Pacino and Chris Sarandon, as well as Best Direction, Editing, and Picture. "A quintessential New Wave masterpiece." – Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice “There is plenty of Lumet’s vital best here in a film that captures the increasingly garish pathology of our urban life.” – Jack Kroll, Newsweek “Brisk, humorous and alive with urban energies and angers fretting through the 92 degree heat.” – Sight and Sound “An astonishing fusion of suspense and character, powered by superior ensemble acting.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum “Sidney Lumet's most accurate, most flamboyant New York movie—consistently vital and energetic. It's beautifully acted by performers who appear to have grown up on the city's sidewalks in the heat and hopelessness of an endless midsummer. If you can let yourself laugh at desperation that has turned seriously lunatic, the film is funny, but mostly it's reportorially efficient and vivid, in the understated way of news writing that avoids easy speculation.” “Manages to run the gamut between farce and tragedy. It is almost a Brechtian parable. FEBRUARY 25 MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) (1968) With the sudden death of the title character, four of his old friends (George Segal, Jack Warden, Joseph Wiseman, Sorrell Booke) assemble for a lengthy trek to the Brooklyn gravesite, spiced by an attempted seduction by widow Jessica Walters, an encounter with black, Jewish-convert cabbie Godfrey Cambridge, and a tragicomic eulogy by rabbi Alan King at the wrong funeral. Tony-winner Phyllis Newman also shows up- in a towel. At the time, “the most personal picture I've ever made. Scouting locations was a cinch. I know all these neighborhoods like the back of my hand.” –Lumet. "Still worth seeing for its portrait of a bygone New York." – Time Out New York “Lumet takes the mean-spirited satirical novel and turns the material into a crudely affectionate comic romp.” – Pauline Kael (1939, Dudley Murphy) After helping Sylvia Sidney take her young nephew Sidney Lumet to the hospital when he’s injured in their falling-down tenement, boy friend Leif Erikson finds out he’s the landlord himself. Rare 30s NYC independent produced by left-wing Federal Theater, with 14-year-old Sidney (in his only film appearance) repeating his stage role, and with dad Baruch as Mr. Rosen. FEBRUARY 25 MON (SEPARATE ADMISSION) NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN (1997) Hot dog DA Ron Leibman decides fledgling assistant Andy Garcia is just the guy to prosecute the botched drug bust that put dad detective Ian Holm in the hospital, but then drug lord mouthpiece Richard Dreyfuss comes up with a self-defense plea — from crooked cops! With The Sopranos’ James Gandolfini, terrific as the partner. “Lumet finds a rainbow of moral shadings in this tale...he has an ear, as ever, for the disparate voices of the city.” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times “Director Sidney Lumet and the New York legal system seem to go together like ham and eggs, and this may well be his best effort yet in this direction. “Compelling. It is a pleasure to watch a film-maker who treats law and ethics with the seriousness and intelligence they deserve." “Quintessential Lumet. He creates—with warmth, wisdom and humor—a vibrant world in which good and evil are in constant combat and in which possibilities in relationships between people are fluid and infinite." FEBRUARY 26 TUE (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) (1959) Ex-New Orleans blues player Marlon Brando sports a snakeskin jacket as he drifts into a small Southern town and an affair with storekeeper Anna Magnani, while simultaneously being pursued by old plantation family black sheep Joanne Woodward. Pretty faithful adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending, with Maureen Stapleton, who starred on Broadway, in a small part. “Marlon Brando is pitted against Anna Magnani and it's the biggest grudge match since King Kong met Godzilla.” – Dave Kehr “The best screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams.” – David Thomson “Crafted with exquisite care by Lumet and cinematographer Boris Kaufman, it is, among so many other things, a movie about the triumph of theatrical space: every showpiece image refrains from merely dazzling, challenging us instead to imagine ourselves within it.” “A series of mythological engravings, determined by a literary text and a lurid concept of hell on earth.” (1962) Illegal immigrants and their near-incestual longings build to a kitchen sink Greek tragedy in Lumet's adaptation of Arthur Miller's play, with its final betrayals an echo to both men of the recent McCarthy era. With Italian Raf Vallone towering in his first English-language role as troubled paterfamilias Eddie Carbone and Carol Lawrence, fresh from the original production of West Side Story, as the nubile niece. Shot simultaneously in French and English, with exteriors on the Brooklyn docks and interiors in Paris studios. “With his exteriors shot on location on the Brooklyn waterfront, Mr. Lumet has drenched the drama in a proletarian atmosphere
so absolute and authentic that actuality seems to pulsate on the screen.” “Lumet has the temperament to dampen rather than fan hysteria and frightfulness,
to give a feeling of enclosure and concentration to make tragedy domestic.” FEBRUARY 27 WED (1962) A day in the death of the Tyrone family, with miserly, aging matinee idol father Ralph Richardson, boozing son Jason Robards, consumptive son Dean Stockwell, and secret drug addict Katharine Hepburn (collectively Best Actors at Cannes) in Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical classic. "STANDS TO THIS DAY AS PROBABLY THE ALL-TIME GREATEST SCREEN ADAPTATION OF AN AMERICAN PLAY." FEBRUARY 28 THU (1983) So were they guilty as charged, guilty of something, or innocents railroaded to execution? Timothy Hutton sets out on a personal quest to probe the legacy of his long-dead parents, with flashbacks evoking the fevered atmosphere of the American Left as the paranoia of the Cold War begins. Adapted from his own novel by E.L. Doctorow, this was one of Lumet’s most personal projects, accumulating 44 studio rejections over a ten-year period before getting the green light. With Ellen Barkin. FEBRUARY 28 THU (SEPARATE ADMISSION) PRINCE OF THE CITY (1981) "Nothing is what is seems." An American epic, as Treat Williams’ troubled narc (a character based on the real-life Robert Leuci) turns informer for a crime commission (including a Young Turk based on Rudy Giuliani), protecting only his police partners, until he is inexorably dragged further, and further, and… Click here to see the trailer for PRINCE OF THE CITY “The culminating work of Sidney Lumet’s career.” – David Denby. The New Yorker |
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![MAKING MOVIESSale price: $13.00 tax included [$12.00 plus tax]](lumet/makingmovies.jpg)
(1976) “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” bellows “mad prophet of the airwaves” Peter Finch—with America seemingly joining in—as network news head William Holden breaks the news of his guilty affair with scheming entertainment chief Faye Dunaway to wife Beatrice Straight. All too eerie prefiguring of Jerry Springer, Bill O’Reilly, and “reality” shows, in Paddy Chayefsky’s scabrous satire of television. Winner of three acting Oscars (tying Streetcar Named Desire): Finch (posthumously), Dunaway, and Straight (at 5 minutes, 40 seconds the shortest award-winning role ever)--as well as for Chayefsky’s script, plus nominations for Holden, Ned Beatty (eloquently preaching the good in dehumanization), Cinematography, Editing, Picture, and Director. 
THE GROUP
THE HILL
THE VERDICT
12 ANGRY MEN
FAIL-SAFE
MURDER ON THE
ORIENT EXPRESS
THE SEA GULL
SERPICO
DOG DAY AFTERNOON
BYE BYE BRAVERMAN
ONE THIRD OF A NATION
THE FUGITIVE KIND
A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
DANIEL