Sidney Lumet’s Legacy Is His Kindness and Civility

Sidney Lumet was not the greatest film director who ever lived. He was my favorite, but I won’t try to argue that his overall cannon of work places him on the Mt. Rushmore of all-time greats.

He was, however, possibly the greatest human being ever to hold the title of director. I saw a recent quote from Al Pacino which read, “[Lumet] leaves a great legacy, but more than that, to the people close to him, he will remain the most civilized of humans and the kindest man I have ever known.”

I understand what Pacino meant, but I have to take issue with one point: Lumet’s legacy is his kindness and civility, and that legacy deserves just as much praise and consideration as his films.

Being a young and cocooning recent film school graduate, I never had the opportunity to meet the man before he died, but I somehow feel I know him well. From his amiable and revelatory commentary track on “Dog Day Afternoon”,” to his equally compelling interviews, and finally to his vital filmmaking tome “Making Movies,” I found a picture of a man who was as generous in spirit as he was in practice.

In an age bereft of quality role-models, Lumet served as a vibrant example not only for aspiring filmmakers but for the entire industry. He showed a great contempt for the auteur theory of filmmaking and all that it implied, affirming instead the truly collaborative nature of the filmmaking process. In his nearly 50-films, not once did he allow the name “Sidney Lumet” to appear in the marquee or above the title.

In one of my favorite passages from “Making Movies” — and I will have to paraphrase here because a friend is holding my copy of the book hostage — he writes about his belief that everyone who works on the production should feel as though the movie belongs to him. He shares the story of the greensman who met a friend of his in New York and said to him: “Oh, you know Sidney? He worked on one of my films!”

This, in Lumet’s view, exemplified the spirit of the ideal crewmember and the kind of person with whom he strove to surround himself.

I recently recalled this story when I was at the production office of a current major network show. The script supervisor was an amicable older-hippie type who’d clearly been around the block a few times. He told me a bit about the shows he’d worked on during his long career and about which ones he had enjoyed working on and which ones he hadn’t.

One of the shows he worked on happened to be one of my favorite shows ever; a short-lived network comedy that struggled for ratings and only found its audience after it had already been canceled. This show was one of his most enjoyable working experiences, he said, but it was also one of the most difficult and the one where he worked the hardest for the least amount of pay.

Since I’ve learned enough by now to know that a show’s quality rarely has any bearing on the work environment of the production office, I wondered aloud how this could be true — how could a rigorous and demanding work experience also be his favorite? He explained that it was the sense of camaraderie and empowerment that the cast and crew shared which made the show so special. It wasn’t just the talented ensemble of actors who were encouraged to improvise; it was the talented ensemble of production office workers as well.

On every level, he said, crew members spoke their minds and made proactive decisions. The script supervisor said this trickled down from the showrunner himself, who always displayed a genuine respect for the production office. It’s that respect which allowed him to get away with such traditionally “unacceptable” behavior like changing the script at the last minute to include a cast-members suggestion or writing one-line cut-away jokes which required entirely new locations.

Of course, no offense to the script supervisor, but Sidney Lumet put it even better. He said: “The joy [of filmmaking] lies in the shared experience. For this reason, it’s vital to have to best creative people in each department. People who can challenge you to work your best, not in hostility but in a search for the truth. Hiring sycophants and servants is selling the picture and myself short.”

Most productions don’t work this way, but I wish they would. Not just for the sake of those production workers who are treated as servants, but for the audiences who would get to experience better films and television shows.

Sidney Lumet was the rare genius in that his magnanimity surpassed even his virtuosic talent. Not everyone who works in the industry can be as kind or civilized as he was, but we can all strive to be. And when we do, that will be his legacy.