SIDNEY LUMET, 1924-2011. There's at least something worthwhile in all his films that I've seen. Daniel, for example, was awful, but I still get goosebumps when I recall its child's-view funeral sequence, with Paul Robeson's "There's a Man Goin' Round Takin' Names" in the background.

Lumet had several successes, and they remind me that while most hit movies don't bear re-watching (really, who wants to curl up again with The Eyes of Laura Mars?), all of Lumet's do. When he got good scripts he knew what to do with them. Dog Day Afternoon and Network are crazy stories, and he kept them urgent but sufficiently grounded that even mass audiences could accept them. He set excellent actors to perform outrageous actions in high-pressure environments, and took the results down without much underlining. (Try to imagine the Ken Russell versions.)

This isn't to say he was without style -- God, no, look at this -- just that he knew the value of restraint, and was at his best, I think, when the situation damanded it. The Verdict is for the most part a very quiet movie, which forces us to focus on the words and, especially, faces -- James Mason's "Welcome to the World" speech, and the pan to Charlotte Rampling, is a great example. Lumet and Paul Newman really make us lean forward for the summation scene. It starts with Newman small and off-center in a crowded long shot -- and stays there until he moves to the jury: "Today you are the law." Then his face becomes the focus. It's not the only way it could have been done; it just seems, now, the only right one.

He obviously liked to work, and was game for anything, whether a musical (The Wiz), black comedy (Bye Bye Braverman), or high-toned Broadway adaptation (Child's Play, Equus). He started in TV and, years later -- when it had been awhile between hits -- he went back to TV for the ill-fated 100 Centre Street. Red lights didn't stop him, and he kept following chances until he got to make Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, a capstone any filmmaker could be proud of.

His work was uneven, but I don't know that we'd have the good films he gave us if he husbanded his energies like Kubrick, and made movies less often. His was not a ruminative talent. He got the idea, made the picture, and moved on. This resembles the method of the hack, but Lumet was clearly not only talented, but artistically ambitious -- he actually got an NYPD trilogy (Serpico, Prince of the City, Q&A) made in Hollywood; who among our auteurs could do likewise? They could sell a superhero property, of course, but a three-film examination of big-city police and political corruption? It wouldn't even occur to them. Which is just another reason to mourn Lumet's passing.

UPDATE. You really ought to read Glenn Kenny on the subject, and his 2007 interview with Lumet.