Sidney Lumet, who died in 2011 at the age of 86, was a remarkably prolific artist: In a 55-year directing career he made a total of 43 movies and some 75 television plays, movies and episodes. Before that he had spent a dozen years as an actor. An output of that size cannot be uniformly excellent, and Lumet’s isn’t. But his best movies are very, very good: “12 Angry Men,” his very first film, is a dazzling exercise in the use of the camera, still studied in film schools; and then there are “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” “The Pawnbroker,” “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Prince of the City,” “The Verdict,” “Before the...

Source: Wall Street Journal February 07, 2020 22:30 UTC