DOKU.ARTS
Zeughauskino Berlin
06.–23.10.2016

By Sidney Lumet

Nancy Buirski lets us participate in an impressive masterclass by the great moralist of American cinema. Based on an excellent long-term interview by the famous documentary filmmaker Daniel Anker, who died during production, Buirski has created an artful collage of Lumet's films which allows a deep insight into the creative workshop of the original New Yorker, who in Hollywood never quite received the accolades he deserved.
Lumet nevertheless enjoyed the highest esteem among the best actors of his time. Actors' praise for directors in Hollywood is mostly professional hypocrisy, but Buirski shows Lumet, with his theatrical roots, as a true “actor-director”. In so doing, many of the stereotypes about inflationary Method Acting are also unmasked. Rather, the considerable importance of resolute Method detractor Stella Adler to the American cinema becomes visible – an instrumental figure for Lumet and many of his actors. Rare recordings from early television works underpin the acting excellence that Lumet's rehearsal-intensive working methods produced.
In addition to outstanding actors, New York itself made its mark on Lumet's films. Buirski's skilful montage allows the urban areas of the Big Apple to become eloquent actors in Lumet's stories, always negotiating substantial moral conflicts in a diversity of genres. In her humorous portrait of the artist as an old man, these conflicts are shown to be Lumet's life themes.

(sh)