Sidney Lumet had a colorful life and spent his professional career in proximity to many powerful talents.
So you’d think the director of “12 Angry Men,” “The Verdict” and “Dog Day Afternoon” would surely be a fine subject for a documentary. But “By Sidney Lumet” is strangely unsatisfying.
The film is arranged around an interview Lumet gave in 2008, three years before he died. Rather long clips from his best films fill out the running time.
In the interview, Lumet is smart, soul-searching company. He seems to be laying down the theme for the movie we’re watching, in a fairly simple way.
Voicing his irritation at auteurist critics who found Lumet a lesser light because he lacked a central theme, Lumet insists he really does have one. It has to do with his interest in rebels, in integrity, and the difficulty of doing the right thing.
The film opens and closes with Lumet recalling a searing anecdote from his military service, about a disturbing incident that he might have been able to stop, but didn’t. It’s riveting, but this film is a little too eager to have this be his “Rosebud,” the clue that explains a life’s work.
Lumet made 44 feature films in his movie career (he’d done a ton of early television before that). That’s a lot of movies — most of today’s big directors won’t come near the total — and there’s a lot left out the documentary.
Director Nancy Buirski (“The Loving Story”) emphasizes clips from “Network,” “Serpico” and “12 Angry Men.” The film doesn’t provide a full overview, so Lumet’s duds — and he made a rather alarming number of them — remain mostly unmentioned.
She doesn’t do Lumet any favors by including a handful of pretentious moments from his movies. But taken together, the clips give a fair look at a director who produced a bushel of serious, actor-oriented films.
Following Lumet’s lead in the interview, she emphasizes the parallels between his life and his movies. His relationship with his father — Baruch Lumet, a significant figure in Yiddish theater in New York — prompts clips from “Daniel” and “Running on Empty,” two films about difficult but charismatic Jewish patriarchs.
Lumet’s youth, including a career as a child actor, provides much of the liveliest material. Some of his stories sound overly practiced, but “By Sidney Lumet” is a rare thing in movie documentaries: The clips are actually less fun than the interviewee spinning stories.
“By Sidney Lumet” (2 1/2 stars)
A documentary portrait of filmmaker Sidney Lumet, arranged around a 2008 interview. The combination of talk and clips is strangely unsatisfying — the film spends a lot of time tracing literal connections between his life and his movies — although Lumet’s storytelling makes him good company.
Rating: Not rated; probably R for language
Showing: Grand Illusion theater
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