Sidney Lumet
When the law says one thing
but sense of fairness says another

(May 16, 1997) -- Sidney Lumet doesn't make movies just to entertain -- though most of his do.

A child of the Depression and schooled in the grittier urban TV, theater and films of the '50s and '60s, Lumet's movie imagination is fueled by social concerns.

From 12 Angry Men to The Pawnbroker to Prince of the City, the veteran director has usually had a point to make, and he makes it passionately.

Night Falls on Manhattan, his new police-and-courts thriller, is no exception. And American jurisprudence is in the spotlight.

"What do you do when justice and the law aren't quite the same thing, when the law says one thing and your sense of fairness says another?" asks Lumet.

Thus, for Night Falls on Manhattan, Lumet has created an idealistic young district attorney (Andy Garcia), who learns the cost of compromise and corruption.

Some may argue that this is overly familiar turf for Lumet, previously examined in Prince of the City (1981), Q&A (1990), and Serpico (1973).

Even in production notes for the film, Lumet asks the rhetoric question: "Why am I back at the same old stand: cops, corruption, culpability?"

His answer? "Because the problem won't go away. In fact, it's getting worse." And he argues that the rot at the core of corruption is the drug problem.

"Racism and drugs are the greatest menaces in our society," he says. "And they're connected. Drugs have been a part of the black community for decades and nobody did anything till it spread to the suburbs."

And don't get Lumet going on the idea of a government drug czar. He calls such a solution merely "cosmetic," aligned with the thinking that "you can put a sound bite on something, and it'll go away."

"You know who should be a drug czar?," he says. "A recovered drug addict. The 12-step program doesn't always work, but it works better than anything else. Drugs won't be stopped by planes or guns. And nobody asks the essential question? Why do we consume so much as a nation?"

"I don't think legalization is the answer," he adds. "Every recovered addict I've known is opposed to legalization, and I withdraw my opinion in the face of their experience. I think the only solution lies in therapy, therapy, therapy."

As a filmmaker, he says, "All I'm trying to do is ask the right questions."

But although Night Falls explores familiar Lumet themes, he argues that the film takes a new approach.

"In Prince of the City, the (Treat Williams) character was on the take. He was a dirty cop at the start. The question was, would he turn or not. That's a very different position than in this picture. That was a conflict in immorality, while this is a conflict of morality.

"Q&A is an investigation of built-in racism and people who don't think they're racists, and Serpico was simply the portrait of an individual who just happened to be a cop. If (Al Pacino's character) was a baker, he'd be a rebel in the bakers' union. He would be a rebel with any cause."

The other Lumet consistency in Night Falls on Manhattan is the New York setting. Of his 40 films, 29 have been shot totally in New York City.

"The biggest thing about New York," he says, "is that it can be anything you want to be. As you look for visual collaboration with what's going on in the drama, this city is unstoppable. In all the pictures I've done here, I've never duplicated a location."

Lumet was speaking by phone from his Manhattan office, where he's in post-production work on his next movie, a dark satire about the medical industry, called Critical Care. It'll be released later this year.

"And I hope it does for the health care industry what Network did for broadcasting."

Lumet's Network also did great as a film. It earned three 1976 Oscars for its actors and one for its screenplay. Lumet also received one of his four best director nominations. Overall, his films have earned more than 50 Oscar nominations.

Lumet will be 73 next month. Does he ever consider retiring?

"No, no, no. They'll have to carry me out."