Farewell Sidney Lumet, 1924–2011

The clip above fea­tures Peter Finch’s explo­sive “mad as hell” speech from Sid­ney Lumet’s Net­work (1976). It is as rel­e­vant today as it was 35 years ago, if not more so — just like its direc­tor.

In this this recent inter­view, Mr. Lumet, who also brought us such clas­sics as 12 Angry Men, Ser­pi­co, The Ver­dict, and Dog Day After­noon, speaks about his lega­cy, his career, and the city that was the set­ting for so many of his great films. He died yes­ter­day of lym­phoma at his home in Man­hat­tan.

via NYT

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.