Sidney Lumet, one of my favourite directors, has died. His greatest film was his first - 12 Angry Men - but unlike Welles, who also faced that challenge, he went on to direct more than 39 other feature films, many of them classics. I think my favourites are his great 70s gritty cop films with a young Pacino - Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico. Fanously, he directed his last film at age 83, and it wasn't half-bad. Other classics include The Pawnbroker, Network, and The Verdict. So far, that's by my count six of the greatest American films. Throw in Murder on the Orient Express, Fail-Safe, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and Deathtrap, and you have a very impressive list. He will be missed.
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
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