Film director Sidney Lumet passed away Saturday at the age of 86. “Although he was not as widely known to the general public as directors like Scorsese, Spielberg, Eastwood and Spike Lee,” Ebert writes, “his films were at the center of our collective memories.” He was a fine writer to boot: Ebert says that Lumet’s book, Making Movies, is the best on the subject. “To say he lacked a noticeable visual style is a compliment,” he writes. “He reduced every scene to its necessary elements, and filmed them, he liked to say, ‘invisibly.’”
