By: Eliyahu R. Babad
Seemingly insignificant episodes from childhood can have an enormous impact upon adult life. I recently attended an “Evening with Sydney Lumet” at the 92nd Street Y moderated by Professor Rosenbaum. Lumet’s films often portray significant moral struggles that may have a foundation in his earlier life, particularly one episode that he shared.
While discussing the Depression years in the 1930’s Lumet shared a story from his youth. Lumet and his friends were playing some sort of game involving pennies being thrown against a wall. They saw a policeman coming (I’m assuming they were doing something wrong though he didn’t specify what) and the boys ran away, leaving the pennies on the street. Then they watched as the policeman bent down and picked up the scattered pennies left by the children and then walked away.
Even while representing law and justice, the policeman was caught in a moral dilemma and failed miserably. And this was not even the worst of it. Lumet and his buddies were there to see it all and were forever impacted by this lapse of judgment. Perhaps Lumet’s films are profoundly informed by this episode from his younger days.
