HomeMoviesFirst Picture Show: Dog Day Afternoon

First Picture Show: Dog Day Afternoon

jason stives remembers one of the late Sidney Lumet’s finest works …

Preface: I had something different planned this week, but with the loss of acclaimed director Sidney Lumet, I felt it important to honor someone who I personally feel has had one of the most flawless careers as a director, regardless of commercial highs and lows. I don’t think I could say anything different about Lumet as a director that hasn’t already been said in the past three days. Upon his death, a plethora of tributes filtered throughout Hollywood and the ever-loving Internet film community. Fellow New York director Woody Allen said that he was truly a New York director, and judging by his body of work beginning with the 1957 court room drama 12 Angry Men all the way to his last film 2007’s Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, it’s hard to disagree with the man who directed a film aptly titled Manhattan. As I have been writing a separate piece on the importance of cities in films, Lumet truly had his finger on the understanding of the Big Apple, from Harlem to the southern-most tip of Manhattan Island — but that’s another story.

Sidney Lumet on set of Dog Day Afternoon

My connection with Lumet’s work starts indeed with his first, 12 Angry Men. Given the part of Juror No. 5 in my high school English class reading of the play, I was falsely accused for being an Orioles fan. Soon after we watched the film, which compared to 12 uninterested sophomores doing the play was far more invigorating and held my interest up until the final verdict, regardless of knowing it already. There in lies the majestic storytelling of Lumet, an uneasy feeling of not knowing what you think you might know. From Serpico to The Verdict to Prince Of The City, Lumet never once beat around the bush when it came to realism in his films, but he still left enough of that movie magic to make his films seem more spell binding then truthful. With that in mind, we present this week’s film directed by the great Sidney Lumet.

DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975)
Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Written by: Frank Pierson
Starring: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, James Broderick

Premise: The story of bank robbers Sonny Wortzik (Pacino) and Sal Naturile (Cazale) who rob a Brooklyn bank in order to help pay for Sonny’s homosexual lover’s sex change. What starts out as a run of the mill bank heist turns into a 12-hour standoff with the police and the media.

What’s Been Said: “It captures perfectly the zeitgeist of the early 1970s, a time when optimism was scraping rock bottom. John Wojtowicz was as good a hero as we could come up with.” — Christopher Null

Pacino & Cazale, teamed up for a third time in Dog Day Afternoon

The First Personal Viewing: The most astonishing thing you get out of watching this three-ringed circus of a movie, is that it was, for the most part, all true. These events did happen in the summer of 1972, once again showing Lumet’s desire to place New York as an epicenter for social commentary by lifting a story from the headlines. Dog Day Afternoon is really an adrenaline rush, in every cliché manner, but it’s truly rewarding. Anyone who appreciates film in all facets should be required to watch it. The two-hour running time almost seems like a breeze, with a lot of that being chalked up to Lumet’s pacing and quick cuts. The bank robbery scene that opens the film is quite exhilarating, and leaves the audience in a state of suspense as they know their time in the theater will not be as easy as getting in and getting out like the main characters hope. Another important factor that allows the viewer to create the mood is outside of the use of Elton John’s “Amoreena” at the beginning, there is no musical score to the film. Atmosphere must be contained and breaking that with music that implies suspense or a build up would sadly tarnish the mood.

While I will never take away his performance as Michael Corleone in the Godfather, for me, this is Al Pacino’s best performance of the ’70s, if not his entire career. There is something so believable and innocent about his portrayal of Sonny. Here is a character forced into a situation because of unjust actions in his life of turbulent times. A Vietnam veteran, and closeted homosexual, Sonny is the greatest ’70s stereotype: unaccepted, misunderstood but ultimately a man identifiable with the rest of society. The way that the crowd that gathers out in front of the bank supports him, shows a intangible unity amongst fellow Brooklynites, but one that must be dealt with in a way that upholds the law of the city.

His partner in crime, Sal, is much the opposite of his friend and what you have is an unstable man, who sadly, we don’t really see his capability as a psycho path, for good or for worse. John Cazale may have the best film credits to his name, if not the shortest (he died of cancer right before the release of The Deer Hunter), but with every performance it seems one of a kind and completely human. His performance as Sal is unnerving to watch, especially with a very small amount of dialogue. But what he doesn’t say is what makes the audience wonder, and when he does speak, it’s either jarringly uneasy to hear or wildly humorous.

In many ways, Dog Day Afternoon does what most films only aspire to do — and that’s invoke a wide range of emotions on the viewer’s conscious. At times, it tugs at the simplicity of a person’s desperate situations and then merely minutes later you are lunged into heart stopping excitement where one false move could see the situations end in an instant. The obvious example of this is the infamous “ATTICA, ATTICA!” sequence in front of the bank between Sonny and a barrage of New York’s finest. The banter between Sonny and Detective Moretti (Charles Durning) is amusing and yet nail-biting as deals are attempted and patience is tested from opposite sides of the street.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYt24hq5nbM&w=480&h=390]

What is so surprising is how unintentionally funny the film is, in particular the banter between Sonny, Sal and the hostages. Sonny and Sal are obviously not professionals by nature, and their attempt at securing the heist is laughable in regards to their nervous demeanors and pension for small talk amongst the mostly female staff of the Brooklyn bank. The most amusing scene is the infamous (as they all tend to be) “Wyoming” scene, in which Sonny explains to Sal the benefits of grabbing the loot and then flying off to an “exotic” locale.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS61hWuh43Y]

Upon release, Dog Day Afternoon received critical acclaim as well as five Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor for Al Pacino and Best Supporting Actor for Chris Sarandon. It may seem a bit pretentious to call this his best work considering the wealth of films he accumulated in a 50-year career, but the fact is Sidney Lumet created a real time capsule piece. While most films made in the seventies tended to focus on the past or on a significant point of the day (normally the Vietnam War), Dog Day Afternoon created the rebellious underdog out of a simple civilian, someone easily identifiable but completely against the society he belongs to.

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