Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Films: Dog Day Afternoon (Curzon)Review by: Robert JohnstoneFortnight, No. 133 (Sep. 24, 1976), p. 18Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25545975 .

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18/FORTNIGHT

Hostage and Oh What A Lovely War, if it

could get the backing for a big production with chorus and lots more room for

bicycling ?they can scarcely get going at all

in the tiny King's Head. I hope it does. It's

the most thoughtful and deeply felt play about the troubles I've seen yet. It's great

fun, but it hurts.

Tom Hadden

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OCTAGON GALLERY There could scarcely be two more different

artists than those whose work is being shown now in the Octagon and Bell Galleries

?the one of a most delicate imagination and the other sharp, brusque.

William Collins, who has the exhibition at

the Octagon, is a visionary, searching after

the elusive, and sometimes it seems

illusionary; images and tones float, emerge

increasingly as one gazes. Something that

seems to be a narrow spread of grey or black

reveals when looked at from a certain

distance a surprising flush of rose or violet, a

seemingly empty space opens on concentric

vistas. And most surprising of all there is no

sensation of teasing in all this; it is curiously,

deeply satisfying. It could be claimed it is something novel in

optical illusion that he achieves in such a

painting as Secret Love (No 5), where the

slender bars serve as a window giving a view

of a domed vista with a hint of spire or

steeple, the bars at their upper reaches

suffused with pink. A colour scale of violet on purple ?so faint ?is employed like

something dreamed and outside the artist's

contrivance. In the first of the New Lough

Image pictures a similar method is

employed, the narrow rods here arched out

and the spire a red cone at the heart of

silvered expanse. The device is exploited

variously in other pictures, each exploration

bringing a new freshness. These paintings are all acrylic on canvas; he uses acrylic on

paper for more obvious landscape and

scenic effects. He also has a number of

monoprints, a series of Landscape Images is

notable for the mosaic texturing of the

foreground. The more spare the structure

the more impressive is the impact; one of

the most memorable, Double Mirage Image consists of two identical cone shapes placed either side of a central taller one. It is a

beautifully spaced composition of rich blue on blue.

+ + + + + +

BELL GALLERY At the Bell Gallery there is a collection of

landscapes by Markey in the heavy formalised pattern and dense colour that he

has often favoured! The ingredients are the

familiar ones of white cottages, shawled

figures, stark trees and hills bereft of detail

or individuality. What he offers is a

simplification of landscape and person so

that even the most crowded picture conveys a sense of desolation, of emptiness. It is a

harsh, uncompromising view which

sometimes conveys a feeling of doom, as in

one painting where a crowd of women are

gathered on a shore looking on a fleet of

sailing vessels; they could be sisters of

Synge's women in Riders to the Sea, their

waiting could have less sinister implications, but it is a dark and disturbing picture.

Even when he introduces a brilliant flash

of colour the mood remains melancholy, forlorn. A sharp green that slashes across a

canvas adds harshness, a flash of red

menaces. There is little modulation in colour

or sophistication in the composition; it is

elemental.

Ray Rosenfield

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DOG DAY AFTERNOON (Curzon)

Because of publication dates Dog Day Afternoon slipped through my fingers first

time round, but happily it's at the Curzon

this week, and I'd rather talk about it than

Linda Lovelace for President or even To the

Devil a Daughter. It's based on the true but astonishingly

bizarre story of Sonny who, with two ac

complices, attempted the relatively simple task of robbing a New York bank and ended

up holding the staff hostage in an

improvised siege (the idea was suggested to

him by the police) during which he became

a TV personality and a hero for radical

homosexuals, transvestites and transexuals.

The robbery was to pay for a sex-change

operation for Sonny's "wife" (to whom he

was married by a priest). Sonny also

had ?indeed still has?a fat neurotic female

wife and three children living in a cramped

apartment on welfare. I found it intriguing to

watch a film about an event which I'd seen

on the news only four years ago.

Serpico, which I maintain is one of

Lumet's best films, is also based on a true

story. There, the apparently inevitable reality of colour film might make the hero seem

more trendy than necessary. In Dog Day the

humid garishness of technicolor, slightly more than real, perfectly sets the scene for

sweltering midsummer madness.

It is an absurdist comedy of doomed

incompetents struggling to escape from the

hopeless urban nightmare. The prologue,

appropriately to frenetic rock music, moves

through New York, past seedy docks, tennis

players, workmen digging holes in untidy streets. The robbers are not amoral

monsters but morally confused citizens.

Sonny, frantically trying to be efficient and

control the situation (for once), fumbles

with his gun, is constantly deflated and

distracted by the mundane, like a cashier

who wants to go to the toiler, or the security

guard who collapses with asthma. (Sonny is

shocked at the stupidity of employing such a

harmless guard.) Sal (John Cazale) berates a

cashier for defiling the "temple" of her body

by smoking, but clearly has a suicide pact

with Sonny. The police are just as confused, as is the

TV company which unwittingly turns Sonny into a personality. No one has a clear moral

or even logistical grasp of what's going on.

This is very funny, with everyone

desperately serious as they pursue their

folly, but it is also humane. Sonny is

undoubtedly a selfish idiot but we can

sympathise with him even when he screams

his catch-phrase "We're dying in here", for

that is to pose the moral question that

no-one can answer. This doesn'tdetractfrom

our sympathy for the regular police. In

comparison the highly efficient FBI are

treated as distinctly sinister. They ask no

moral questions: they're only interested in

efficiency, and they win.

The film is reminiscent of Lumet's

fictional The Anderson Tapes. Both, like

Murder on the Orient Express or Lumet's

very first feature Twelve Angry Men, deal

with intense dramas played out in confined

areas. Even the acting credits are put into

compartments of "The Bank", "The

Street", "The Law", and Lumet clearly sees

society as a series of interlocked and

clashing forces which trap individuals, and

out of which they can make no sense.

The Academy Awards people thought this was one of the best two or three films of

1975. I agree. Al Pacino is remarkable

among many totally convincing and alive

performances. The images of the scary

freaks, the militant gays for whom Sonny is

a hero, or of Leon (Chris Sarandon),

Sonny's "wife", who's escorted to the siege like an exotic and rare animal, are very

potent. They are images of people twisted

by society into ridiculous postures, but who

gain dignity when they insist on their right to

play the roles they're given. If you've missed it before, don't miss it a

second time.

Robert Johnstone

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