Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Review
Dog Day Afternoon articulates the cultural zeitgeist of the ’60s and ’70s by having the protagonist be an abusive husband and bank robber with 8 hostages.
Dog Day Afternoon, directed by Sidney Lumet and released in 1975, retells the story of a bank robbery in 1971, Brooklyn. It follows Sonny and Sal, played by Al Pacino and John Cazale, who are partners in crime, but quickly discover they have arrived minutes after the daily cash pickup, meaning the safe only contains $1,000. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of wrenches thrown into their plan. A passerby notices something unusual, and in no time the police are summoned and completely surround the bank. In a frenzy, Sonny and Sal take the bank employees hostage. The movie follows the power dynamics between hostage, detective, police, and robber, and how all of it can easily be turned on its head.
What makes this movie enjoyable is it take you on a rollercoaster of believing in the goodness of human nature, but then taking that good feeling and beating it with a hammer. It articulates the zeitgeist of the ’60s and ’70s by having the protagonist be an abusive husband and bank robber with 8 hostages. Throughout the movie, the camera is empathetic towards Sonny, and we see this in the editing style.
Towards the beginning of the movie, the chief police detective convinces Sonny to come outside. Fed up with everything going wrong, Sonny agrees.
A huge crowd of onlookers floods the streets, with a mass of cops encircling the bank entrance. Diegetic noise of the detectives, police, and reporters chatter as a wide shot of the glass doors displays Sonny waving a white handkerchief in front of his pale and sweaty face. The shot cuts to the detective, still shouting for Sonny to come outside, and back to Sonny who shakily tries to open the doors. In a medium shot of Sonny and the hostage he brought outside, his head darts around, nervously chewing on his lip. The shot feels tight, almost airless, by trying to encompass two people in a medium shot. This claustrophobia mimics the fear of Sonny and the hostage, and inherently the viewer empathizes with them. The detective encourages him to step out more and look around. The shot matches as he cocks his head upward and it cuts to a subjective camera shot of snipers lining the roof, point down at the camera, but what we understand to be Sonny. The detective encourages Sonny to look the other way, and again the shot matches him turning, the subjective camera shot panning upwards to the snipers, then down to the mass of cops pointing their guns at the camera. Back to an objective, wide shot, Sonny begins nervously pacing in front of the bank, as he realizes the police have outdone him.
The detective, sensing that Sonny is panicking, and thinking of the hostages, begins bumbling about how what he’s done won’t get him too much jail time. In a medium close shot of Sonny’s face, the tension is both broken and heightened as he says, in his thick New York accent, “Kiss me” mouthing an offhand kiss, “When I get fucked I like to be kissed a lot.” The detective attempts to apologize, and, in a medium close-up, Sonny sees an opening as he turns his head. The match cut shows a cop adjacent to Sonny’s body pointing his gun.
Diegetic noise of both Sonny and the detective yelling at the cops erupts and both men lurch towards them, yelling to put their guns down. The continuity of the diegetic sounds of both men yelling matches cuts of the action between Sonny and the detective. Here, the power dynamics, which in the beginning lay in the hands of the detective and cops, shift as Sonny begins yelling “Attica”, as in the Attica Prison Riots, towards the crowds of on-lookers.
A wide shot of Sonny yelling and running from one side of the crowd to the other. The shot is no long claustrophobic, which emphasized Sonny’s fear, but now it is wide and expansive which mimics the power shift that has occurred. The camera match cuts to hippies in bellbottoms cheering and shaking their firsts. Then, jump cut to the bewildered faces of the police, back to close up of Sonny’s yelling, then to a wide shot of the crowd. The camera movement quickly moves back and forth, following Sonny’s rapid pacing as he yells, and mimicking the chaos of the scene. The yelling of police, detective, crowd, and Sonny fills our ears, heightening the tension. As the sound of a helicopter joins the discord, the shot matches to a shaky ariel perspective. Sonny is a small dot, running back and forth, scattering the armed police away from him.
Throughout the movie the shots and editing empathize with Sonny, this is just one example. The comradery and support he receives from his hostages and the crowd give Dog Day Afternoon a light and upbeat feel. But, in true neo-noir fashion, the dark undertones of the movie come to a head in the final scenes.
