Respecting vs. Exploiting Identity: Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 film directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Frank Pierson, based on the real life Brooklyn bank robber John Wojtowicz.

I had expectations. I figured it would be similar to other heist films. He’s going to rob a bank, nothing’s going to go according to plan and everything’s going to go wrong. That’s how it started but Dog Day Afternoon goes beyond the tropes associated with heist films by setting expectations and going against them.

John Wojtowicz refused to be interviewed for the film and the personal accounts collected were contradictory so Pierson concentrated on finding the one element each account shared.

He would be looking at you and he would say I’ll take care of you. I’ll make you happy and then he’ll fail and that’s the story of the bank.

It was about a guy who imagines he’s a magician who believes he can make everyone happy and whole and thereby gain their love and support but when he fails, as he inevitably does, he gets anger, rage and rejection.

— Sidney Lumet

*** Major spoilers ahead***

Dog Day Afternoon has a lot going on but what most people remember is the revelation that Sonny intended to use the bank money to pay for his partner’s sex reassignment surgery. It’s important to note that this information is given near the end of the movie. By then, similar to the bystanders watching the heist unravel, you as a viewer, have already established your own opinion of Sonny.

What is extraordinary about the film is its ability to introduce secondary characters that offer insight and further deepen our understanding of Sonny without exploitation. The integrity of the inner conflict and identity of each character remains intact.

That’s largely due to Pacino’s input on a scene between Sonny and Leon.

Sidney Lumet: Al said, ‘I’m not going to do it. I can’t do it this way.’

There was a moment in which the cops brought the Chris Sarandon character to the door of the bank to try to talk the Pacino character to come out of the bank and at the end of it, as they said goodbye, they kissed each other on the lips and parted.

Al said ‘I’d like to ask you a question.’

And I said, ‘Go ahead.’

He said, ‘I know enough about you to know you’ve had a fairly interesting love life’ because I had been married a couple times.

He said, ‘When those came to an end how often does sex come into it?’

And I said ‘Never. That’s not what that’s about.’

And he said, ‘Well, that’s the point I want to make. You don’t have to keep reminding them by pushing the gay issue here. Why do you have to keep pushing that in the audience’s face? They already know it. Why can’t you just make a picture about two people who love each other and cannot find a way to live with each other?’

I thought basically that the most important thing to capture was the human conflict, the human cry, the human need and to tap that, to try to find that somehow and convey it in this bizarre situation and I thought that a kiss seemed to me exploitive in a way.

— Al Pacino

The result?

Dog Day Afternoon is compelling and is the product of thoughtful creative decisions inspired and driven by the human condition.

Learn more about Dog Day Afternoon’s Structure here. Watch the film on Amazon Prime here.