It’s important to not only view a film in the context of current societal norms, but when viewing older films it’s just as important to think of them in the context of how it would have been perceived when it was originally released. This is easy enough when it comes to visual effects, but when it comes to societal norms and thematic material it’s importance goes beyond what’s visually believable.
Released in 1971 on the heels of the unanticipated success of Midnight Cowboy, John Schlesinger‘s Sunday Bloody Sunday centers on a trio of Londoners. Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch) is a middle-aged, Jewish doctor, Alex (Glenda Jackson) is a thirty-something divorcee and between the two is Bob (Murray Head), a young artist who is sleeping with both of them.
Bob isn’t keeping his love affair secret from either Daniel or Alex, both of which do their best to understand while craving his attention and affection. Outside the pure human desire to want what we can’t have, the film comes away asking whether it’s simply enough just to love and be loved. For both Alex and Daniel it clearly is not, but they don’t have much of a say in the matter other than to walk away.
Bob’s decision to string them along could be viewed in a couple of lights. On the one hand, he’s been upfront about the situation and hasn’t led either one of them on. On the other hand — even though he’s been clear in his intentions — his inability to recognize and prevent the hurt he’s causing the two people that so obviously love him, or, at the very least, need him, is selfish and potentially psychologically destructive.
What we’re talking about here is to look at the film from a narrative perspective, but to look at it from a societal and cultural viewpoint is to see how daring it truly is.
The beauty of Sunday Bloody Sunday is Schlesinger’s unwillingness to exploit the fact Daniel is gay and is carrying on a relationship with a bisexual man. The story is presented as a relationship drama, not a gay relationship drama or even a bisexual relationship drama. Instead, those descriptors are looked at as natural human elements. Gay or straight, a relationship is a relationship and as presented here, they all come with the same pitfalls.
As for Daniel when and where he is open about his sexuality does play a role.
The most colorful and lively seen in the film takes place at a Bar Mitzvah for Daniel’s nephew, at which several of his family members urge him to find a woman and settle down. His response is to say he simply hasn’t found the right person yet. This comes well into the feature, once the audience has grown attached to Daniel, Bob and Alex and can easily slide into his uncomfortable shoes given the situation.
Too often in today’s entertainment gays are presented as punchlines or as Ian Buruma puts it in his essay included with this Criterion release: “Gay characters in the movies had to that point almost always been depicted as deviants — criminals, tormented drunks, or limp-wristed, lisping creatures — allowing straight audiences to feel superior or comfortably amused.” Sunday Bloody Sunday bucks that norm in a big way and I felt this year’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower did an equally, if different, great job presenting a gay character in a light not normally explored by today’s entertainment.
Considering the societal and cultural implications, Sunday Bloody Sunday is a film that would be considered controversial even today, let alone in the early seventies. By comparison, Perks still manages to present Ezra Miller’s character with a level of humor, but where Sunday Bloody Sunday excels is in stripping away the humor and presenting a real life narrative that eliminates the thought of sexual preference and, hopefully, leaves you to only think about the relationship stakes rather than the gender of those in the relationship.
When it comes to Criterion’s presentation, this is a film with all the earmarks of a classic ’70s feature you’re looking for. Rich photography and an included interview with cinematographer Billy Williams goes into all the lighting and camera tricks that make it such a complex and textured film experience. One thing I found particularly interesting was him saying he tends to visualize his films in black-and-white rather than color so as to present the proper lightly for a scene, avoiding hard, studio lights and presenting more softer, realistic shadows.
This caught my attention because of an old interview with Peter Bogdanovich on the Dick Cavett Show in which the discussion turned to his shooting Last Picture Show in black-and-white and him saying how easy it was for him to convince the studio, but then he added, “John Schlesinger told me that he wanted to make Sunday Bloody Sunday in black and white. And they wouldn’t let him.” I wonder if Williams showed something in his previous work that caught Schlesinger’s eye to the point he felt Williams could as closely approximate his black-and-white vision, but in color.
Additional interviews on the disc are equally fascinating including one with Head and another with production designer Luciana Arrighi. Two other pieces, one an interview with Schlesinger’s longtime partner, photographer Michael Childers and a longer one with Schlesinger biographer William J. Mann, tend to cover similar territory to what is brought up by the principals as well as an illustrated 1975 audio interview with Schlesinger himself. My suggestion is to start at the top and work your way down.
Sunday Bloody Sunday is a rare film of this sort that I can actually see myself finding the desire to return to more often than most. The performances are stellar. Peter Finch is, more often than not, remembered for his Oscar-winning performance in Network, but the understated and controlled manner in which he plays Daniel and the way Head and Jackson also take on their characters is something you owe it to yourself to see if you haven’t already. On top of that, you’ll get a look at a young Daniel Day-Lewis in his first ever film role as it appears the man who would play Abraham Lincoln got his start vandalizing parked cars.
Criterion’s release presents a nearly flawless image with a minimal but worthy number of supplemental material to keep you engaged. You can buy Sunday Bloody Sunday from Criterion on [amazon asin=”B008MPQ0N6″ text=”Blu-ray”] or [amazon asin=”B008MPQ14Y” text=”DVD”] now.
