DOG DAY AFTERNOON · HUNDSTAGE - Black Box Filmmuseum Düsseldorf

In the organizer's words:

DOG DAY AFTERNOON - DOG DAYS

USA 1975 - 119 min - DF - 35mm - FSK 12 - D: Sidney Lumet - B: Frank Pierson - C: Victor J. Kemper - D: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, James Broderick

A bank robbery in Brooklyn gets out of hand and turns into a siege that attracts police, media and onlookers. Robbers Sonny and Sal are trapped, hostages locked up, demands change - and the longer the day goes on, the more the lines between perpetrator and victim become blurred.
The film is loosely based on a real-life bank robbery from 1972, the details of which - especially the personal motivation of the ringleader Sonny - were the subject of national debate at the time. Screenwriter Frank Pierson focused less on the criminal sequence of events than on their psychological and social dimensions. His Oscar-winning screenplay dispenses with clear moral classifications. Director Sidney Lumet, who began his career in live television, staged the material with precise observation and almost documentary-like immediacy. DOG DAY AFTERNOON was made at a time when New Hollywood was breaking with the conventions of the US studio system. The result is a film that combines formal precision with social analysis and transforms a real event into a drama about public perception, identity and powerlessness.

The film will be shown again on April 30 at 8 pm (without introduction).

Introduction on 28.4.: Philipp Hanke (Filmmuseum)