UK drama
1971
color 110 min.
Director: John Schlesinger
CLV: out-of-print collectible
           1 disc, catalog # CC1284L
Sunday,
Bloody Sunday is a film about . . . what? Love? Obsession?
Homosexuality? Heterosexuality? Bisexuality? Masochism? The horrors of
societal convention? The existential condition? Telephones?The
possibilities are infinite -- and still, after 20 years, infinitely
intriguing. Despite the fact that society has become fairly
unshockable in the two decades since John Schlesinger's controversial
masterpiece made moviegoers squirm with its bold, bleak portrayal of
unrequited love, gay and otherwise, Sunday, Bloody Sunday is as
jolting and thought-provoking as ever. Originally devised, in the
words of screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt, as a "grown-up film about
compromises, piercing break-ups, decisions both impossible and
necessary," the final product went far beyond this basic conception to
become a statement on alienation that covers, it seems, virtually all
the bases of contemporary life.
Through the x-ray eyes of
Schlesinger and ace camerman Billy Williams -- both of whom seem to be
able to penetrate every nook and cranny of the mind and its
projections -- Sunday, Bloody Sunday transcends the
"relationship" genre. It blossoms into a commentary on distance,
barriers, isolation and communication going awry in a technological
world which, ironically enough, prides itself on its advanced
communications capabilities. Contrary to what many viewers may think,
the film's main character is not really Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch),
the sensitive, cultured homosexual physician; or the disorganized,
searching Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson), employment counselor by day,
bohemian by night; or Bob Elkin (Murray Head), their narcissistic,
will o' the wisp mutual lover. The primary character in Sunday,
Bloody Sunday is really the telephone, which reigns supreme as the
coldblooded master of everyone's moods and destinies, systematically
shattering people's illusions of connectedness.
From the moment
Sunday, Bloody Sunday opens, the telephone's primacy is
established. Sitting at his office desk, Daniel is shot in the
background, nearly dwarfed by the phone in the foreground. As he's
talking with a patient, the phone rings. He takes the call -- it's his
lover, Bob -- and is immediately put into the placating position he
will assume throughout the film. "I'm with a patient. Can I ring you
back? Try and stay in for just a few minutes, will you? Just stay
there for a few minutes, can't you?"
But Bob can't stay there, or
anywhere else in Daniel's life, for more than a few minutes. By the
time Daniel calls him back, Bob's line is busy -- and then he's
gone. In mounting agitation Daniel calls in for his messages, only to
be greeted by the blissfully unsympathetic voice of a matronly
answering service lady (Bessie Love) who gets Bob's name wrong. Daniel
reprimands her; later, as the power behind the phone/throne, she takes
revenge on him by letting his calls go unanswered as she does a
sinister bit of knitting.
And the telephone has plenty of
dialogue. Throughout the film, its noises become familiar sound
effects, linking one scene and one character to the next. As Daniel
makes yet another futile attempt to phone Bob, the dreary dialing of
the old rotary phone becomes a metaphor for the vicious circle in
which he's found himself. As he holds the receiver, the incessant
blare of the unanswered rings continues into the next scene, where we
first see Alex, on the phone, also trying vainly to reach Bob.
One
of the wonderful things about Sunday, Bloody Sunday is the
inventive way it observes the complexities of the human
psyche. Traveling into disjointed flashback, into tortured fantasy,
the languid, moody camera vividly mimics the way the mind
works. Memories, dreams and fears dominate the thoughts of Daniel and
Alex, looming large and disintegrating as the nostalgic past and
intangible future explode against the brick wall of the present. And,
as the telephone is accorded full character status, its inner workings
are also open to dissection. The camera accentuates Daniel's and
Alex's frustration with their victim status as it pans across the
brilliantly colored tangle of wires and flashing lights of the
answering service, or the wires and circuitry of the phone itself.
Sunday, Bloody Sunday's chief triumph, I think, lies in its
perfect blend of substance and style. It is both a visual and a
structural tour de force, and although Schlesinger has plenty of fun
with the medium of film, he never allows cinematic pretension to
overwhelm the poignance of the small, resigned moments that make up
most of life. In one of the movie's most telling bits of dialogue,
when Daniel attemps to reassure the parents of a girl who might be
paralyzed for life, he remarks, "People can manage on very little." He
is, of course, talking about himself -- and about most of us.
People
can "manage" on very little -- but is this what it's all about? As
Sunday, Bloody Sunday winds down to its lonely conclusion, we
are left to grapple with the question of whether or not survival is
the same thing as living. And although, in the logic of our world, we
know it is not, the heart has reasons, as Pascal remarked, that reason
knows not of. And so, Daniel speaks of all of us when he says, just
before things fade to black, "Now I want his company and people say,
what's half a loaf, you're well shot of him. And I say, I know that, I
miss him, that's all . . . Something. We were something. You've no
right to call me to account."
-- MARY BETH
CRAIN
Credits
Director: John Schlesinger
Producer:
Joseph Janni
Screenplay: Penelope Gilliatt
Special Music: Ron
Geesin
Director of Music: Douglas Gamley
Director of
Photography: Billy Williams, B.S.C.
Designed by: Luciana
Arrighi
Editor: Richard Marden
Costumes Designed by: Jocelyn
Rickards
Set Decorator: Harry Cordwell
Associate Producer:
Edward Joseph
Transfer
This edition of Sunday, Bloody
Sunday was transferred from a 35mm fine grain print. The
soundtrack was mastered from a 35mm magnetic track.