Sunday Bloody Sunday
Picture: C+
Sound: C Extras: D Film: B-
After the classic Midnight Cowboy (1969) was a huge
commercial and critical success, the late, great director John Schlesinger gave
us Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971).
It has fallen into a semi-obscurity, with some asking if it is about the
famous Irish massacre of nearly the same name, but it is from Penelope
Gilliatt’s screenplay about a bi-sexual artist (Murray Head, later known for
the hit records “Jesus Christ, Superstar” and “One Night in Bangkok”)
who is having affairs with a couple in love.
Dr. Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch) and Alex Grenville (Glenda Jackson) are
seriously involved, but that does not stop Bob (Head) from floating between the
two.
On one level, the triangle is only the tip of the portrait
of lives during a freer-thinking and open time that resulted from the Summer of
Love, The Beatles, Vietnam, and the Sexual Revolution and Carnaby Street. That triangle is countered by the odd family
Alex is good friends with, enough so that she baby-sits while the parents go
away for the weekend. The kids are
unusually precocious, have a strange pet monkey, a dog, and mother has actually
left a glass of milk for the baby that comes from her! She tells this to her daughter, but does not
warn Alex.
Alex and Daniel have their own unresolved issues, which
make subtle manipulation possible on Bob’s part. These older people are not very happy with their lives and feel
more alive when with free-style Bob.
This is a smart, mature film, but falls short in several ways. It has not aged well, putting it in the time
capsule category to some extent.
Jackson and Finch have more to do and give than Head, who is just
convincing enough as a free-love kind of guy, but aren’t the others paying some
kind of price, begin distracted by him instead of resolving their personal
issues? Yes. Perhaps Schlesinger was trying to express the emptiness or limits
of this way of living, as well as dealing further with homosexuality in a way Midnight
Cowboy started. Daniel and Bob are
certainly not the happy airheads with little-to-no-to-limited education or
political awareness we have seen since the “let’s ignore the AIDS crisis” Gay
New Wave films and Schlesinger’s work mows down most of that cycles (and post-cycles)
output. However, the film drags, not
because it is careful and thorough in how it develops its characters, but
because the film cannot decide between the relationship and the lifestyles of
the day. Splitting the two hurts the
film in the long run.
The 1.66 X 1 image is an old analog transfer likely used
previously on the Criterion Collection LaserDisc, which also applies to the
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono from the PCM CD tracks of that release. This is the first time the film has been
issued on DVD and only the second time ever widescreen. At least the aspect ratio is correct, unlike
the 30th Anniversary DVD of Midnight Cowboy, which was
inexplicably and unnecessarily cut the image down to 1.85 X 1. That film was also a Criterion LaserDisc,
which has better color and the proper 1.66 X 1 ratio. The only extra is the original theatrical trailer, which does not
seem to have been on the Criterion release.
Perhaps the film was trying to show the emptiness of
relationships, no matter what the era, but Schlesinger succeeded doing this
kind of thing better in Midnight Cowboy. Being more explicit is not a bad thing, though, and Sunday
Bloody Sunday is at least worth a look for its fine performances and
moments in time we will never see again.
- Nicholas Sheffo
