MovieChat Forums > Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) Discussion > What it's really about

What it's really about

posted 18 years ago by cherns-2
15 replies | jump to latest

I love this film; whenever I feel bad, I watch it and I feel better. In a way I see it as a very didactic film: it's about coping in the face of disappointment, heartbreak, or injury.

This is evident in the main plot: Neither Alex or Daniel are getting all they really want from Bob, and he feels that they're encroaching too much on his precious freedom. He flees to America, and both of his lovers are rueful, but still wistful, not at all sorry to have been with him, and surviving--Alex will take care of Bob's parrot (as I recall--it's been a while), Daniel will go to Italy alone, and he tells us directly, in that amazing last scene, that he's sad, but really ok. And maybe Bob will eventually come back, to either or both of them.

(Incidentally, I wonder how many people realized that Bob is played by the actor who plays Judas in the original album of Jesus Christ Superstar, or that his brother played Buffy's Watcher.)

But the theme comes through even stronger in so many of the "side stories," from the first words of the film, "Does it hurt when I press here?" (or something similar), to the man who has to be reassured that he doesn't have cancer. The children are upset about the death of the dog, but are playing by evening. (They also know that their mother is having an affair, and we must presume that their father accepts this.) The parents of the accident victim ask Daniel whether their badly-injured daughter might be better off dead, and he recoils--oh, no, I'd never say that, she can still live a sort of life. Alex's too-old client is able to get jobs, at least for a while, with his facelifts. Alex's mother tells her that she's unlikely to find complete happiness. They're all surviving--not flourishing, but coping. And, the film tells us, so can we all. Personally, I find this very comforting. --Howard

Rise again, rise again,
Though your heart, it be broken, your life about to end,
No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Be like the Mary Ellen Carter:
Rise again! --Stan Rogers

[–] irenethom 18 years ago

it also had a really good ending.

[–] Kinematico 16 years ago

I disagree about the ending. I hate when the actors address to the camera (therefore to the audience).
Except for a few movies where that gimmick really works (as in Jodorowsky's "The Holy Mountain"), usually that kind of scenes ruins the movies.

Why not to end with Dr. Hirsh's voice-over instead of breaking the magic of film? in "The Holy Mountain" it had a clear and valid purpose (To wake up everybody from the mystical-surrealist trip). But I don't see any valid reason for this kind of ending in "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

[–] mike-1828 16 years ago

I really don't see how you could say this. Look at Finch's face and see the pain there.
Brilliant film.

[–] som1950 11 years ago

It's a toucan not a parrot, but I agree with you that this is a terrific movie (now augmented by very interesting bonus features on an immaculate Criterion Collection edition).

Daniel goes on, not regretting his time with Bob, but aware that Bob was not the ideal other he sought and seeks. His glass is half-full, Alex's half-empty?

[–] ronfirv 11 years ago

His glass is perhaps half-full but hardly less lonely than Alex. He looked bereft out in the garden, almost a look of destined to be alone. Sad.

[–] rgcustomer 11 years ago

Daniel speaks for his benefit, not ours. They're both more than half-empty.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] cherns-2 11 years ago

I had known that Murray Head had been in the Benny & Bjorn & Tim piece Chess, and I had heard the song, but I had not seen the video; many thanks for the link.

Later: I'm not sure just why the previous post was deleted, but it was a link to a YouTube video of Murray Head singing "One Night In Bangkok" in the musical Chess, by the ABBA guys and Tim Rice of Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Raincoat. Either https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnqj31VPNoE or similar.

[–] Helena727 9 years ago

Thanks for a thoughtful (ruminative) and insightful post.

My response to the ending is somewhat different; I'm going to cheat and post Roger Ebert's comments, bc he sums it up better than I could:

"The official East Coast line on John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday was that it is civilized. That judgment was enlisted to carry the critical defense of the movie; and, indeed, how can the decent critic be against a civilized movie about civilized people? My notion, all the same, is that 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' is about people who suffer from psychic amputation, not civility, and that this film is not an affirmation but a tragedy...I think 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' is a masterpiece, but I don't think it's about what everybody else seems to think it's about. This is not a movie about the loss of love, but about its absence."

"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people."

[–] cherns-2 9 years ago

Thanks for pointing me to the Ebert review, which had some points I found very insightful. I think, though, that most of the evidence, especially with the side stories, supports my interpretation. I agree with Ebert in a sort of way--I see the film as not about the loss of love, but about the impossibility (well, rarity anyway) of true and complete love, and about making do with as much life and as much love as we can find in this very imperfect world.

(I don't know if I mentioned it before on this board, but, as I recall from the Criterion edition I saw a while ago, actor Murray Head said about his character something like, "God, how could anyone love someone so self-centred and callow?")

[–] Helena727 9 years ago

Now that I've rewatched it, I must say that I agree with you and not Ebert. And even the comments above about "half-full vs half-empty" show (I think) our (= humans) not-realistic desire to have things spelled out/defined. Life is incredibly complicated; no one ever gets what s/he wants or thinks s/he wants, plus nothing we get is ever what we think it's going to be -- but none of that is necessarily bad. Painful sometimes, but not even entirely painful, perhaps. I think about the yin/yang symbol -- not just half-black/half-white, but the dot of white in the black and vice versa.

PS: From the essay "Making Sunday Bloody Sunday" by Penelope Gilliatt:

... a packed and grown-up film about compromises, piercing breakups, decisions both impossible and necessary.

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2524-making-sunday-bloody-sunday

"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people."

[–] cherns-2 9 years ago

When I was working on my college paper, my editor wanted to write an editorial about the fact that the previous week had contained some positive events and some negative ones. He thought that he'd call the editorial "Yin and Yang," and dispatched one of the reporters to talk to the Professor of Eastern Religions to find out which was which. Mistake--it wasn't that straightforward, and the reporter got an explanation that told him much more about Yin and Yang than he had thought possible. (I see that Wikipedia has a reasonably long article as well.) I guess that the movie is telling us that neither life nor love, nor probably everything else, are unalloyed good or bad.

Thanks for the link.

[–] federovsky 8 years ago

I have difficulty believing we're supposed to feel sorry for any of these people. They have every privilege and advantage - Alex can even walk away from her job. They simply don't have the right partner, and at their age, with their advantages of social status and intellect, that's worth no more than a shrug.

What the film is really all about is demonstrating that sexual inversion exists in a prosaic way in ordinary society (in fact, upstanding, professional, conservative, and religiously moral society). It was subverting the idea that there is anything subversive about it. That must have been quite a revelation at the time. It's really all about Daniel and Bob. Alex is thrown in mainly because without her the film could not have been made or released, but her story is really neither here nor there.

[–] cherns-2 8 years ago

Seems to me that problems of the heart can afflict any humans, regardless of privilege and advantage, and that they are deserving of a certain sympathy. Sure, their problems are not as great as those of many others who are in need of food, shelter, or safety, but their problems are real nonetheless.

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_inversion_%28sexology%29 confirms my understanding that "sexual inversion" is a pretty dated term:

Sexual inversion is a term used by sexologists, primarily in the late 19th and early 20th century, to refer to homosexuality. Sexual inversion was believed to be an inborn reversal of gender traits: male inverts were, to a greater or lesser degree, inclined to traditionally female pursuits and dress and vice versa

Certainly we don't see Daniel or Bob wearing dresses or engaging in traditionally-female "pursuits." They have a romance, and I believe that this romance is where the movie starts, not ends.

If your point is that the whole point of the film is the counter-subversive idea that homosexuality can be "prosaic," then I believe that you are missing out on a lot that the movie has to offer.

LATER: I've been re-reading some of the other posts on this board, and I've been thinking of the film's last line, by Daniel, something like "And I've only come about my cough." It occurs to me that it's an indirect way of saying something like, "Of course I realize that you're not really interested in hearing a long sad story about my heartbreak." Daniel recognizes that he is far from unique, that everyone has a sad story of heartbreak, and that everyone gets over it (or maybe not) and soldiers on, as will he.

[–] federovsky 8 years ago

Sure, everyone can be miserable, but some people have less excuse than others. Alex and Daniel really didn't have much excuse because of their socio-economic status. I'm afraid that undermined much of the intended pathos for me.

As to 'inversion' - perhaps I'm pioneering a modern usage of the word.