Perhaps groundbreaking in its time for exhibiting gay content... - Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) Discussion

[–] octhrice 17 years ago

lies, all lies. This is a truly remarkable film. Especially by today's standards. I dare anyone in Hollywood to make a film as absorbing, provocative and ambitious as this.

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[–] gnolti 17 years ago

Agreed. What's more, words like "sentimental" need to be defined; otherwise I'll have to dismiss such comments as merely judgemental. Did the poster mean "exhibits empathy for its central characters"? Or "dramatizes the effect of the breakup of relationships in a way that isn't casually ironic or dismissive"?

What separates SBS from contemporary films about relationships is that filmgoers as a group have become pretty jaded about their inner lives and emotions in general and the inner lives and emotions of others.

Sorry, I wasn't listening -- or thinking, whichever one applies.

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[–] Kinematico 16 years ago

Agree with the OP. "SBS" it's an utterly dull piece of work.

Albeit I gotta admit that Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson made a remarkable job considering the material they had to work with.

Gimme Bergman or Antonioni any given day!

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[–] gioconda91423 10 years ago

Groundbreaking material, but a mistake in casting Murray Head as the pivotal character. This is discussed elsewhere on a different thread, but it makes no sense why the other two characters would be controlled by this young man who was the object of their desires. Probably Terrance Stamp could have retooled this character to have been so appealing that nobody could resist him. The way Murray portrayed him the guy was so vapid and dumb I could not buy him as an artist either. He was simply uninteresting.

I'm curious if this is how the character was written in the book.

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[–] ronfirv 10 years ago

Another actor might have done better in the role but actually I did see something in him - he did possess a certain beauty.
Perhaps other actors shied away from such a groundbreaking film, only 3 years remember after homosexuality was legalised in England,and were too nervous to take the role. They would fear it would damage their futures in film.
Look at Brokeback Mt made 10 years ago - Mark Wahlberg and Colin Farrell to name but two wouldn't touch the parts, and that in times far more enlightened than 1970! So credit to actors for taking the roles at all - please judge them by the standards of their times.
It is all very well to be blase in more liberal times but as newly out of my teens and a gay young man, I was even fearful of being seen going into a gay bar in my home city, and MH am sure, would have had questions raised about his own sexuality after making this film, as that was how the general public thought, even at the end of the so-called Swinging Sixties.

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[–] Helena727 9 years ago

Perhaps other actors shied away from such a groundbreaking film

I would think so. According to wikipedia (not always reliable, but this rings true, "Ian Bannen was fired from the role of Daniel Hirsh shortly after filming began. Apparently, he was so nervous about what kissing another actor onscreen might do to his career, he could not concentrate enough to even get going with the part." Not the Murray Head role, but both male roles were challenging in that regard.

It is all very well to be blase in more liberal times

Amen. Also from wikipedia: "The film is significant for its time in that Finch's homosexual character is depicted as successful and relatively well-adjusted, and not particularly upset by his sexuality. In this sense, Sunday Bloody Sunday was a considerable departure from Schlesinger's previous film Midnight Cowboy, which had portrayed its gay characters as alienated and self-loathing."

And on a personal note, echoing what you wrote: In 1982 (supposedly a semi-enlightened time) in a very liberal college town, one of my best friends was beaten up by two gay-bashers as he stood outside a gay bar, waiting for another friend -- a woman -- to arrive. And my friend -- a reserved man who did not and does not call attention to himself in any setting -- did nothing that the gay-bashers could have claimed was objectionable. (Not that ANYTHING justifies assaulting another human simply for being different from the assaulter, but there are plenty of tinybrains on this site who will think that my friend came on to the bashers, which he did not.)

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

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[–] Helena727 9 years ago

Probably Terrance Stamp could have retooled this character to have been so appealing that nobody could resist him.

I was thinking about your post as I rewatched SBS -- was thinking what it would have been like had Jon Finch (who plays "the Scotsman" -- the pickup) played Bob -- JFinch was not only a great actor but also handsome + sexy + compelling. And fwiw, I think that would have been too distracting -- the focus would have been pulled away from PFinch and Jackson (the movie is more their story, the story of how each responds to and copes with this painful situation), plus the audience would have been distracted by its longing for Bob.

Much of the story's power comes from the fact that Bob, tho physically attractive, isn't all that dynamic; I think he makes everyone in the audience uncomfortably aware of how easy it is to fall for someone unsuitable / unworthy, someone who you know will make you unhappy yet you're powerless to not-start and not-participate-in the relationship.

I'm curious if this is how the character was written in the book.

It was commissioned as a screenplay (not based on an earlier work).
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."

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