Reply #22: I doubt he regretted it, and I think there is much to admire in it [View All]

[fishwax]

I'm not saying there aren't problems with the movie, but it was pretty unusual (groundbreaking even) in depicting a gay/bisexual character with nuance and depth and in creating a bisexual (anti-)hero that the audience is encouraged to identify with. (By the time the audience learns that Sonny has a male lover/wife and is robbing the bank to pay for his lover's sex-change operation, the film is half over and the audience has already been charmed by the man.)

Sometimes the film has been criticized for sensationalism, but Lumet worked to avoid that, refusing to film scenes that he knew the studio would exploit to make the film notorious for marketing purposes. Frank Pierson (who wrote the screenplay) said that the original script included a variety of sex-oriented jokes about the relationship between Sonny and his transsexual wife, as well as an onscreen kiss between the characters. Al Pacino talked him into removing the innuendo, believing that it would prevent the audience from identifying with the character and would ultimately establish their relationship as a subject of ridicule instead of treating it with respect. As a result, they cut out much of the crude humor and had Sonny say goodbye to his lover on the phone in an emotional conversation that, rather than being about sex, is about the emotional connection between these two men. (Sidney Lumet has said that the resulting phone call, which comes back to back with Sonny's phone call to his legal wife, is among the best/most moving things he's ever seen on screen.)

Probably the film's most memorable scene is when Sonny screams "Attica! Attica!" The crowd behind the police barricades is galvanized by the chant. It's a diverse crowd, including gay rights protesters, blue collar workers, African-Americans, and so on, but they are united in a sense of injustice, and I think the inclusion of the question of gay rights in that discussion of injustice was pretty unusual for a film in 1975.

Like I said, it isn't perfect, but at the time it was generally seen as a pretty groundbreaking film, I think. Also, I don't know whether it marked the first time a bisexual male character or a transsexual character earned an Academy Award nomination (both Pacino and Chris Sarandon, who played his lover, were nominated), but I'm sure there couldn't have been many prior to that.