Dog Day Afternoon (Spoilers)

Rating: 9/10 (24 September 2012)

Che Wiechart MLK: Dog Day Afternoon
During "Dog Day Afternoon" the viewer's watch as a poorly organized bank robbery takes place by three average male figures. The robbers dwindle down to the two figures that become the main characters of the film, Sunny and Sal. The rest of the film becomes about how they deal with the stages of the robbery gone wrong and the slow decline of their beliefs of a possible escape.
Many elements in this film represented meaningful messages that a close eye could make complete awareness of. The beginning of the film the camera shows different views of the city in which the story takes place. It pans from a well-kept city locations to the not so great looking areas. This shows that every good thing has a bad side, showing that good and bad happen in all situations. In context of "Dog Day Afternoon" it resembles Sunny's personality. It the beginning he attempts at the bad robber, yet ultimately fails at such role. He then becomes compassionate, hindering to the needs of his hostages in ways such as getting them pizza and sodas, to having aspirin delivered (Analysis). Another aspect of the film became the use of guns. These showed who had power and control of the situation. However, Sunny uses the use of guns as an attack against the police, thus guns become a intimidation to the situation (Analysis). The white handkerchief used by Sunny to represent a sign of good intentions. Whenever he flashed the handkerchief he had the intention of doing well and bringing no harm to anyone. It also came as a sign of defeat, he left the safety of the bank and his gun in order to listen to what the head police officer had to explain (Analysis). The broken air conditioner represents how heated the situation becomes. When the air conditioner broke Sunny and Sal became desperate for a solution of escape. The heat represents the scrutiny in which Sunny and Sal find themselves under (Analysis).
When evaluating a message the judging of an element to some other standard occurs. In terms of "Dog Day Afternoon" the question that the audience asked became, do Sunny and Sal fit the common identity of a bank robber? In terms of today's society a "bank robber" fits under the terms of menacing violent people who will stop at nothing in order to achieve what he or she desires. However, Sunny and Sal appear complete opposite, actually becoming concerned for their hostages. They even sent someone out for pizza, soda, and aspirin because the hostages had not had dinner yet. The complete opposite of what people think of when bank robbers come to mind (Evaluation).
In judging the message element to some standard grouping becomes apparent. In "Dog Day Afternoon" numerous grouping situations happen. The love relationship between Sunny and Leon compared to that of Sunny and Angie posed as a grouping instant. It showed the different love that Sunny had for other people. Saul and his quietness also posed as a grouping method in this film. Saul became a man of little words through the entire operation as Sunny took over the role of communicator (Grouping).
When one infers a pattern across a small set of elements, then generalizing the pattern to all elements take place. In this situation, how did usual media choices influent the meanings found in "Dog Day Afternoon"? Bank robbers generally interest society because many movie producers make movies about such situations sparking said interest. Sunny and Sal did not describe the typical robber. They had soft easily broken demeanors, whereas other robbers do not. The predispositions people have about bank robbers led the audience the seriousness of the robbery did not impose such a threat (Induction).
When using general principles to explain particulars in "Dog Day Afternoon" one deems bank robbers as extremely threatening peoples. In other words these general principles discerned from past experiences lead the audience to believe that the robbers in this film held them same demeanor of extremely threatening. Even though this assumption proves faulty by the outplaying of events during the film and the audience views a completely different side of Sunny and Sal (Deduction).
Synthesizing a message means assembling elements into a new structure and during "Dog Day Afternoon" the air conditioner actually quit working. The audience then witnesses everyone beginning to take off clothing items almost as if the heat of the situation overcame everyone. It kept getting hotter throughout the duration of the robbery. Sunny and Sal appeared the worse in the sweat department. They appeared more sweat than anyone in the bank because their actions made them both paranoid (Synthesis).
The essence of "Dog Day Afternoon" comes down to the doing anything for a loved one. Sunny robbed the bank in order to help Leon, and Sal helped Sunny because of their friendship. However all this occurred in an unorganized manner all that Sunny and Sal wanted, the happiness they wanted, became their ultimate ending. They showed this by none of Sunny's ideas working out every time he attempted at coming up with a solution (Abstracting).