Dog Day Afternoon

The screening of Dog Day Afternoon on April 11 at Muranów cinema will be preceded by a 15-minute TEDx-style talk led by Maciej Jarkowiec.

Similarly to Woody Allen’s Manhattan, Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon opens with a montage of images of New York, but instead of Gershwin’s Blue Rhapsody, however, the sequence is set to Elton John’s Amoreen. Instead of a fireworks display over the city’s skyline, we see a Doberman rummaging through an overturned dumpster and a homeless man sleeping on the street. Somewhere in the background, we can glimpse an ad for A Star Is Born flashing on a cinema marquee. That star is Sonny Wortzik (formidable Al Pacino). He and his buddies are getting out of a car parked outside a bank in Brooklyn just as the security guard is rolling up the American flag, preparing to close up for the day.

The true story of the robbery which unfolded in front of rolling TV cameras allowed the filmmakers to explore the crisis affecting American society. The metropolis is not a romantic playground for Allen’s intellectuals, but the arena of societal decline. Lumet talks about capitalism, war, inequality, and rage as well as a new, yet unnamed medium – reality TV. Sonny Wortzik: “Look, I’m here with my partner and nine other people, see. And we’re dying, man. You know? You’re going to see our brains on the sidewalk, they’re going to spill our guts out. Now, are you going to show that on television?”

Maciej Jarkowiec

Sidney Lumet (1924–2011) was a master of American social cinema, crafting intense dramas about moral dilemmas and abuses of power. His debut, 12 Angry Men (1957), became a courtroom classic and a model of cinematic precision. In Serpico (1973) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975), he captured the struggles of outsiders challenging the system, while Network (1976) remains one of the sharpest media satires. Lumet combined realism with dynamic storytelling, immersing audiences in narratives about justice and authority. His films continue to set the standard for intelligent and socially engaged cinema.