American culture, crime, and cinema all interact in a muddled twist until one is inseparable from the other. Consider how Cops! (dir. Cline, Keaton, 1922) acts as a direct response to and informs the public’s conception of early police forces and their perceived ineptitude toward ridiculous, indifferent criminals. In contrast, Dog Day Afternoon (dir. Lumet, 1975), while still a response to and an informative retelling of a real crime and the police’s reaction to it, depicts police as an established, capable force that contends, in the counterculture of the ‘70s, a criminal who is equal parts morally ambiguous and complexly motivated.
To fully understand how culture, crime, and culture in early 1900s America intertwine, it is important to understand the culture leading up to the featured film, Cops! As of the early 1900s, the moving image was still a relatively new concept. It relied on the visuals to entertain the audience. To be inclusive and universal, comedy tended to be the most popular genre, specifically, slapstick comedy.
Important to note was Mack Sennett, who set the precedent for the best slapstick comedies of the time. His films tended to be “wild, chaotic comedy exploits” with endings that “usually involved a wild chase, with legions of figures racing across the screen until the rival was defeated” (Kline). Sennett specialized in entertainment and set the standard for short, silent comedies that used exaggerated gags to keep audiences entertained.
However, after a few decades, the attraction of the moving image started to dawdle, technology got better, and audiences got restless. “The brief gags and bursts of action that characterized shorter films would not suffice as material for longer works” (Keli, 4). Simply put,
attention spans were getting shorter, so the content needed to be more captivating. Thus, narrative cinema was born. There was a step away from the continuous, long shot reminiscent of the theater and a step closer to the editing and language of film today. The edit began to tell the story with close-ups, establishing shots, camera movement – all juxtaposed against each other to create a deeper meaning. “Formalism encourages the appraisal of specific elements of the medium but always with attention to the functions they perform, the systemic interrelationship to those functions, and their historical relevance” (Keli, 7). In other words, formalism and narrative cinema broke film into elements – the cut, the shot, the edit – and made them interact within a broader historic context. All this to say, the context of American culture and the development of cinema cannot be separated. As the culture evolved, the cinema did as well.
Consider the still from a pivotal scene in Cops!. It creates a narrative within the scene to keep the public entertained. While the still is a long shot, in the film, it is contrasted with close-ups, massive sets, and a ton of interactive props. It was not theater-esque any longer. Cinema took a larger step in refining its form and content. Cops! tells a story not just through acting, props, and sets, but through the edit itself, through juxtaposition of shots, spatiality, and blocking. The form of the film tells the story – the foolish criminal with a sea of policemen behind him works as a visual thesis of the film.
As a newer institution, the police force did not have the notoriety of today. It was seen as an impotent organization that, as shown in the film, could not even catch an equally incompetent (albeit lucky) criminal. Cops! acts as visual representation (in other words, a narrative moving image) of the way the public viewed the police. The combination of Sennett’s exaggerated chases and amusing physicality worked to visualize the public’s perception of police incompetence. Whether or not it was accurate, it was shown to the public, heightening their opinions and critiquing the system while using the excuse of narrative cinema's limitations (a lack of sound and accurate representations). This film would not have existed without that precise culture of cinema and policing. Yet, one is not necessarily responsible for the other but entangled together.
Similarly, Dog Day Afternoon interacted with culture and cinema. However, the culture of the ‘70s was massively different, and both cinema and police had developed into capable, firm foundations. As had crime. To summarize Kirschner and Lewis’ points, due to migration into suburban neighborhoods combined with the rising, popular counterculture (rock-and-roll, protests, anti-authority), the cinema was desperate for attention. (Kirschner, Lewis, 1-2). So, New Hollywood was born, and with it, a new kind of criminal. These criminals were rebels, young, free-spirited, and fought against the traditional American values and authorities. They tended to be violent, morally ambiguous, and had complex, deep motivations – unlike the slapstick criminals who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Additionally, the authorities in this era tended to be as morally ambiguous as their criminals. Corruption, violence, and erratic tempers were found just as much in the police as they were in criminals.
Just like Cops! relied on visual and narrative storytelling to keep attention and comment on the systems; cinema had to, once again, reference the culture and the demographic they desired. At the time, that demographic was involved in protests, movements, riots, and challenging the ethics of policing. Watergate, the Vietnam War, stagflation, and general human rights were all on the forefront of the public’s mind. There was distrust in and fear of authority, specifically those armed with weapons. Therefore, cinema had to find a way to connect and comment on its world.
Dog Day Afternoon, which was based on a true story – therefore proving an inexplicable tie to culture and cinema and crime – featured a morally gray, complex, sympathetic criminal as the protagonist with complicated motivations – not just some nameless criminal dubbed ‘the enemy’ by the governmental forces. In contrast, those governmental forces tended to be faceless, much like Cops!, and excessively violent, emulating and visualizing the fear the public had for power.
In Visual Aid 2, we see Sonny in the center of a crowd, much like Keaton in Cops!. A smart, sympathetic criminal clothed in white and isolated – an image that encapsulated how lots of young people felt at the time – against a crowd of police and federal agents without faces, but hands on their guns. The still is, once again, a visual thesis of the film that clearly connects with the public at that time.
In conclusion, American culture, cinema, and crime are inseparable. Both Cops! and Dog Day Afternoon are simultaneously commentaries on the culture they came up in as well as widespread visualizations to the public of how it felt to be situated in that time period. While Cops! tells a simple narrative of cops and criminals, it illustrates how simple both cinema and policing were perceived at the time. In contrast, Dog Day Afternoon tells a complicated, morally gray narrative that matches the era of distrust, violence, and desire for freedom