How Spike Lee paid homage to Sidney Lumet’s ‘Dog Day Afternoon’
In the world of cinema, everyone loves the tension provided by a good bank heist, and of all the brilliant efforts in the crime subgenre, it’s hard to look beyond the intensity of Sidney Lumet’s 1975 movie Dog Day Afternoon. The film was based on the 1972 hostage situation by John Wojotowicz and Salvatore Naturile at a branch of Chase Manhattan in Brooklyn and a Life magazine article on the incident by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore called ‘The Boys in the Bank’.
Al Pacino plays Sonny Wortzik, a man who robs a bank in order to acquire funds for his partner’s gender confirmation surgery, in a truly riveting manner typical of Pacino’s unquestionable quality. Comedy and drama are interwoven throughout, and Lumet perfectly captures the tension of the situation as it takes unexpected turns and escalations.
The film has drawn widespread acclaim ever since its release, being nominated for six Academy Awards and seven Golden Globes, winning the Oscar for ‘Best Original Screenplay’. It’s also been championed by a series of Lumet’s fellow filmmakers, including Spike Lee, who paid homage to it with his film Inside Man.
“It’s a different kind of bank robbery, but it really showed New York City, and it’s a great film,” Lee once told Vulture. “We paid homage to Sidney Lumet. I forget the actress’s name [Marcia Jean Kurtz] — please forgive me — but one of the hostages in Dog Day Afternoon is also a hostage in Inside Man.”
“She’s the one who refuses to take off her clothes when Clive Owen is telling her to take off her clothes,” Lee added. “We also found the guy that delivered pizza to Al Pacino and had him deliver pizza to the hostages in Inside Man. And then, if you look at Inside Man, the pizza is from Sal’s Famous Pizzeria.”
Inside Man is Lee’s 2006 crime thriller, written by Russell Gewirtz. It focuses on a complex Wall Street bank heist come hostage showdown with Denzel Washington starring as Detective Keith Frazier, the New York Police Department’s chief hostage negotiator, Clive Owen as Dalton Russell, the man behind the criminal operation, and Jodie Foster, a fixer who becomes wrapped up in the situation.
There’s a brilliance to Inside Man in the way it uses a non-linear narrative to constantly add layers to its intrigue and tension. The themes of power, manipulation and morality are explored, much in the same way that Lumet did in Dog Day Afternoon, and Lee was sure to pay homage to the classic film, even if only through a hostage and a few boxes of pizza.
