Panorama Dokumente screening - review - THE DOG by Frank Keraudren and Allison Berg

Filmmakers Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren reveal the life of the real man whose story was turned into a movie in 1975 by Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon. John Wojtowicz, or ‘the dog’ as he calls himself, was the man who spectacularly attempted a bank robbery in order to be able to pay for his partner’s sex change. But the robbery itself is only part of the story, as Wojtowicz himself talks about what led him from being a right-winged conservative to an outrageous gay activist.

He is quite a magnetic character, with plenty to tell. One can certainly pick up on the vibes that inspired Al Pacino’s legendary performance. But The Dog, which took Berg and Keraudren more than ten years to put together, is also a meticulous study of the distinctive feeling of the seventies, and more particularly the seventies in New York that was so well captured by the films produced in America at the time. It was then a time of crazy characters, sexual liberation and many social awakenings, but also a time when a fifteen minutes of fame culture was growing. This is due to a great and exciting approach but also a policy of moving away from re-enactments and use thoroughly researched archive material to really achieve the genuine atmosphere of the time and place. 

With his almost extreme eccentricity, Wojtowicz almost embodies this feeling to perfection. However, what is most intriguing about him is a contrast between his obnoxious side driven by seemingly incontrollable sexual desires with his more good natured side that seems to genuinely care about the well-being of the people close to him. 

On top of that, his relationship with his mother as well as contributions from some of the people that played key roles in his life story enrich the experience of an entertaining and surprisingly human portrait of a man whose short lived fame can be described as a product of the media, where the world is a stage.