Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Supplemental material provided in Criterion’s Blu-ray edition of Sunday Bloody Sunday is bound—if not intended—to renew the debate over who gets what due for the unusually fine and perceptive script. Clearly the credits say it’s Penelope Gilliatt. A short time after the movie opened, the N.Y. press covering the literati started printing articles at the behest of director John Schlesinger and producer Joseph Janni who were irked by Gilliatt taking major claim for what they believed was a collaborative effort. Though Schlesinger and Janni were overwhelmed by the response to the movie, they were particularly out of joint about the extensive praise heaped upon Gilliatt by fellow critics. Especially from former roommate Vincent Canby and nemesis Pauline Kael. The director and producer were likewise frustrated by Gilliatt’s intro included in the Viking Press, 1972, edition of the screenplay (and reappears in the Criterion package). In it she informs in her fashion the genesis of the script wasn’t singular; it was discussed with and agreed to be penned with cooperation of Schlesinger, using his background for Peter Finch’s character and borrowing facets of the director’s longtime companion as some of the basis for Murray Head’s pop artist. To allay the male tempers, but excused as a cost-saving measure as it is long, the essay would be removed for the Bantam paperback edition, substituting a single sentence stating the director and Janni “worked through the later versions of the screenplay with me and I thank them, as well as the actors and the crew.” Insufficient for Schlesinger who kept the fire of his anger burning for years and it eventually spread to become part of William J. Mann’s 2004 authorized bio entitled Edge of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger, in which a case is constructed to affirm the director, the actors Finch, Head and Jackson, and writers David Sherwin and Ken Levison were supposedly very much deserving of acknowledgement in finalizing the shooting script. Contractually, Gilliatt is the only name permitted to get the writing credit, though as the end credits roll there’s a nod to Sherwin and Levison without specific reference to their contributions.

All off this sounds suspiciously like the “Raising Kane” essay written by Kael in which she asserted Herman J. Mankiewicz deserved full credit for the Citizen Kane screenplay, despite any contributions by Orson Welles. Simplifying, Kael and Gilliatt took the same positions—that writing the original screenplay and making early changes was proof of authorship over who then added what in later drafts and the shooting script. Even when the principals are alive—Gilliatt, Schlesinger, Janni, Finch and Jackson are deceased—arguments to challenge due credit are dicey and tend to give the Writers Guilds headaches. Important to note is that both the American and British Writers Guilds were never sought to arbitrate any disputes; quite the opposite, the guilds bestowed Gilliatt with honors for best original screenplay. In the interview with Mann included on the Criterion DVD, there are some petty flags waving. One, he claims Schlesinger was upset Gilliatt wouldn’t come to London during filming, as she needed to stay in New York. He avoids an obvious why: she was into her early tenure as one of The New Yorker’s two movie critics. Gilliatt writes in the intro that, when possible, she attended rehearsals, script consultations, actual filming during which, especially for Jackson and Head, several accommodations were made. Second, Mann is catty enough to use misogynist Harold Pinter as critic of Gilliatt’s dialogue. Those of us with a set of functional ears unremittingly hear Pinter’s predilection as writer and snit to coldly intellectualize gossip and opinion divined to conform to the way he wants “civilized” people to speak. As for Sherwin, his peak writing contribution was Lindsay Anderson’s If, and Levison’s résumé so slight the best anyone can assess is he did the adaptation (but not the screenplay) for the 1969 bomb In Search of Gregory starring Julie Christie and wrote the 1974 Madhouse. As with most filming, words and actions in scripts get changed to conciliate actors over on-set elements of scenes; in Sunday Bloody Sunday, some lines were changed—some very good changes made regarding the quarreling of a husband and boozed wife at a party—and Gilliatt’s scripted “neatness” of Alex dispatched for messy Jackson, with the author’s consent. There’s sliminess in Mann’s angle too: when gathering material for the bio, he and Schlesinger were very aware Gilliatt was unable to answer back, having died from alcoholism; they were fully apprised of damaging allegations of alcohol-fueled plagiarism against her on unrelated issues. Explicit in this slimy coterie is the insistence to delegitimatize her. To what end? What honorable retribution is achieved by venomous disparagement? The more flagrant omission in Mann’s can of worminess regarding Schlesinger’s assertions about Gilliatt is not gauging “phonation”: Neither before Sunday Bloody Sunday nor after did Schlesinger come anywhere near matching the artful compassion of mature adult characters coping with their lot, an unequivocal advocation in Gilliatt’s fiction. Finch’s Doctor Hirsh would likely tell the tantrummy bitches to “piss off.”

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