SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY

Canada, 1974, 92 Minutes, Colour.
Ernest Borgnine, Michael J. Pollard, Hollis McLaren?, Louis Zorich, Cec Linder.
Directed by John Trent.

Sunday in the Country is a placid title for the early sequences of this Canadian film, but ironic for this violent thriller. It is a moralising story about the ordinary man (church-going, hard-working, proper) and his innate capacity, and even desire, for violence. Ernest Borgnine is a farmer who confronts three, brutal criminals and finds that he too is sadistically violent. The film strives for credibility by devoting much attention to the quiet country atmosphere -
which makes the exploration of violence more ugly. We are asked how we would react - difficult because the psychotic killer (Michael Pollard) is quite repellent. Interesting and useful for discussion of our aggressive tendencies.

1. The ambiguity of the title and its irony in view of the whole film? The tranquillity of the opening, the tone of the song, calm?

2. The contribution of Panavision, colour, the locations, the contemporary music etc.? How real a location was presented? Could audiences identify this as real, identify with the characters and the issues?

3. How valuable a social documentation about criminals and violence, about the ordinary man's reaction in crisis to violence? Did the film exploit its theme and wallow in violence?

4. How did the film establish the character of Adam Smith? The significance of Adam as the archetypal man, Smith as the name of the common man? An ordinary farmer, an ordinary man, church-going and God-fearing, observing the laws of the Sunday, going to church, encountering his friends, doing a job at the station to collect a parcel? His relationship with Luke, with his granddaughter Lucy? What moral stances did he take and how were these expressed? What values did he stand by? What kind of a person was he? Could the audience identify with him at the beginning?

5. Could audiences identify with Lucy? A younger generation, a freer attitude, her attitude towards Sunday, country values, her relationship with her grandfather?

6. The contrast with the couple on the road? Their moral stances, relationship with each other, the presentation of varying moral points-of-view? How adequate a preparation for what was to follow?

7. How well did the film communicate the atmosphere of the church? The people, the religious point of view? The tranquillity of the way of life in the country?

8. The intrusion about the news of the criminals, the gradual change of atmosphere? First impression of the criminals themselves? Any sympathy for them? Response to the ugliness of their killings? The change in tone of the film?

9. How was this built up by the sense of menace, the car chase, the victims being trapped, the violence of the murders and the presentation of the corpses?

10. How important was it for Adam to be involved in this enterprise? The details of his preparation to meet the criminals, the intensity of his involvement, what aspects of his character were being drawn on? His ability to shoot, overpower the men? His delight in finding them?

11. What made Adam torture the criminals? The prolonged nature of the torture, his sadistic satisfaction? The overall effect on Adam? The ugly side of his character? The reaction on the men, Luke's attitudes, Lucy’s?

12. Why did Luke comply with Adam's commands? What effect did it have on him?

13. How credible was Lucy's horror? The audience seeing the violence through her eyes? Adam's reaction in terrorizing and torturing her? The importance of her escape? Her foolishness in believing the story about the water? The violence she suffered and the points that Adam made? The disconnection of the phone? Her escape and her reliance on her boyfriend? Adam being tempted to shoot her because she was thwarting his enjoyment of exercising God-like vengeance? What had happened to him?

14. The emphasis on Ackerman? His being in chains, his being bashed, the ugliness of his death? Was justice meted out to him accurately? Did he suffer too much? Audience sympathy for him?

15. The contrast with Leroy throughout the film? His appearance, way of speaking, ugliness? His madness? His encounter with Lucy, his escape, his attitudes of vengeance?

16. The intervention of the police and the restoring of normality? The effect of this on Adam? His unwillingness to let official justice intervene? The irony of the police being killed? To what purpose? As a providing of the plot for a confrontation between Adam and Leroy? Adam's final implacable shooting of Leroy?

17. What comment on violence did the film make? How different was Adam from the criminals? What kind of violence is in each man? Did the film present this tellingly or did it exploit it?

18. The parable value of this kind of story? A searching of the values of law, justice and its administration, morality, man playing God, instinctive violence within man, the city and the country?