I don’t remember hearing of THE DAY OF THE JACKAL(Fred Zinnemann, 1973) spoken of in relation to gay representation but here is the sauna pick-up scene, repeated in the current tv version to close the latest episode, but here filmed more discreetly so that viewers who don’t want to know don’t need to notice.

The use of real locations is also an enormous pleasure. See below the British Library at the British Museum, filmed in 1972, just before it moved to St. Pancras.

I love the use of the widescreen format, 1.85:1 spherical, blown up to 70mm in Japan to allow for wide views of a frame where the eye catches movements across it (see below), often featuring dozens of extras — it’s a highly populated frame — in which the eye can wonder through Zinnemann’s meticulous mise-en-scene. An interesting contrast to the current TV version, which I also like very much, but from a completely different era of filmmaking.

José Arroyo