Bonnie and Clyde (1967) ****
Directed by: Arthur Penn
Written By: David Newman & Robert Benton.
Starrng: Warren Beatty (Clyde Barrow), Faye Dunaway (Bonnie Parker), Gene Hackman (Buck Barrow), Estelle Parsons (Blanche), Michael J. Pollard (C.W. Moss), Denver Pyle (Frank Hamer), Dub Taylor (Ivan Moss), Gene Wilder (Eugene Grizzard), Evans Evans (Velma Davis), Mabel Cavitt (Bonnie's mother).
I’m not sure how many times I watched Bonnie and Clyde as a young teenager. Probably at least five and perhaps twice as many as that. From the time I was around 12 or 13, I showed an interest in movies. My mother, much to her credit, decided to start showing me some older films that she had liked as teenager. I think the logic of showing me something like Bonnie and Clyde was to try and keep me away from some of the more modern, even more violent films that were coming out around that time (Natural Born Killers for example). Well, she failed, but I will always appreciate the fact that she got me started.
As a teenager, I was drawn to Bonnie and Clyde for several reasons. The first time I watched it, I remember sitting there waiting for the ending, which I had been promised was the among the most violent in cinema history. Yet, I was drawn to the film time and again because of something else. Yes, I enjoyed the violence in the movie. I enjoyed the fact that these were outlaws, and yet they were young and sexy, and that you felt genuine sadness at the end of the film when they died. But there was something else that kept me coming back. When the 40th Anniversary DVD came out, I naturally bought it, and yet it was only recently that I actually sat down and watched the film again – probably for the first time in 10 years. I found that the intervening years changed my perspective on Bonnie and Clyde, and yet my appreciation for the film had not diminished. It is now, as it was then, one of the best American films ever made.
The opening scenes of the movie are still as much fun as I remembered them to be. From the moment we see Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway), for the first time, lounging around her bedroom naked we are drawn into the movie. As a teenager, I was mystified by the strange camera angles, editing and zooms being used in this scene (this, of course, being before I had ever heard of Francois Truffaut or Jean Luc Godard, let alone seen their films), but it seemed new and exciting at the time. Now, it’s not so new, but it’s just as exciting. We meet Clyde (Warren Beatty) at the same time Bonnie does, starring down from her window, still naked, as he stalks around the car parked outside. From the moment she says “Hey, boy. What you doin’ around my mama’s car?” and he Beatty smiles that knowing smile, we feel that sexual energy between the two of them, and we are hooked.
The film’s first half is a rollicking ride. The pair plan and carry out a series of robberies that are almost a comedy of errors. They show up at one bank and Clyde discovers that
it shut down the week before, so he drags the lowly bank manager outside to explain it to Bonnie, so he’s not humiliated. They rob a grocery store, and a huge hulking man attacks Clyde with a meat clever, before Clyde pistol whips him and takes off. There is a comic edge to each of the films violent scenes in this half. The comedic edge to the film gets greater when the pair hook up with C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard), a kid with a slightly off centered smile who idolizes Clyde, and nurtures a crush on Bonnie. Finally they hook up with Clyde’s boisterous brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and his shrill wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons). The films mixture of violence and comedy reaches its apex when the police raid a house where they’re all staying and Blanche runs out into gunfire shrieking and waving a spatula around.
If you were to pinpoint a moment where the action in the film goes from light to dark, its scene where the gang kidnap a young couple (Gene Wilder and Evans Evans). At first, the young couple is scared, but soon they loosen up and are laughing and joking right alongside the gang (Wilder, who was funny in many films, may never have been better than he was in what amounts to a mere cameo here). The scene, and the movie, suddenly shifts gears when Wilder reveals what he does for a living – he’s an undertaker. Into this happy little “family” comes darkness, as Bonnie seems to realize that they are doomed – there is only one way for this to end – death.
The following two scenes are among the films best. Bonnie takes off one morning through a cornfield, and Clyde chases after her. Seen in a high angle shot, the shadows of the clouds sweep across the cornfield, placing Bonnie and Clyde in darkness. This shot, one of the most famous in the movi
e, was an accident, but it perfectly captures the mood of the film. The scene that follows, a family reunion of sorts with Bonnie’s family, is shot with a slight haze on the film, giving it a dreamlike quality. As Clyde tries to lie to Bonnie’s mother, about giving up the life and finding a small house within a few miles of her, she replies honestly with “If you try to live within three miles of me, you won’t live very long”. The mood of the film has now clearly shifted, and each scene that follows leads inextricably towards the death of Bonnie and Clyde.
The death scene in the film is among the most famous in any film ever made. Bonnie and Clyde are gunned down in a hail of gunfire that lasts almost 30 seconds. Each of them has dozens of gunshots explode through them, Clyde has part of his scalp ripped off, and they fall motionless in a bloody heap on the ground. At the time, this scene was shocking, not least because of the way it was edited – almost 60 different cuts are made in that time. Now, with rapid editing that makes even this scene seem slow, and violence like this being included in lots of films, it doesn’t shock in the same way it once did to audiences in 1967. What it does do however is end the movie on a tragic note. We still feel for Bonnie and Clyde as they slump to the ground, bloody messes. We still don’t want them to die, even if we realize that they must. Director Arthur Penn does something interesting after the gunfire stops – he doesn’t pull out and survey the entirety of the scene – instead he simply shows Bonnie and Clyde’s killers emerging from the bush and looking at what they did. There seems to be no joy in their faces as they do this, eve
n though this was their goal all along.
When the movie came out in 1967, it was shocking to audiences, and embraced by young moviegoers, who saw Bonnie and Clyde as stand-ins for their generation. They rejected the long held notions of the generations before them, and so did Bonnie and Clyde – who essentially give the finger to “the man” throughout the movie. That the film is not historically accurate isn’t the point, is it? In short, who cares? This movie isn’t about the real Bonnie and Clyde, but about the characters of Bonnie and Clyde in the movie.
But the movie wouldn’t have lasted this long if the only thing remarkable about it was the violence, and the element of ‘60’s youth rebellion in the film. What makes Bonnie and Clyde still powerful is the fact the film takes its time to set up the characters, to get to know them, to sympathize with them, and draw out the connections. Theirs is not a love that is based on sex – Clyde is impotent after all, and the two only once actually manage to do it – but rather a deeper connection. For her, Clyde was a way out of her boring life in Texas – her escape from becoming just another bored housewife. For him, Bonnie made everything mean something. For the first time, he starts to care about something outside of himself. I still may not be 100% sure of what intrinsic quality the movie has that keeps me coming back to it, but I do know that the film is a true masterpiece. Few films in history can match it.
Directed by: Arthur Penn
Written By: David Newman & Robert Benton.
Starrng: Warren Beatty (Clyde Barrow), Faye Dunaway (Bonnie Parker), Gene Hackman (Buck Barrow), Estelle Parsons (Blanche), Michael J. Pollard (C.W. Moss), Denver Pyle (Frank Hamer), Dub Taylor (Ivan Moss), Gene Wilder (Eugene Grizzard), Evans Evans (Velma Davis), Mabel Cavitt (Bonnie's mother).
I’m not sure how many times I watched Bonnie and Clyde as a young teenager. Probably at least five and perhaps twice as many as that. From the time I was around 12 or 13, I showed an interest in movies. My mother, much to her credit, decided to start showing me some older films that she had liked as teenager. I think the logic of showing me something like Bonnie and Clyde was to try and keep me away from some of the more modern, even more violent films that were coming out around that time (Natural Born Killers for example). Well, she failed, but I will always appreciate the fact that she got me started.
As a teenager, I was drawn to Bonnie and Clyde for several reasons. The first time I watched it, I remember sitting there waiting for the ending, which I had been promised was the among the most violent in cinema history. Yet, I was drawn to the film time and again because of something else. Yes, I enjoyed the violence in the movie. I enjoyed the fact that these were outlaws, and yet they were young and sexy, and that you felt genuine sadness at the end of the film when they died. But there was something else that kept me coming back. When the 40th Anniversary DVD came out, I naturally bought it, and yet it was only recently that I actually sat down and watched the film again – probably for the first time in 10 years. I found that the intervening years changed my perspective on Bonnie and Clyde, and yet my appreciation for the film had not diminished. It is now, as it was then, one of the best American films ever made.
The opening scenes of the movie are still as much fun as I remembered them to be. From the moment we see Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway), for the first time, lounging around her bedroom naked we are drawn into the movie. As a teenager, I was mystified by the strange camera angles, editing and zooms being used in this scene (this, of course, being before I had ever heard of Francois Truffaut or Jean Luc Godard, let alone seen their films), but it seemed new and exciting at the time. Now, it’s not so new, but it’s just as exciting. We meet Clyde (Warren Beatty) at the same time Bonnie does, starring down from her window, still naked, as he stalks around the car parked outside. From the moment she says “Hey, boy. What you doin’ around my mama’s car?” and he Beatty smiles that knowing smile, we feel that sexual energy between the two of them, and we are hooked.The film’s first half is a rollicking ride. The pair plan and carry out a series of robberies that are almost a comedy of errors. They show up at one bank and Clyde discovers that
it shut down the week before, so he drags the lowly bank manager outside to explain it to Bonnie, so he’s not humiliated. They rob a grocery store, and a huge hulking man attacks Clyde with a meat clever, before Clyde pistol whips him and takes off. There is a comic edge to each of the films violent scenes in this half. The comedic edge to the film gets greater when the pair hook up with C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard), a kid with a slightly off centered smile who idolizes Clyde, and nurtures a crush on Bonnie. Finally they hook up with Clyde’s boisterous brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and his shrill wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons). The films mixture of violence and comedy reaches its apex when the police raid a house where they’re all staying and Blanche runs out into gunfire shrieking and waving a spatula around.If you were to pinpoint a moment where the action in the film goes from light to dark, its scene where the gang kidnap a young couple (Gene Wilder and Evans Evans). At first, the young couple is scared, but soon they loosen up and are laughing and joking right alongside the gang (Wilder, who was funny in many films, may never have been better than he was in what amounts to a mere cameo here). The scene, and the movie, suddenly shifts gears when Wilder reveals what he does for a living – he’s an undertaker. Into this happy little “family” comes darkness, as Bonnie seems to realize that they are doomed – there is only one way for this to end – death.
The following two scenes are among the films best. Bonnie takes off one morning through a cornfield, and Clyde chases after her. Seen in a high angle shot, the shadows of the clouds sweep across the cornfield, placing Bonnie and Clyde in darkness. This shot, one of the most famous in the movi
e, was an accident, but it perfectly captures the mood of the film. The scene that follows, a family reunion of sorts with Bonnie’s family, is shot with a slight haze on the film, giving it a dreamlike quality. As Clyde tries to lie to Bonnie’s mother, about giving up the life and finding a small house within a few miles of her, she replies honestly with “If you try to live within three miles of me, you won’t live very long”. The mood of the film has now clearly shifted, and each scene that follows leads inextricably towards the death of Bonnie and Clyde.The death scene in the film is among the most famous in any film ever made. Bonnie and Clyde are gunned down in a hail of gunfire that lasts almost 30 seconds. Each of them has dozens of gunshots explode through them, Clyde has part of his scalp ripped off, and they fall motionless in a bloody heap on the ground. At the time, this scene was shocking, not least because of the way it was edited – almost 60 different cuts are made in that time. Now, with rapid editing that makes even this scene seem slow, and violence like this being included in lots of films, it doesn’t shock in the same way it once did to audiences in 1967. What it does do however is end the movie on a tragic note. We still feel for Bonnie and Clyde as they slump to the ground, bloody messes. We still don’t want them to die, even if we realize that they must. Director Arthur Penn does something interesting after the gunfire stops – he doesn’t pull out and survey the entirety of the scene – instead he simply shows Bonnie and Clyde’s killers emerging from the bush and looking at what they did. There seems to be no joy in their faces as they do this, eve
n though this was their goal all along.When the movie came out in 1967, it was shocking to audiences, and embraced by young moviegoers, who saw Bonnie and Clyde as stand-ins for their generation. They rejected the long held notions of the generations before them, and so did Bonnie and Clyde – who essentially give the finger to “the man” throughout the movie. That the film is not historically accurate isn’t the point, is it? In short, who cares? This movie isn’t about the real Bonnie and Clyde, but about the characters of Bonnie and Clyde in the movie.
But the movie wouldn’t have lasted this long if the only thing remarkable about it was the violence, and the element of ‘60’s youth rebellion in the film. What makes Bonnie and Clyde still powerful is the fact the film takes its time to set up the characters, to get to know them, to sympathize with them, and draw out the connections. Theirs is not a love that is based on sex – Clyde is impotent after all, and the two only once actually manage to do it – but rather a deeper connection. For her, Clyde was a way out of her boring life in Texas – her escape from becoming just another bored housewife. For him, Bonnie made everything mean something. For the first time, he starts to care about something outside of himself. I still may not be 100% sure of what intrinsic quality the movie has that keeps me coming back to it, but I do know that the film is a true masterpiece. Few films in history can match it.
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