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Directed by Arthur Penn
Starring Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons
USA, 1967
Not Rated (sex, violence)
REVOLUTIONARY VIOLENCE, PROVOCATIVE EXECUTION
The true story of the Great Depression robbers and murderers, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, or at least the idea behind it, has inspired a string of loosely-based movies to be made (including You Only Live Once) over the years. The two thieves were a couple of childish adults who found fun away from the Depression’s boredom through their robberies and their glamorization by the newspapers and the public who were eager to hear about anything that would allow them to break away, even for a moment, from the days’ tedium. In a way, Bonnie and Clyde is about boredom and the price one may have to pay for succumbing to it and becoming or doing what they should not to fill the void. At the time, it was one of the most violent mainstream films ever made and it changed movie violence forever. It is definitely an integral part of cinema’s maturation, and the fact remains that it is no perfect film. It is at times irresponsible, its characters occasionally oddly portrayed. But Bonnie and Clyde stands for something, ultimately telling us that justice does not always match up with what the public wants to see happen.
When Bonnie (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde (Warren Beatty) first meet, it is one of those legendary movie moments, not because the scene is necessarily famous, but because, for the audience, it begins the two’s lives onscreen, thereby beginning a movie that is part-moving, part-irreverent and has lost very little spark over the decades. The film’s first scene is that of Bonnie and Clyde’s first meeting, and, prior to that scene, the two antiheroes have not lived a life that is of any concern to us. They meet, find excitement in each other’s immaturity and boredom, impress each other with their brazenness, sexiness, and bank-robbing skills (or lack thereof), and run off together into the dust bowl of the Depression world. They get lost in their crimes that give them fun away from real life, and they are joined by a dim-witted former-car-mechanic, C.W. (Michael J. Pollard), Clyde’s brother (Gene Hackman), who just got out of jail, and his frail, almost lunatic wife, Blanche (Estelle Parsons). The fivesome lose themselves in robbery and murder, and show little remorse. And, in the end, Bonnie, Clyde, and his brother die.
The misadventures of these characters are colored by Arthur Penn and the writers as if they were great fun. They are a thrill to watch and, in that way, the film may be perceived as capricious and a glamorization of crime. Those who think that of the film are missing the point entirely. Bonnie and Clyde may be irresponsible, as many films, even good films, are, but it never glamorizes sin and makes it look good. Bonnie and Clyde are off on their robbing spree because they have nothing they think is better to do (Bonnie was a waitress before she was picked up by her partner in crime), not because they think it is the best way of life. Their primary reasons for doing what they do are not laziness or lack of education or poor parenthood, but just to steal for the heck of it, and defend by killing. In the end, the criminals get what they truly deserve. Is it because Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, two pretty faces, portray the criminals who ‘should be’ toothless and ugly, that Bonnie and Clyde was considered a crime-glam fest upon its release? Pauline Kael famously wrote that if actors could only play roles that people wanted to be, then actors should only play movie stars, which is what everyone wants to be anyway.
What people responded to, I think, in the film, was the danger of it- its daring. Bonnie and Clyde was released the same year as another relatively provocative film, The Graduate, and while Graduate pushed the sexual envelope, Bonnie was provocative both sexually and violently. Clyde suffers from some sexual dysfunction; either insecurity or impotence. Bonnie is sex-starved, and the movie teases us by locating the opening scene in her room while she is naked. The violence here is slow, with holes, bullets, and blood. The most unpleasant sights are not very startling in today’s no-shock age, but they include a scene in which Blanche gets shot in the eye, a man gets shot in the face, and the final, stunning sequence of Bonnie and Clyde’s death in which they move as if dancing as bullets penetrate their bloodying bodies, and then fall limp when the gunning ends. The scene is the best display of editing in the film- and the film is brilliantly edited by Dede Allen. The rhythm of the scene is at first easy and calm, and then quick, shocking cuts are made to Bonnie and Clyde’s final glances at each other, and then the shooting begins, their bodies flailing about to the music of gunshots. I think the film’s ending is more provocative then all the violent and sexual elements. The noise of the guns fills the atmosphere, and when they stop, all is quiet, and the remaining seconds of Bonnie and Clyde are dreadfully silent.
Warren Beatty co-produced this picture, and it was immediately panned by critics as exploitative, most famously by The New York Times’ often out-of-touch Bosley Crowther. Warner Bros. was planning to ruin the film, but Beatty urged them to give it a chance. The movie began to draw attention, it gained a following, and was nominated for a string of Academy Awards, going home with two. Today, it is considered one of the key motion pictures, one of those films that remains exciting to watch years after it has made its influential mark on the face of cinema. And what a mark Bonnie and Clyde made! Sam Peckinpah’s films were gory for their time, but, if one film could sum up the sexual and violent freedom films began experimenting with in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Bonnie and Clyde may be the perfect film. From this landmark movie came the road-criminal pictures Badlands, Thelma and Louise, The Sugarland Express, Natural Born Killers, and several others besides.
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty are brash and childish in roles that demand those colors from the actors. They are, of course, beautiful and charismatic. The film is technically brilliant. Apart from its quick, on-target editing, it is blessed with some happy lighting accidents and great, dirty cinematography by Burnett Guffey. The solemn, dusty atmosphere of the Dust Bowl is excellently captured, and resembles a lot of the French New Wave films by Truffaut and Godard. The movie is often funny, the most comical scene being one in which Blanche runs out into the street, kitchen spatula in hand, when the police arrive at the criminals’ residence. Yet, I know I would probably be as hilariously fragile as Blanche is in that scene.
Bonnie and Clyde is a film about contradictions- not so much in the movie’s plot, but in life itself, and in human nature. We laugh at Blanche’s fear, but we know many of us would be just as scared if our lives were on the line. We learn that Bonnie and Clyde have aspirations and dreams, so we feel that perhaps they do not deserve what they get in the end. Yet, are killers who have dreams of getting out of their mess but continue to thieve and murder exempt from punishment? I think not. Arthur Penn brings out the humans in the criminals, but their deaths are definitely what they deserve [*]. They didn’t intend to stop their free-wheeling, dangerous lifestyle anytime soon. It is the eerie silence at the end of Bonnie and Clyde that spooks us: we feel sad the two lovers died, but we know it was only justice. In another film, talk would have drowned the haunting thoughts Bonnie and Clyde leaves us with. With this film, we are allowed to struggle with ourselves, and the confusion that we get models the contradictions our world spins around and the disbelief after the silence.
* I worded this sentence wrongly. I hope people don't think it is an endorsement of the death penalty, which I am against. What I meant was that celebrity criminals revealed in their humanity should not necessarily get privilages over criminals with seemingly none, if that makes sense.
By Andrew Chan
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