Title: Bonnie and Clyde
Release Date: August 13, 1967
Director: Arthur Penn
Production Company: Warner Bros. Pictures
Summary/Review:
I watched Bonnie and Clyde in my younger days, probably around 30+ years ago, and HATED it. It seemed to me to just be glorified violence and gore. Add to the fact that over the years Faye Dunaway has become one of my least favorite actors, and you can understand that I had little desire to revisit this movie. Well, I’m happy to report that I enjoyed Bonnie and Clyde much more on this viewing.
I think the main thing I took away from this movie is that it is not a history lesson but a depiction of American myth. The over-the-top nature of the film actually accents the mythological aspect of the movie where the real story of Bonnie & Clyde is shadowed by newspaper reports of their fictional exploits. Dunaway’s Texas accent sounds as fake as her blonde wig, but she does bring a lot of nuance to her performance of Bonnie Parker who is perpetually yearning for more. For all the scandal this movie caused for being open about sexuality it seems like a good joke that Warren Beaty’s Clyde Barrow is essentially impotent.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the film debut of Gene Wilder as a young man briefly abducted by the Barrow Gang. Wilder shows a wide-eyed excitement in the experience and adds some levity to the film that deliberately shifts it’s tonality. It’s easy to see how this movie was in many ways a movie more about 1960s counterculture than it was about 1930s bank robbers. It also shows a lot of influence of French New Wave films, and François Truffaut was even involved early in production.
I still see Bonnie and Clyde as an incredibly gory film, especially for its time, but I no longer see it as glamorizing violence, but as a commentary on glamorizing violence. It’s a subtle thing but it makes a difference. Anyhow, I still don’t think of Bonnie and Clyde as one of the greatest films of all time but I have greater respect for what the film was trying to do and the influence it had on Hollywood cinema.
Rating: ***
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