BONNIE AND CLYDE
US, 1967, 107 minutes, Colour.
Warren Beatty, Fay Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Wilder, Denver Pyle.
Directed by Arthur Penn.
Bonnie and Clyde created critical controversy when it was first released. It did not receive favourable reviews from 'Time' or 'Newsweek'; later in 1967, we had the unusual sight of these magazines retracting their first impressions and hailing the film as a breakthrough.
It is easier now to appreciate Bonnie and Clyde and see it in perspective. It certainly heralded a trend of showing violence as violence and making people respond in some ways to it - we have since had Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch and violent but sensational imitations. It also highlighted the interest in (and myths about) criminals who seem so different yet work well together - the most famous cinema couple now being Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The period is excellently recreated in Bonnie and Clyde and the two emerge as characters of their time, Depression, cars, banks, police etc. Arthur Penn has shown skill in portraying facets of America's self-understanding - especially in The Chase (1966), Alice's Restaurant (1969) and Little Big Man (1970). Bonnie and Clyde fits into this series.
The film, Penn, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Estelle Parsons were all nominated for 1967 Oscars, with Estelle Parsons winning as Best Supporting Actress.
Bonnie and Clyde is now something of a classic. It is interesting to note that the National Catholic Film Office in the United States gave it its prize for Best Picture of the Year for adults.
1. Were Bonnie and Clyde hero and heroine of the film? were they presented sympathetically or unsympathetically? a good thing? Why? How did the film differ from routine gangster films?
2. How was the atmosphere and influence) of the times evoked - the photographs during the credits, the romantic song, the banks, depression cars, highways, Bonnie 's Watching the movies, fashions?
3. What made Clyde Barrow 'tick'? How could you reconcile his boyish vanity, cops-and-robbers' mentality and his callous killing of so many people? Was he a typical American gangster?
4. What made Bonnie Parker 'tick'? Was she anything more
than a glamour-hungry waitress, wanting thrills, sensuous and fulfilling love; why did she kill?
5. How did American society produce -its Bonnies and Clydes? What had American violence, the depression (and the song 'We've in the money'), the glorification of guns and good shots to do with Bonnie and Clyde 's careers? Did Bonnie and Clyde meet with society's admiration for those who defy the law? (What of the kidnapping of Gene and Velma and inviting them to join the Barrow gang?)
6. What was the significance of and emotional direction behind the sequence Where the farmer joins Bonnie and Clyde and the black, Davis, in shooting the house the bankers have taken from him? 'We rob banks'?
7. Why did Bonnie and Clyde humiliate Frank Homer? Were they malicious or joking? Why did he continue to pursue them?
8. Why did Buck and Blanche (especially with her background) join the Barrow gang?
9. Why was the sequence of Bonnie 's visit to her mother hazily photographed? What atmosphere did the whole scene have? How did it bring home the fact that they had no home?
10. What role did C.W. Moss play? Why did his father take the gang in? Why did he betray them? Why did C.W. Moss not warn them?
11. Was Homer's treatment of the bandaged Blanche too cruel? Why?
12. Was Bonnie's poem of Bonnie and Clyde a good one? How significant was it? Was she a poet? Why did she publish the poem? Why was Clyde grateful for it? What did it do for him - immortalise him? What did it contribute to the consummation of Bonnie and Clyde's love? What was the significance of Clyde's previous impotence?
13. Was the final shooting too violently portrayed? Did it shock you? Did it shatter your previous impressions of the couple? Was the whole film too violent (the 'exhilaration' of violence)? Why?
