1967 was a watershed year for American cinema. That year saw The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde usher in the New Hollywood era that would produce some of the greatest American films during the 1970s and early 80s.
Bonnie and Clyde was a revolutionary film that took onscreen violence, dark humor and sexuality to new levels never before seen in American cinema. It was initially trashed by older film critics like Bosley Crowther and mishandled by the older regime at Warner Brothers as it was initially dumped as part of a double feature with Reflections in a Golden Eye and in drive-ins.
But thanks to newer film critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert who loved and understood the film, Bonnie and Clyde was granted a second life and found an audience. Warner Brothers has finally produced a worthy DVD of the film with numerous extras and improved picture and sound.
Based on the real life Depression-era bank robbers, Bonnie and Clyde opens in 1931 as petty thief Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) is released from prison. A naked Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) spots him trying to steal her mother’s car. There is a mutual attraction between the two instantly. Clyde escorts Bonnie to her waitressing job while trying to impress her with tales of his past jobs and time in prison.
He shows her his gun. Bonnie is turned on by this and asks Clyde to put his money where his mouth is. Within minutes, Clyde robs a store at gunpoint and they are off into folklore and infamy.
Along the way they enlist the help of a dimwitted gas station attendant C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard) as their driver/mechanic and Clyde’s wild brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and his annoyingly shrill wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons). They become known as the Barrow gang and manage to stay one step ahead of the law while robbing banks. Because it is the Great Depression, Bonnie and Clyde are seen as folk heroes to the masses for their sticking it to the authorities represented by the cruel foreclosing banks.
In many ways Bonnie and Clyde were the first pop culture media darlings. They had pictures taken in various poses, like Bonnie with a cigar in her mouth and Clyde with a Tommy gun in his hands, and sent them to the newspapers, which put them on the front page and touted them as bloodthirsty killers and robbers.
Like all folk heroes, the reality was different then the image being portrayed. The gang is credited with dozens of robberies they didn’t commit and the haul they do bring in is barely enough to survive on. They were not the crazed killers they were made out to be rather they killed only when they were faced with death.
There is a real sense of boredom and longing felt in the film particularly by Bonnie. She longs for a family that she will never have. Clyde, for all his dashing good looks and talent with a gun, is impotent and can’t sexually satisfy himself or Bonnie through traditional means.
There is also an impending sense of fatalism that increases throughout the second half of the film through interludes with a couple (watch for a young Gene Wilder in his first on screen role), Bonnie’s family and numerous shootouts with the law. There is little to no violence early on as the robberies are seen as fun loving and innocent.
As the film progresses, the violence becomes more painful and real as we see that these “heroes” bleed when shot and can be killed. Bonnie and Clyde was the first film to show blood when people were shot. No one dies a quick painless death here rather all the deaths are slow and horrible.
All the violence is brought to a dizzying crescendo at the end when the law finally brings down Bonnie and Clyde. The ending remains one of the most potently violent scenes ever filmed and no doubt served as an inspiration for Sam Peckinpah when he took onscreen violence to an operatic level with The Wild Bunch in 1969.
The ending also served as the blueprint ending for New Hollywood films with its downbeat, realistic tone rather than a light, typical Hollywood ending where the “heroes” win and live.
The performances throughout are flawless with Beatty and Dunaway turning in career making performances. Beatty, who also shepherded the project as producer, is perfect as Clyde. To Beatty’s credit, he takes chances with Clyde and makes sure that his flaws i.e. his impotency and his temper are there to see. He’s not the brightest twig in the branch either and there are several laughs to be had at Clyde’s expense.
Given Beatty’s notorious off screen persona for being a ladies man, it’s pure genius to have one of his best lines be “I ain’t much of a loverboy” after their initial aborted love making attempt. It is still one of his greatest performances that stands alongside his work in The Parallax View, Shampoo, Reds and Bulworth.
The same can also be said for Faye Dunaway whose Bonnie is sexy yet down to earth and ranks amongst her best work next to Chinatown and Network. She even inspired a “Bonnie” fashion movement thanks to Theadora Van Runkle’s costume design in particular the beret that Bonnie wears.
It’s not surprising that both Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard were asked to direct the film before Arthur Penn. Both Penn’s direction and the script by Robert Benton, David Newman and an uncredited Robert Towne (he gets billing as a creative consultant) incorporate the in-the-moment realism, loose structure, improvisation and close character interaction that defined the French New Wave.
Penn would go on to helm Little Big Man in 1970 (also with Faye Dunaway) and later collaborate again with Gene Hackman in the classic 70s noir Night Moves in 1975 as well as the underrated thriller Target in 1985. The film was nominated for 10 Oscars and won two, one for Estelle Parsons as Best Supporting Actress and one for Burnett Guffrey for his cinematography.
The look of the film is just as significant as the characters and their actions with the lonely, desolate plains of Texas, Oklahoma and the Deep South setting the broken spirit for the people living in the harsh times of the Great Depression. The rambling, bluegrass “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” by Flatt & Scruggs is used to lure one into thinking that this is going to be a lighthearted joyride, which makes the bloody climax all the more unsettling.
The extras on disc one are limited to the teaser and full theatrical trailer for the film. It’s fascinating to watch each, as they are both examples of just how much the brass at Warners botched its initial ad campaign for the film. With its trippy, 60s graphics and the tagline of “They’re Young, They’re in Love, and They Kill People” one would think they were going to see some breezy love story with a little gunplay. The second disc contains the bulk of the extras.
There is a 43 minute History Channel biography of the real-life Bonnie and Clyde that does an excellent job of portraying who they were washed away of all the folklore and myth. The real treat here is the three-part 64-minute documentary Revolution! The Making of Bonnie and Clyde where all the living principles participate including Beatty, Dunaway, and Hackman as well as director Arthur Penn, Robert Benton, Robert Towne, Morgan Fairchild (Faye Dunaway’s stand-in) and director Curtis Hanson who played a key role in getting Dunaway the role.
This documentary more than makes up for the lack of a commentary as you get a complete breakdown of the film’s history from all the major players. When stars like Beatty, Dunaway and Hackman participate in a retrospective like this, you know the film has a considerable amount of cultural significance.
One of the more fascinating details one learns is that originally the script was written to have Clyde be a bisexual and engage in a threesome with Bonnie and C.W., but with Penn fearing that it would unfairly paint the characters as freaks, he convinced Benton and Newman to rewrite Clyde as merely impotent.
There are also seven and a half minutes of Warren Beatty wardrobe tests and eight and a half minutes of deleted scenes that are subtitled as the original audio couldn’t be located.
The violence in Bonnie and Clyde is tame compared to that seen in some of the pointless torture porn films like Saw but it still has impact even after 40 years. Unlike many of the films today, you actually care about the people in Bonnie and Clyde and fear for them. Every aspect of the film is superior and holds up remarkably well.
With the only DVD being a bare bones version from years ago, this double disc version is a no-brainer upgrade. Bonnie and Clyde is significant not just for its content but for the change that it initiated in how films were to be made in Hollywood for years to come.
With the exception of The Graduate and Easy Rider, no film had a greater American cultural impact amongst the anti-authority youth culture in the 1960s than Bonnie and Clyde. Hollywood might not have been ready for it in 1967 but the youth of America was. Even in 2008, it still speaks to the dispirited youth inside all of us.
Bonnie and Clyde - Ultimate Collector's Edition is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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