Bonnie and Clyde
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Movie Reviews of Bonnie and Clyde
Movie Review: A Great Work of Art but Bad History
Summary: 5 Stars
My interest in Arthur Penn's fine film was rekindled by a recent visit to Dexfield Park between Dexter and Redfield, Iowa, and to Stuart, Iowa. The former place, of course, was the site of a posse's raid on the Barrow gang in July of 1933. Blanche and Buck were captured, and Buck later died in a hospital in nearby Perry. The following April, Bonnie and Clyde returned to rob the bank in Stuart, just a month before the ambush that killed them in Louisiana. The visit prompted some research. Hence my title for this review. Bonnie and Clyde is great filmmaking, but poor history. The producer, Warren Beatty, used the arc of the real story, but combined characters and events, a common Hollywood tradition. He knew he had to make a film that would entice and hold audiences. Spending time on the relatively prosaic way the two met would not do that. Neither would portraying the several days and 200 miles that separated the ambush at Platte City, MO, from the next ambush at Dexfield Park. Therefore, Platte City, Iowa, was invented. It would also have been inconvenient to portray W.D. Jones and Henry Methvin as separate characters, so they were combined into C.W. Moss. Some other decisions about story and characters, though, are harder to understand. Frank Hamer is portrayed as a vengeful officer who pursued Bonnie and Clyde in revenge for being humiliated by them, when he was actually semi-retired. He was hired by law enforcement to aid them in the capture of the Barrow gang because of several incidents in which officers had been killed by that gang. It would have been fairly simple to replace the pond scene with something that reflected reality. Perhaps that wouldn't have been quite as sexy. Speaking of which, there is absolutely no evidence whatever that Clyde suffered from sexual dysfunction or that Bonnie was frustrated by such things. Clyde, in fact, probably loved Bonnie and tried more than once to get her to leave. To ignore this aspect of their relationship and make Clyde impotent seems like pandering. The Blanche character is used to create tension, using the fact that she was supposedly the daughter of a preacher to underscore the absurdity of what is happening. Even though she liked Beatty, and signed off on the original script, Blanche objected to the final cut. Unfortunately for her, the evidence from people other than herself and her own family does suggest that Blanche Barrow behaved in much the way Estelle Parsons portrayed her, though her father was a farmer and only a part-time preacher. Finally, the artistry of the film makes it impossible to explore one of the most intriguing questions about this criminal career: What really lay behind the fatal ambush in Louisiana? Two things are disturbing about the behavior of law enforcement. First, stories persist that Ivan Methvin, the father of Henry and the model for the Dub Taylor character, was tied to a tree behind the posse while his Model A truck was used as bait. Second, the only formal charge against Bonnie was aiding in the transport of a stolen vehicle across state lines--hardly an offense warranting the death penalty. I saw the other day that a remake is in the works. It would be interesting to see the historical characters incorporated and this last mystery explored. Watch the Arthur Penn film for its classic nature. If it raises your interest in history, Google "Bonnie and Clyde." You'll find fascinating stuff. Either way, enjoy the movie for what it is--excellent entertainment. I must say, though, that I am disappointed not to find something like a fortieth anniversary edition available, possibly incorporating the excellent A&E feature of recent years.Movie Review: Natural born killers
Summary: 5 Stars
Trust Hollywood to turn two common criminals into two American folk heroes. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were two small-town young people drifting aimlessly during the Great Depression of the 1930's; she's bored out of her gourd, and he's a felon who had killed fourteen men by the time he met his end at the ripe old age of twenty-four. They meet, fall sort of in love, and embark on a petty crime spree. At first it's all good-humored fun; they steal a couple of cars, hold up a couple of stores, and in a moment of hilarious insanity, Clyde attempts to rob a bank that went bust a week before, much to the amusement of the banker and Bonnie, who's collapsing with laughter over the steering wheel. But then a storekeeper takes offense at Clyde attempting to hold him up, and is pistol-whipped by Clyde in his frantic efforts to escape. Once the battered storekeeper ID's Clyde's photo to the cops, things turn serious.
As Clyde's posse expands to include a lowlife neer-do-well named C.W. Moss and Clyde's brother Buck and his sister-in-law Blanche, their crimes get bolder and the violence spirals out of control. A bank robbery in broad daylight (while C.W. manages to get their getaway car stuck in a too-tight parking space) goes off almost without a hitch; but when Clyde shoots a pursuing cop in the face and his head explodes all over their back windshield, the fun stuff is over. They're wanted criminals being chased from Arkansas to Oklahoma and back to Louisiana. As their notoriety spreads, so does their audacity. In one of the funniest scenes in the film, they capture a sheriff who was about to sneak up on them and handcuff him while Clyde snaps pictures of Bonnie holding a gun on him. But their fame comes at a terrible price; they're wanted outcasts, alienated even from their own. When Clyde meets Bonnie's mother and tells her they'd like to live within three miles of her, Mrs. Parker tells her daughter, "You try to live three miles from me, and you won't live long, honey."
From the scene where Buck expires in a hail of police bullets to the slow dance on the killing ground in Louisiana, the film takes on a somber tone in stark comparison to the lighthearted opening sequences. Once the cascading violence has turned brutal, the movie becomes darker and more foreboding as well. But as bad as the two protagonists are, we can't help but like them. Maybe that's the difference between Hollywood and real life. One wonders how many people who came across Bonnie and Clyde actually liked this pair?
The tension between Bonnie and Clyde helps keep the movie on edge. Arthur Penn's superb direction, assisted by knockout performances from the cast, helps keep the movie on a razor edge balanced between laughter and revulsion. Warren Beatty was never better than in his title role as Clyde Barrow, and Faye Dunaway makes a perfect Bonnie to his Clyde. Michael J. Pollard is winning as the doofus C.W. Moss and Gene Hackman is wonderful as Buck, torn between his loyalty to his brother and his love for his ditzy wife. But Estelle Parsons, as that ditzy wife, almost runs off with the film; her hysterics during the shootout between Clyde's gang and the cops has the viewers in equal hysterics rolling in the aisles. The cinematography is great; we feel all the heat, dust, and emptiness of Depression-era America, and the foot-stompin' banjo music by Flatts and Scruggs helps anchor the movie to its time and place. "Bonnie and Clyde" has become an American classic, one of the best films to come out of the 1960's.
Movie Review: An American Tale
Summary: 5 Stars
In an earlier period of America cultural iconology, at least from the time of Jesse James and his fellows to the 1930s, the bank robber, deservedly or not, had pretty good press in the popular imagination. That time is well past, and certainly well past and not coming back since the dawn of the age of the ATM. The hook has always been a variation of the poor getting back at the rich through some populist agent. And if he or she threw a few dollars on the ground for the local populace that act became the stuff of legends. The reality behind those legends was generally something different; usually just stone-cold killers and their henchmen making off with the dough so they did not have to work. Hardly the program for progressive societal emancipation.
But enough of that "high sociology". After all this is a review of a commercial film, "Bonnie and Clyde", not a critique of the lumpen criminal lifestyle as it impinges on the working poor from which that element usually comes. I mentioned the hook of the banks as symbols of the rich against the poor (a rather timely subject these days). During the Great Depression of the 1930s that fact was even truer as farmers, small businessmen, and others were foreclosed at will (the bank's will). Moreover, and this might "speak" to a critique of the lumpen lifestyle, the banks then, especially out in the Great Plains small towns where Bonnie and Clyde operated were easy targets for slick operators with fast cars and good aim.
And it is at this level that this film shines. Rather than some moralistic sermon about the virtues of work and the little white house with the picket fence this film takes the somewhat comic road and catalogs the trials and tribulations of being bank robbers on the way to becoming a legend, and what happens when you get in the cross-hairs of the police. There are plenty of good scenes that portray this from day one of Bonnie and Clyde's new joint career path (Clyde was a recidivist career criminal, Bonnie a wanderlust waitress looking for some action), including a funny scene of a bank with no dough. But, although this saga is played for "camp" a little moral does seep in at the end. The last scene (I will not divulge it here) is guaranteed to make one ponder the virtues of the nine-to-five grind and that little white house.
No, I have not forgotten the romance end of this odd variation of the boy meets girl theme that dominates many commercial films. I was just saving it for the end. The tensions, attractions, ambitions, and frustrations between Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway visually add greatly to this film. Especially seeing a young Faye Dunaway going through her paces being, well, fetching. She was made for the camera. This brings up my last point. I have pointed out in other commentaries my own short-lived, small-time, unsuccessful teenage "romance" with the criminal life. If Faye Dunaway had been around my neighborhood and wanted to a little free-lance crime, or whatever, I might have pursued that career path more fully, and gladly. And the hell with the little white house with the picket fence.
Movie Review: AFI's Love Stories #65: Bonnie and Clyde
Summary: 5 Stars
I lost my romantic idealization of Bonnie and Clyde ("We rob banks!") years ago when I saw a documentary that include Bonnie Parker's half naked bullet riddled body in the morgue. Arthur Penn's 1967 film might have romanticized the infamous Depression bank robbers, but its legacy was that it made violence in American films palatable. Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" was accused of glorifying violence and was not enough of a success at the box office to get the credit for this dubious honor. The finale of "Bonnie and Clyde" had the virtue, so to speak, of being historically accurate. The climax of the film is unforgettable (not even Sonny's death in "The Godfather" really compares) but it is really something of a coda to the rest of the film which is dominated by the five Oscar nominated performances of Warren Beatty (Clyde Barrow), Faye Dunaway (Bonnie Parker), Estelle Parsons (who won the Supporting Actress award for Blanche Barrow), Gene Hackman (Buck Barrow), and Michael Pollard (C. W. Moss). Beatty and Dunaway have never been better (good thing Jane Fonda turned down the role of Bonnie). Add into the mix Gene Wilder in his first film role as Eugene Grizzard, a nervous young man who had the misfortune of having his car "borrowed" by the Barrow gang (Wilder's next film would be "The Producers"; talk about starting fast in Hollywood).
In the final analysis I find this a very provocative film. It takes the "Robin Hood" image of thieves and once we are comfortable with rooting along these two crazy kids, the film begins to make us uncomfortable with that support. Bonnie and Clyde are neither heroes not anti-heroes, but rather counter-heroes. They are "good" because the law enforcement figures are clearly the modern counterparts for the Sherrif of Nottinghman's men. There is also something to be said that no matter how charming Clyde/Warren happens to be, that big goofy smile cannot stop a hail of bullets. But even in the end we want to deny the truth, that these two people reaped what they sowed. Mabye the moral ambiguity is just a strategic pose, to justify the romantic story of a gang of murdering bank robbers and/or the bloodbath finale. As I said, this is a provocative film. Watch it sometime and get provoked.
Most Romantic Lines: Well, besides the film's memorable tagline ("They're young... they're in love... and they kill people") that would have to be the end of Bonnie Paker's poem: "Some day, they'll go down together / They'll bury them side by side / To a few, it'll be grief / To the law, a relief / But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde."
If you enjoyed "Bonnie and Clyde" then check out these other film's from AFI's 100 Greatest Love Stories of All Time: #15 "Wuthering Heights," #37 "Titanic," #73 "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," and #90 "The Bridges of Madison County." Why? Because the two crazy kids in love in these movies are all dead at the end of the film as well, although two of the above still have happily ever after endings (with the emphasis on the ever after).
Movie Review: A landmark it is...
Summary: 5 Stars
My wife and I had decided that we would broaden our horizons and watch some films that got critical aclaim before our birth (and beings we were born in 85 we have a lot to choose from) so the first year we chose from was 67 and the first film we watched was Bonnie and Clyde. It's refered to as the landmark film of the 60's and I see why. As the first film to recieve an R rating (which is less than a PG-13 compaired to todays standards) it was one of the first films to showcase violence with bloody results. The story (loose as it may be) follows real life outlaws Bonnie and Clyde (played by Beaty and Dunaway) as they run from the law acompanied by a auto mech. C.W. (Pollard) and Clydes brother (Hackman in a roll that should have landed him an oscar) and his unwilling wife (played by Parsons in a roll I can't believe won her an oscar!) We see as they run from the law, but moreso we see as they grow as people in their relationships with one another and we see that what first attracted them to each other is what kept them going strong...this is seen when Bonnie and Clyde are lying in bed and Bonnie asks Clyde, if he could wake up a free man with no record, what would he do? He proceeds to say that he would do things differently, but as he elaborates you can see that his plan is still to be an outlaw. Bonnie turns away, obviously dissapointed, but she gives way to a smile, because this is the man she loves, and if he were any different she may not love him. I thought, for the time, everything was top notch. You cant compare this film, at least the acting and effects, to films of today for the caliber is not there. But, for shear story and production, Bonnie and Clyde was ahead of the times and desearved the praise it recieved. Faye Dunaway was brilliant and beautiful, and while Warren came off a bit stiff sometimes and Parsons was downright dreadfull, Hackman was brilliant and Beaty had his good scenes (like when he reads in the paper that he left his brother to die). What I also liked about the film was that, instead of playing Bonnie and Clyde as heartless criminals you can see how things really got blown out of perportion. You can see how they were linked to robberies they never commited mainly becuase there was no one else to accuse, and you can see how Bonnie starts to miss her mother deeply, and when she encounters her again you can read in her eyes the regret for starting her life in crime, especially when her mother says that she better keep running for if she were to stop she would be killed. Bonnie never intending all of this to happen, and for that matter, neither did Clyde, but one bad choice after another adds up, and the ending for Bonnie and Clyde was just as she predicted..."It's death for Bonnie and Clyde."