"Bonnie and Clyde's" legacy

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On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, three thoughts from A.O. Scott in the 8.12 N.Y. Times about how this 1967 Warner Bros. movie broke Hollywood's depiction-of-violence dam and introduced the idea of hip carnage with one fell swoop -- a horrific and exhilarating machine-gun massacre scene at the finale:

Thought #1: Bonnie and Clyde's "hero and heroine [played by Beatty and Faye Dunaway] exist in a state of vague solidarity with the poor and destitute -- the banks they rob are the real enemies of the people, and they are admired by hard-luck farmers and sharecroppers -- but they themselves are much too glamorous to pass as members of the oppressed masses.

"They are not fighting injustice so much as they are having fun, enjoying the prerogatives of outlaw fame. They exist in a kind of anarchic utopia where the pursuit of kicks is imagined to be inherently political. In this universe the usual ethical justifications of violent action are stripped away, but the aura of righteousness somehow remains."

Thought #2: Since Bonnie and Clyde's ascension as a hip vanguard movie that brought forward a new-at-the-time screen sensibility, "Not Getting It has been the accusation leveled against critics of a certain kind of movie violence by its defenders. The easiest way to attack movie violence is to warn of its real-world consequences, to worry that someone will imitate what is seen on screen. The symmetrically literal-minded response is that because violence already exists in the world, refusing to show it in movies would be dishonest.

"[But] neither of these positions quite acknowledges the particularity of cinematic violence, which is not the same as what it depicts. Even the most bloodthirsty moviegoer would be likely to leave a real fusillade like the one at the end of Bonnie and Clyde sickened and traumatized, rather than thrilled. The particular charge of that scene, and others like it, is that it tries to push the pretense -- the art -- as close to trauma as possible and to make the appreciation of that art its point. Missing the point is what marks you as square."

Thought #3: "I still get a kick out of Bonnie and Clyde, but it's accompanied by a twinge of unease, by the suspicion that, in some ways that matter and that have become too easy to dismiss, Bosley Crowther was right." What Scott means, I think, is that Crowther, square that he was, may have recognized "the real-world consequences" that Bonnie and Clyde's finale would bring about in terms of endless imitation and can-you-top-this? violence.

One final thought -- a passage that Scott quotes from Pauline Kael's defense of that argued strongly with Crowther's tut-tuttish slam: Bonnie and Clyde, she wrote, "brings into the almost frighteningly public world of movies things that people have been feeling and saying and writing about. And once something is said or done on the screens of the world, it can never again belong to a minority, never again be the private possession of an educated, or `knowing' group.

"But even for that group there is an excitement in hearing its own private thoughts expressed out loud and in seeing something of its own sensibility become part of our common culture."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 11, 2007 at 10:26 AM

comment #1

christian says ...

whateva. the end is still perfect.

it's just plain one of the great american films.

Posted by christian at August 11, 2007 11:23 AM

comment #2

malibugigolo says ...

What a lame cartoon. For children.

Posted by malibugigolo at August 11, 2007 12:18 PM

comment #3

The Movie Man says ...

Bonnie and Clyde is an American masterpiece, and is fascinatingly conflicted in its attitudes (between satirizing the characters and buying into their bullshit, between '30s glamour and a more down home '60s sensibility.)

The leads are perfect, and that ending still hurts.

I'll get laughed out of this thread for saying this but I found some of these fractured sensibilities in the Rob Zombie movie, The Devil's Rejects. I'm not saying its B & C, I'm just saying it gets closer than many films have recently to capturing the tear in sensibilities that Bonnie and Clyde so brilliantly does.

Posted by The Movie Man at August 11, 2007 12:25 PM

comment #4

btwnproductions says ...

From BONNIE AND CLYDE to SHOOT 'EM UP is a long fall downwards.

Posted by btwnproductions at August 11, 2007 12:33 PM

comment #5

Nate West says ...

Scott says: "Their horror was undercut by jaunty, rambunctious humor and by the skittering banjo music of the soundtrack."

To me, Scott's analysis has it exactly backwards. As some critic once pointed out, in Bonnie and Clyde, you have New York actors play-acting as hillbillies, and the hillbillies, in turn, play-acting as outlaws. It's all fun and games until the first brutal death. Then, in contrast with what Scott says, the humor is undercut by the horror and not the other way around.

The attack at the house, the ambush in the woods, the death of Buck, the capture of his wife--through all of this the thrill (i.e. radical chic) gives way to panic and desperation. Bonnie wants nothing more than a return to the innocence that home represents, but there is no going home, as an all too brief visit to see her mother demonstrates.

Death comes knocking. There is no Tarantino-esque glee in the denouement.

They've been shot at before,
But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.

Posted by Nate West at August 11, 2007 6:53 PM

comment #6

vansmith says ...

the movie was all those things, but the last scene was electrifying in the twitching of the bodies, i remember seeing it and jumping or reacting as if recieving those bullets as well, it was safely invigorating you might say. But the big thing was the look they gave each other, it wasnt fear it was more of an agreeable acceptance that it was going to be alright because they were going thru it together.

Posted by vansmith at August 12, 2007 2:34 PM

comment #7

Gaydos says ...

Dang, I hate to be the marshall again, but NY Times' Tony Scott leaves me no choice.

Scott's a fine critic and I like the maverick stance he takes on "Bonnie and Clyde," but he's got the history mostly wrong, like everyone who's read only the Biskind book "Raging Bulls, etc."

So I've included the link to my piece from Variety AGAIN in the vain hope that the mythology will eventually get punctured.

Tony writes that reviews for B&C were all bad, which is all nonsense. The picture got lots of great reviews from important and widely read critics, including THE CRITIC FOR THE NEW YORKER (pre-Pauline, dagnabit!)

It was a critical sensation in Montreal where it premiered and it blew the doors off of the theater where it opened in London, racking up the second-biggest film opening in London history at that time("My Fair Lady" was number one), ALL BEFORE PAULINE WEIGHED IN.

Also: It was still in theaters when Pauline reviewed it at the end of October, in contrast to the shoddy recounting of history in "Raging" which claims it was long gone and Pauline had to gallop in on her white steed to bring it back.

The role of publicist John Springer is fascinating, (never mentioned by Biskind) especially in light of Tony's ruminations about this as the "hip" film of that moment. It wasn't exactly accidentally hip. Lots of p.r. work went into making the hit and the myth.

So, here's the antidote to Biskind's rather tattered historical tome:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117888921.html

Posted by Gaydos at August 12, 2007 10:49 PM

comment #8