11/17/10 - Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde (1967, 112 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061418/

This doesn't fit the foreign bill but it's a movie that for some reason had really interested me lately. I have no idea what really prompted this feeling though but I settled on this to take a break from the subtitle reading I'd been doing a lot of this month.

The movie follows the Barrow Gang which is made up of Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway), C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard), Buck Barrow (Gene Hackman), and Blanche (Estelle Parsons). They go through the nation as bank robbers until they are eventually caught and killed.

The movie is noted for its violence and especially the violence in the final scene which I'll comment on later. Not surprisingly though, what impressed me the most in Bonnie and Clyde was the character development and the character interactions. It brings me back to my comments on Deliverance and Community - each character has a different relationship with the other characters. For instance, Bonnie and Clyde have an odd loving relationship while Buck and Blanche seem to have a more typical relationship. Bonnie hates Blanche while Clyde doesn't really like her but has to because he's Buck's brother. The list goes on but the point is that all these characters have a web of complex interrelationships that only builds as the tension mounts while they run from the law and the number of their enemies grows larger. Loving relationships fall apart and the heated relationships get closer to their boiling points which is always great fun to watch in a movie - especially by such a quality cast as this.

However, where Bonnie and Clyde probably stands most prominently in cinema lore is in the final shootout. Here, everything culminates as they are both absolutely destroyed by a plethora of bullets. But first, the other important feature of Bonnie and Clyde must be mentioned: the anti-hero. Bonnie and Clyde is unquestionably one of the most violent films of its time but it was also one of the first to have the such villains be shown as so likable. It's honestly hard to root against Bonnie and Clyde as they go across the nation robbing banks and yet they shoot at, steal from, and kill people that they run into seemingly with little regard for human life. Okay, so C.W. Moss sometimes shows some feelings but that's about it. The most moving scene is naturally the scene where Bonnie goes back to visit her mother and there's a good-bye shared by both parties as they realize they probably won't see each other ever again (and most likely because Bonnie will be dead, not because her mom will have died). We're supposed to feel sad for Bonnie here which is bizarre given what we know she's been through. One little thing the movie does is to shoot this scene with an odd tinge to the color to almost make it more sentimental. In my opinion it produces the desired effect while not coming off as some hokey gimmick. Another example is right before the duo die when we are treated to Bonnie's romantic (in the literary sense) poem about their escapades. All this makes Bonnie and Clyde to be almost heroes when they clearly should not be regarded as such. To make these feelings come crashing down all the harder the film treats us to a brutal and incredibly violent (for 1967) shootout. Obviously, everyone involved knew this day would come but it's still chilling and a little sad to watch as these lovable "heroes" die as dishonorably as they lived.

One final note about this shootout is what it shows. I think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid works remarkable well for itself when there's a similar ending. There, our heroic duo goes out in a blaze of glory but instead the final shot is a freeze frame of them running out while the loud sound of a hundred guns aimed at them sounds out at once. Here though, we are treated to that carnage. Somehow both work out for the best given the respective films. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the duo is infinitely more likable than Bonnie and Clyde are and they have some charm about them. They're violent - doing the same bank robbing that Bonnie and Clyde do - but somehow everything works. Then again, maybe it's just because Butch and Sundance are too likable that I don't really want to see them die. Maybe I need to rethink how both of these really work but it's an interesting difference between two iconic bank robbing duos on film.

Overall, I gave this film an 8/10. Bonnie and Clyde is carried by fantastic performances from everyone involved. It's a ruthless and brutal crime drama and one that thoroughly kept me entertained.