1967 – Bonnie and Clyde

It’s an American biographical and gangster film directed by Arthur Penn and produced by Warren Beatty. It stars Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in the titular Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow roles. They are outlaws who roam the Depression-era South robbing banks and convenience stores together with others. It ushered in the era of New Hollywood, a more gritty, but honest form of cinema with self-auteur (away from the studio system and the Hays Code), morally ambiguous main characters and bleak or unresolved endings. I rented it on Apple TV for 3.99 Eur.

It’s time for another gangster movie and for yet another tonal shift in movie types. I had already commented on the earnestness of 50s type movies appealing to the better angels of our nature to the cynicism of the early 60s that made fun of the system often in biting satire. Well, now it’s time for showing the dirty parts of life, still cynical, but now you are taking part, riding shotgun instead of having a God’s-eye view over the bad parts of the system. Bonnie and Clyde represents that part of seeking freedom and fame during the Great Depression.

In the beginning, it seems glamorous. That shot of Faye Dunaway posing with a cigar and a gun in front of a car is one for the ages. It looks so stylish, she is dressed so fine, you want that too. Warren Beatty is so easy on the eyes, with his amazing suits accentuating his body. But then the movie very quickly transports you to the reality of what it means to live on the lam: sleeping in dirty cars or run-down accommodations, crawling out of iffy situations through muddy fields or lakes, killing people… Just like other gangster movies, the glamour is unceremoniously unveiled as grueling and unforgiving. And yet, you feel for them when Bonnie’s mother says goodbye to her, she suddenly seems so young. She starts talking of starting over, true regret in her eyes, she suddenly regrets being famous, even though she writes herself a poem.

Well, but did I feel it? The style of the movie is great. Those chase scenes really paved the way towards other movies, like the chase scene in Thelma and Louise. But much like other New Hollywood movies, which this one and The Graduate kicked off the movement, it is very boomerish in its depiction of yearning for freedom. I am sorry to say it, but Boomers do have the reputation of being self-involved. Their self-actualization comes before issues of the greater good. In the movie, they are partially magnanimous towards poor people, but their satisfaction comes first. My boomer teachers had us reading “The Catcher in the Rye” for school, I found Holden to be a whiny, privileged hypocrite, who complained about the phoniness of others while lying to others constantly. Our teachers also had us watching “Easy Rider” which I found so boring, their ideas of freedom being so selfish. It’s what I love about our current GenZ so much, they often do think in communal terms about the greater good.

Now part of it is circumstantial, Boomers didn’t have the greatest role models and were born into a rigid society, so a certain rebelliousness is understandable. But Penn tries to tie these themes to the Great Depression, so the juxtaposition of that boomer style with 30s downtrodden America is a bit jarring. The constant cuts and fast editing make you feel like you are yanked back and forth constantly into joy and despair, which is on purpose, but not very nice. Add to that its famous ending, which sort of leaves you aghast and unsatisfied – what was it all for? And that is what the movie left me, sad. Not feeling sorry for those criminals, they did kill so many cops, after all, just sad at the circumstances.