by Allan Fish
(USA 1967 111m) DVD1/2
We rob banks
p Warren Beatty d Arthur Penn w David Newman, Robert Benton ph Burnett Guffey ed Dede Allen md Charles Strouse m “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” by Flatt & Scruggs art Dean Tavoularis cos Theadora Van Runkle
Warren Beatty (Clyde Barrow), Faye Dunaway (Bonnie Parker), Gene Hackman (Buck Barrow), Estelle Parsons (Blanche Barrow), Michael J.Pollard (C.W.Moss), Dub Taylor (Ivan Moss), Gene Wilder (Eugene Grizzard), Denver Pyle (Capt.Frank Hamer), Evans Evans (Velma Davis),
Bonnie and Clyde is a phenomenon of a film, a movie that completely transformed the landscape of the American cinema, as well as the American landscape through the eyes of the cinema. No film before (and arguably since) has shown violence and murder with such realism, with such literally in-yer-face brutality. In short, it’s one of the true milestones of modern American film, a film that, along with The Graduate, The Wild Bunch and Midnight Cowboy, lead to the collapse of censorship.
In 1931 Clyde Barrow has been released from prison for armed robbery and is on the verge of stealing a car. Suddenly he is hailed by a woman from an upstairs window, who he can see is both very young and very naked. She calls for him to hold on and she hangs out with him, finding out about his criminal past. But when she doubts he’s telling the truth, he commits a hold-up to impress her and they begin one of the most infamous crime sprees in American history, assisted along the way by their driver, a short former gas station attendant, and Clyde’s brother Buck and his wife Blanche.
For a film so wrapped up in iconography, it’s perhaps appropriate that this seminal sixties masterpiece created so much iconography of its own. The film was originally possibly to be directed by either François Truffaut or Jean-Luc Godard, and their influence is certainly evident. There are undoubtedly essences of the nouvelle vague in the film’s energy (especially Pierrot le Fou) and it also borrowed heavily from the low-budget love on the run noirs of the forties, such as Gun Crazy. And if the eponymous pair were indeed incompetent bank robbers, they were certainly incredibly bold self-publicists, almost criminal exhibitionists who revelled in their infamy. Who can forget the shot of Dunaway’s Bonnie posing on the hood of their latest stolen car, disposable cigar in her lips, lopsided beret on her head, gun in her belt, and leg on the buffer (copied from the actual photo, her beret first borrowed by Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy)? The iconography even stretches to the use of music, with Charles Strouse’s magnificent use of the immortal Flatt and Scruggs piece forming the film’s heartbeat, occasionally punctured by the musical ditties of Warren and Dubin. Plus there’s the sun-kissed photography of Burnett Guffey, which captures the sleepy Midwest of the depression like no other, the pitch perfect editing of Dede Allen, and the unwavering direction of Arthur Penn, an often misguided director who here truly showed what he was made of.
Yet at the end of the day, it’s the cast one remembers. Pollard never matched his work here, Hackman is magnificent as Buck, the role that made him a star in the making, and Parsons deserved her Oscar as the hysterical Blanche. But who can look beyond the central duo? Beatty truly was never this good again. There’s a certain irony in his playing Barrow as impotent, his love of gunplay acting as a form of foreplay and sexual release (in much the same way as Jon Dall in Gun Crazy). Then there’s Dunaway, her 26 year old face lit up by Burnett Guffey’s camera. That immortal opening scene, with her naked in her room, prowling like a tiger in heat, her eyes full of lust and desperate for sex, pouting through the bars on her bed like a Tennessee Williams sexpot. The eyes that drive the film forward to that fateful and equally iconic finale as the characters convulse in almost orgasmic fashion under the fatal hail of bullets. “You aint gonna have a minute’s peace” Clyde tells Bonnie. “D’ya promise?” she replies. We promise you, peace isn’t in the offering but immortality most certainly is.
BONNIE AND CLYDE is one of the few really great films of the 60′s directed by an America in this decade of foreign-cinema pre-eminence.
Yes, the influence here of Godard and Truffaut is most evident.
The best backrobber film of all-time?
Maybe. Just maybe.
I can’t dispute this film’s greatness, but I was never in love with Beatty’s performance — I find him in general to be grating, aside from a hazy, expressionistic turn in “McCabe and Ms. Miller,” which had better make the next decade’s countdown — ha! Anyhow, here we never quite believe his impotence, although in the bankrobbing scenes he plays off of Dunaway’s natural sex appeal quite well, exuding the reluctant, innocent frenzy of a self-aware diabetic child roaming a candy store without supervision (there is, indeed, something palpably Oedipal about the B/C relationship — a dynamic beautifully mirrored and distorted by Dunaway’s later performance as Electra in “Chinatown”).
And indeed, the acting might be the strongest thing here…Arthur Penn was unsurprisingly an experimental stage director before migrating to cinema. Michael J Pollard is truly inspired as the half-wit Moss, playing the burbling, sobering infant to Bonnie and Clyde’s honeymooner effulgence — he also “dooms” their fun and games in the same way that progeny stereotypically doom the puerile aspirations of any young couple. And Gene Wilder, in one of his earliest screen roles, is hilarious as a hitcher who gets more than he bargained for in one brief scene.
One last comment: I find it interesting that so many critics, including Kael, found this film to be a self-congratulatory ballad of the American ideal, seeing as how the fingerprints of so many Frenchmen are burned into the celluloid. And yet, as we’ve discussed here earlier, the New Wave were lovers of this kind of US cinema from years earlier — Monogram Studios’ output, for instance. So what we have with “Bonnie and Clyde” is an American criminology dreamscape as interpreted by foreigners with a pulp fetish, then offered back to us for final realization. It’s a magnificent synthesis — self-image metabasis and external mimesis superimposed.
Quite the extraordinary comment there Jon, and what use of language!
“self-image metabasis and external mimesis superimposed”
Indeed! LOL!
Jon, I think film criticism today holds BONNIE AND CLYDE in far greater esteem than the critics of 1967 did, although I don’t doubt your assertion that it embraces European impression far more than than many realize. In a decade when quality American film went on sabatical, this was seen as somewhat visionary, even if that assessment does now seem over-the-top.
Beatty grates on me too Jon, and his persona left it’s overbearing imprint on REDS and HEAVEN CAN WAIT particularly. However, as you note he was most effective in MC CABE, and I also believe he succeeded in his debut film SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS and ALL FALL DOWN, the former for his aching honesty and believable confusion, and the latter for the period’s youth rebelliousness.
Most critics and audiences bought him lock, stock and barrel in SHAMPOO, but I’m not there on that one.
Apart from this small group, he doesn’t work so well.
Jon, I think film criticism today holds BONNIE AND CLYDE in far greater esteem than the critics of 1967 did
Actually, I should have explained…Kael pretty much thought the film a masterpiece, partly BECAUSE it was so perversely and unabashedly American. But a number of others reacted poorly to the violence (Bosley Crowther for one).
Most critics and audiences bought him lock, stock and barrel in SHAMPOO, but I’m not there on that one.
I thought I was alone in my assessment of “Shampoo” as a bloated, self-indulgent mess with Beatty at the uber-hedonist focus…interesting. I forgot about “Splendor in the Grass,” also — not a great film, but fantastic performances from both Beatty and Natalie Wood.
Jon, you are not alone in that deft assessment of SHAMPOO. You voiced everything I feel about that film, but I got in big trouble at another site months back for saying as much in less exquisite terms than you did.
Yeah, ironically, his very first film, SPLENDOR may contain his greatest performance. What does that tell you Jon? Ha!
As far as that *expletive* Bosley Crowther, well, I won’t go there.
But I fully comprehend what you say there about why Kael was so effusive. She’s a very great critic (one of the greatest of all-time for sure) but she does have her agenda too.
As far as that *expletive* Bosley Crowther, well, I won’t go there.
Lol! Philip Lopate said it best in his American Film Criticism collection, and without profanity…
“the hopelessly fuddyduddy Bosley Crowther…”
Hahahaha Jon! Lopate put it best!
Beatty was never really a major actor, but he was good in Splendor, All Fall Down, Lilith, BAC, McCabe, The Parallax View and Bugsy, but all in all, he was more interesting behind the camera than in front, often because he was more interested when behind the camera.
Shampoo I didn’t hate, I just thought it mediocre.
all in all, he was more interesting behind the camera than in front, often because he was more interested when behind the camera.
I don’t know if I agree, if we’re talking Beatty the director. “Heaven Can Wait” massacred the blithe source of “Here Comes Mr. Jordan”; “Reds” was rather puffy Oscar-bait; I don’t even want to talk about “Dick Tracy,” though props must be given to cinematographer Vittoro Storaro for hanging in there; “Bulworth” was an enjoyable by-half poli-fantasy, betraying its overbearing and quite offensive structural biases about two-thirds of the way through.
Oh, right, I also forgot he produced…
…”Ishtar”!
Jon, what teamwork here!!!
The very moment you were entering this comment, I was making a comment at the Powerstrip!!!! Incredible!!!
I’m afraid you are right about Beatty’s muddied track record behind the camera.
Everyone, please check out Jon’s Criterion DVD review of the short films of pioneer Jean Painleve:
http://blog.aspiringsellout.com/2009/04/dvd-review-films-of-jean-painleve.html
I have never seen any Painleve films, nor have I purchased this set, which for me is almost unheard of for Criterions.
I think Bulworth was brilliant – an in your f- ing face political blitzkrieg . Beatty was great. Zoom zoom zoom…
Hi! Allan Fish,
A very nice review and very detailed review of your No# 37 pick Allan, the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.
….Btw, I just watch this film over there on amazon-on-demand.
Thank- yooou! (I took my “you” up an “octave,” but of course!)
Tony said, “I think Bulworth was brilliant…”
I’am so happy to tell you Tony, you are not alone…
of 163 commenters over there on amazon.com
83 agreed with you, I hope to make that 84….
I have posted 2 comments from 2 different amazon.com commenters….below:
One commenter said,
“Beneath the sometimes dark comedy, Bulworth has a lot of insightful and painful comments to may about our often hypocritical and ineffectual government. These observations are made satirically, but effectively. This is not a heavy-handed work.”
and another….
“For sure Warren Beatty has had a great time writing BULWORTH. Who wouldn’t have? To tell, under the veil of a comedy, what you have kept hidden in your mind during years must be a real pleasure. Just think of the scene at the Hollywood moguls’ house.
In my opinion, BULWORTH deserves to be considered as the best American movie of 1998 for his critical vision of a society looking for a lost ideal. “
Thanks,
Deedee
To be fair, I did say “Bulworth” was enjoyable…by-half. Is that really such invective, when most films are enjoyable by a tenth or less?
Hi! Jon,
Jon said, “To be fair, I did say “Bulworth” was enjoyable…by-half. Is that really such invective,…”
Oh! No, Jon, I don’t feel that your comment (or opinion) about the film “Bulworth” was invective at all!….(A fellow “Lammy”
)
are you kidding me?
…and furthermore, I wasn’t addressing your “opinion,” about the film “Bulworth” personally.
I was just pointing out to Tony, why I think that I will enjoy this film too!….
…Jon said, “when most films are enjoyable by a tenth or less?
I agree with you, not all are films are enjoyable. (Whether the films are domestic or foreign, at least the few films that I have watched…up to this point.
I must admit some of the films have been quite enjoyable, but on the hand, some films have been….)
Deedee
Thanks for writing back, fellow Lammy! I didn’t take your comment personally, just felt like reiterating my original stance. Or, more probably, I just wanted to hear the sound of myself typing a comment…
Say, if WitD ever joined the Large Association of Movie Blogs could we then dub its proprietor “Lammy” Juliano?
hahahahaha!!! Jon!!!
I wonder what Allan would think?
Hi! Lammy No#273…
Personally, I think WitD would be an excellant candidate for the LAMBs.
Because they keep their post updated on a regularly basis.
Jon said, “Say, if WitD ever joined the Large Association of Movie Blogs could we then dub its proprietor “Lammy” Juliano?
hmmm…”Sammy is a “Lammy” Juliano…Baaahh! have a nice ring to it!…Just kidding, Sam…I’am outta here!…as Tony, said, “Zoom, zoom, zoom….
LOL Dee Dee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dee dee, Zoom Zoom Zoom was an uber- cool song by Dr. Dre and LL Cool J on the Bulworth soundtrack:
“As we proceed
To give you what you need
Satisfaction guaranteed
Work and die
Yeah, yeah”
Full lyrics here http://tinyurl.com/cm895b
Hi! Tony,
Thanks, Tony, for the additional information, but I was using the words as you, probably know already in the “context”…of “running away!” after “kidding around” with Jon and Sam Juliano.
Deedee
[...] “Dirty” Harry Callahan from Sudden Impact – “Go ahead, make my day.” 34. Clyde Barrow from Bonnie and Clyde – “We rob banks.” 35. Tony Montana from Scarface – “Say hello to my little friend!” 36. [...]
I just watched this film again recently. It remains a movie I like a lot – especially for its stylistic flourishes – while never quite warming up to it as I do to other 60s icons like The Graduate and Easy Rider. I think it’s, in part, the protagonists’ unflattering combination of stupidity and arrogance, selfishness and occasional self-pity…all of which makes them compulsively watchable if not exactly sympathetic (and this from someone who just dedicated a post to charismatic sociopaths!). Gene Hackman’s great though, isn’t he? Of course, the whole cast is excellent, the direction and editing great, the screenplay inventive, the aura of the film (especially that masterful family reunion) positively evocative – definitely a classic. But I do suspect if I was narrowing down favorite sixties films, this would fall by the wayside. Oh well…
Watched this again tonight for the third or fourth time. Still can’t say that I find it to be a great movie. A rather empty film that just happened to superficially harness the spirit of the late 60′s. I consider Night Moves to be Penn’s masterpiece, as it’s basically a much deeper exploration of disenchantment.