Bonnie and Clyde is a 1967 American biographical crime drama film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, outlaws and romantic partners in the Great Depression-era American South. The cast also features Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, and Estelle Parsons. The screenplay was written by David Newman and Robert Benton (with uncredited contributions by Beatty and Robert Towne); Beatty also produced the film.
The film was released in the United States by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts on August 13, 1967. It is considered a turning point for American cinema. Initial critical reception was mixed but later swung positive, and the film became a significant commercial success, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of 1967. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards including for Best Picture, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Estelle Parsons) and Best Cinematography (Burnett Guffey).
Bonnie and Clyde is considered one of the first films of the New Hollywood era and a landmark picture. It broke many cinematic taboos, and for some members of the counterculture, the film was seen as a "rallying cry" against the establishment, both for its portrayal of a bank robbery as a form of revolution and for its sympathetic depiction of criminals contrasted against the police. Its success prompted other filmmakers to be more open in presenting sex and violence in their films. The film's ending became famous as "one of the bloodiest death scenes in cinematic history." In 1992, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." It was ranked 27th on the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the 100 greatest American films of all time and 42nd on its 2007 list.
Plot During the Great Depression, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker of Texas meet when Clyde tries to steal Bonnie's mother's car. Bored with her job as a waitress, Bonnie becomes intrigued by Clyde and decides to partner with him in crime. They pull off some holdups, but their amateur efforts, while exciting, are not very lucrative. Bonnie and Clyde turn from small-time heists to bank robbing.
The duo's crime spree shifts into high gear once they hook up with a dim-witted gas station attendant, C.W. Moss. Their exploits also become more violent. After C.W. botches parking during a bank robbery and delays their escape, Clyde shoots the bank manager in the face when he jumps onto the slow-moving car's running board. Clyde's older brother, Buck, and his wife, Blanche, a preacher's daughter, also join them. The two women develop an immediate dislike for each other, which only intensifies over time. Blanche has nothing but disdain for Bonnie, Clyde, and C.W., while Bonnie sees Blanche's flightiness as a constant danger to the gang's survival.
In Joplin, Missouri, local police show up at the gang's rented house after being alerted by a grocery delivery boy, believing they are dealing with bootleggers, not bank robbers; two policemen are killed in a shootout. The gang is pursued by law enforcement, including Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, whom they capture and humiliate before leaving him adrift on a boat while handcuffed. The five outlaws then pull a heist, during which a police chase disables their vehicle. They steal Eugene Grizzard's car and take him and his girlfriend captive before quickly abandoning them when they learn he is an undertaker.
Bonnie wants to visit her family in Texas and give them part of the heist funds, to which Clyde reluctantly acquiesces despite the risk. An ambush by law enforcement overnight catches the gang off guard, resulting in numerous casualties. Buck is mortally wounded by a shot to his head, and Blanche is injured in one eye, losing sight in it. Bonnie, Clyde, and C.W. barely escape alive, while Blanche falls into police custody. Hamer then tricks her into revealing C.W.'s name (until then he was only an "unidentified suspect").
C.W. takes the wounded Bonnie and Clyde to hide out at the house of his father, Ivan, who thinks the couple has corrupted his son (as evidenced by an ornate tattoo Bonnie convinced C.W. to get). The elder Moss makes a deal with Hamer: in exchange for mercy for C.W., he sets a trap for the outlaws. When Bonnie and Clyde stop on the side of the road to help Mr. Moss fix a flat tire, a flock of birds flies out of the nearby bushes and Ivan dives for cover. Just as Bonnie and Clyde realize they have walked into a trap, the posse in the bushes guns them down. After the shooting is over, Hamer and his men come out of hiding and gather around the couple's bodies.
Cast
Cast notes Gene Wilder was in his film debut as Eugene Grizzard, one of Bonnie and Clyde's hostages. His girlfriend, Velma Davis, was played by Evans Evans. The family gathering scene was filmed in Red Oak, Texas, where many residents gathered to watch. When the filmmakers noticed Mabel Cavitt, a local schoolteacher, among the people gathered, she was cast as Bonnie Parker's mother.
Production and style
The film was intended as a romantic and comic version of the violent gangster films of the 1930s, updated with modern filmmaking techniques.The Movies by Richard Griffith, Arthur Mayer, and Eileen Bowser. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981 edition. Arthur Penn portrayed some of the violent scenes with a comic tone, sometimes reminiscent of Keystone Cops-style slapstick films, then shifted disconcertingly into horrific and graphic violence. The film has the French New Wave directors' influence, both in its rapid shifts of tone and in its choppy editing, which is particularly noticeable in its closing sequence.
The first handling of the script was in the early 1960s. Influenced by the French New Wave writers and not yet completed, Newman and Benton sent Penn an early draft. He already was engaged in production decisions for The Chase (1966) and could not get involved in the script for Bonnie and Clyde. The writers sent their script to François Truffaut, who made contributions but passed on the project, next directing Fahrenheit 451. At Truffaut's suggestion, the writers, much excited (the film's producers were less so), approached filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.
Some sources claim Godard did not trust Hollywood and refused. Benton claimed that Godard wanted to shoot the film in New Jersey in January during the winter. He purportedly took offense when would-be producer Norah Wright objected that his desire was unreasonable, as the story took place in Texas, which has a warm climate year-round. Her partner Elinor Jones claimed the two did not believe Godard was right for the project in the first place. Godard's retort: « Je vous parle de cinéma, vous me parlez de météo. Au revoir. » ("I'm talking cinema and you're talking weather. Goodbye.")"Arthur Penn et la Nouvelle Vague" (in French language), Luc Lagier. 27/November/2012 |publisher= Magazine Arte.tv | After the 1968 Academy Awards, Godard sent Benton and Newman a cable that read, "Now, let's make it all over again!"
Soon after the failed negotiations for production, Beatty was visiting Paris and learned through Truffaut of the project and its path. On returning to Hollywood, Beatty requested to see the script and bought the rights. A meeting with Godard was not productive. Beatty changed his approach and convinced the writers that while the script at first reading was very much of the French New Wave style, an American director was necessary for the subject.
Beatty offered the directing position to George Stevens, William Wyler, Karel Reisz, John Schlesinger, Brian G. Hutton, and Sydney Pollack, all of whom turned it down. Penn turned it down several times before Beatty finally persuaded him to direct the film.Arthur Penn: American Director by Nat Segaloff. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2011 edition. Beatty was entitled to 40% of the profits of the film and gave Penn 10%.
When Beatty was on board as producer only, his sister and actress Shirley MacLaine was a strong possibility to play Bonnie. When Beatty decided to play Clyde, they needed a different actress. Considered for the role were Jane Fonda, Tuesday Weld, Ann-Margret, Sharon Tate, Leslie Caron, Carol Lynley, and Sue Lyon. Cher auditioned for the part, and Beatty begged Natalie Wood to play the role. Wood declined, to concentrate on her therapy, and acknowledged that working with Beatty before had been "difficult". Faye Dunaway later said that she won the part "by the skin of her teeth!"
The film is forthright in its handling of sexuality, but that theme was toned down from its conception. Originally, Benton and Newman wrote Clyde as bisexual. He and Bonnie were to have a three-way sexual relationship with their male getaway driver. Penn convinced the writers that the emotional complexity of the couple's relationship undercut the passion of the title characters. Such behavior would threaten the audience's sympathy for the characters and might result in their being written off as sexual deviants because they were criminals. Others said that Beatty was unwilling to have his character display that kind of sexuality and that the Production Code would never have allowed such content in the first place. Clyde is portrayed as asexual or, perhaps, demisexual.
Bonnie and Clyde was one of the first films to feature extensive use of squibs—small explosive charges, often mounted with bags of stage blood, that detonate inside an actor's clothes to simulate bullet hits. Released in an era when film shootings were generally depicted as bloodless and painless, the Bonnie and Clyde death scene was one of the first in mainstream American cinema to be depicted with graphic realism.
Beatty originally wanted the film to be shot in black and white, but Warner Bros. Pictures rejected the idea. Much of the studio's senior management was hostile to the film, especially Jack L. Warner, who considered the subject matter an unwanted throwback to Warner Bros.' early period when gangster films were a common product. Moreover, Warner was already annoyed at Beatty for refusing to star in PT 109 and defying Warner's favorite gesture of authority of showing the studio water tower with the WB logo on it. Beatty said, "Well, it's got your name, but it's got my initials." Warner complained about the costs of the film's extensive location shooting in Texas, which exceeded its production schedule and budget, and ordered the crew back to the studio backlot. It already had planned to return for final process shots.
Music The instrumental banjo piece "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," performed by Flatt and Scruggs, was introduced to a worldwide audience as a result of its frequent use in the movie. Additional banjo music was written and performed by Doug Dillard. The use of this music is anachronistic because bluegrass dates from the mid-1940s rather than the 1930s. But the functionally similar old-time music genre was long established and widely recorded in the period of the film's events. Long out of print in vinyl and cassette formats, the film soundtrack was released on CD in 2009.
Historical accuracy
The film considerably simplifies the lives of Bonnie and Clyde and their gang. They were allied with other gang members, were repeatedly jailed, and committed other murders. In the part of the movie where Bonnie and Clyde escape the ambush that killed Buck Barrow and captured Blanche, Bonnie is shown being wounded by a deputy sheriff, whom Clyde then kills. Although they escaped the ambush, no lawmen were killed. Between June 1933 and April 1934, however, the Barrow gang did kill three law officers in Texas and Oklahoma.