Yet again famous Hollywood celebrities have proved too adept at surviving to provide an easy place for inspiration this month. George Wendt is certainly a big name and a great loss, but his resume was wildly tilted toward television. Going back several more days into May, however, we see the news of the passing of Robert Benton – best known for his incredible work in writing and directing Kramer vs. Kramer, which I wrote about last June. He also co-wrote one other major screenplay, so we can focus on that one – which doubles as a second entry in memory of Gene Hackman. I am referring to Bonnie and Clyde (1967, dir. Arthur Penn).
Bonnie and Clyde is a well-known story about two bank robbers and lovers in the 1930’s. Clyde Barrow (peak Warren Beatty) meets up with Bonnie Parker (a luminous Faye Dunaway), who is fascinated by the charismatic Barrow – fascinated enough to join him in robbing banks. Together with his brother Buck (Hackman), CW Moss (Michael J. Pollard), and Buck’s wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), the Barrow gang’s crime spree crests with more daring and more violent robberies. Eventually, they are ambushed once – wherein Buck is killed and Blanche loses her sight – then a second time when Bonnie and Clyde famously meet their end. One of the earliest and most famous sets of crime scene photographs shows a bullet-riddled Ford sedan and the splayed bodies of Barrow and Parker on the side of the road in Sailes, Louisiana. That scene is replicated masterfully in the film – even if the details of how they ended up in that spot were completely fabricated.
Beatty and Dunaway are tremendous as the eponymous criminal couple. While both possess the ability to disarm entire theaters with a single look, here they make more use of wide-eyed innocence. Even as they are completing heists, you get the feeling both are flying by the seats of their collective pants and getting lucky more than being particularly skillful and bank robbing. The visual style also adds to the film’s credibility. There truly are not many films that look and feel like Bonnie and Clyde in the history of cinema, but there were definitely none that came before it. Penn, known at this time for his direction of The Miracle Worker and little else, found something vibrant in this story, creating anti-heroes that we root for and pity at the same time.
The film represents a major turning point in cinematic history, largely for its more realistic displays of violence. While it may seem tame to modern audiences, never before in a mainstream movie had there been such open and graphic violent moments. It became famous for its use of squibs (exploding capsules of blood to simulate a gunshot wound) and ushered in a new era (primarily in the 1970s) of much more violent content, though some would argue had more to do with the Vietnam War desensitizing audiences to the idea of violence.
FUN FACT – The film is one of only eight to have five cast members nominated for Oscars. Beatty, Dunaway, Hackman, Pollard, and Parsons were all nominated for their work – with Parsons taking home the statuette. The other seven films are All About Eve, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Peyton Place, Tom Jones, The Godfather Part II, and Network. The final film on that list (and most recent to achieve this feat in 1976) is notable as it made Faye Dunaway the first person to be part of the nominated quintet in multiple films.
Just Watch says that Bonnie and Clyde is currently streaming on WatchTCM. It is also available for rent/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and other services.
As a reminder, here is the original postthat details the scores and weighting system.