Film Review: 'Bonnie and Clyde'

Bonnie and Clyde is an Arthur Penn film about the notorious bank robbers of the 30's era. The film involves the two characters meeting by random chance one day when Clyde is going to steal Bonnie's mother's car. The two become fast friends, and soon enough, fast lovers. Their whole plot of taking money away from the rich to provide for themselves is the drive for not only their lives, but also the drive for the film. It is an exhilarating trip through the short time-span of their criminal days together. This film holds the number 27 spot on the AFI's best films of all time, and for good reason. The film excels in various realms: directing, acting, cinematography, plot and perhaps more than anything, its editing style.

The editor of Bonnie and Clyde, Dede Allen, used a highly innovative technique of editing for this film. Up until this time, simple chronological and continuity-based editing had been used as well as experimentation with montage. Dede Allen formatted a very rough, unrelated cutting technique that told a story through visual juxtaposition of images. In a sense, it can be considered montage editing, but does not stray from a clear continuity. This style can be traced to the French new-wave editing movement visible in films such as Breathless, where jump cuts are effectively used in order to convey passage of time without losing the context of story and dialogue. The usage of this style for Bonnie and Clyde was highly effective in the sense of the correlation between editing and story and character development. Bonnie is a mere waitress at a diner and Clyde has just been released from parole. Their lives cross paths incidentally and Bonnie follows Clyde into town. The pacing of the shots are long, involved and slow. And as Bonnie's interest is peaked, she sees Clyde as a 'means of escape from a boring west Texas town' (Ebert). She involves herself with Clyde in a life of crime that happened quite spontaneously, and Dede Allen's job as an editor begins. The quick lifestyle of Bonnie and Clyde is reflected through the editing in the film from this point on. The music, character interaction and editing all correlate to unsafe life that Bonnie and Clyde are now living. As they drag Clyde's brother and his wife and C.W. into the gang, many problems arise in not only the morality of the situation, but also the logic. Bonnie and Clyde come to realize perfectly well that they will be running from the law the rest of their lives, and they understand that the end is not too far away. The rhythm of the film continues relentlessly. Filsite.org describes the restless character's robberies as 'thrill-seeking [...] innocent and minor at the beginning of their crime spree, unfortunately escalate[d] into more violent and murderous escapades.' The continuity of the film remains as they progress through several different states, robbing many banks, but the editing clearly represents the fast-paced and dangerous lives of these criminals. Variety magazine's Dave Kaufman states that the editing is often 'changing pace at a tempo that is jarring.' It is not until the end of the film, when Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed on a dirt road that the film slows down and comes to a 'slow-motion ballet of the final execution' (Ebert).

Overall, Bonnie and Clyde represents a lot of modern American cinema. The style of editing and cinematography has influenced filmmakers such as the Coen brothers. The character development has pushed the secularized market of Hollywood to what we have today. Without the bitter truth and realism of Bonnie and Clyde, Hollywood might still struggle with the types of movies that are successful.

Personally, I enjoyed three scenes of this film very much. The first would have to be the way Bonnie is attracted to Clyde when they are in town talking about armed robbery. The images, the sequence and the emotion had not been as present in cinema as it was in that scene. I was very moved by how Faye Dunaway captured the sexual and thrill of her character as well as the calm and collected Warren Beatty's performance. My second favorite scene in the film is when Bonnie is just waking up at the beginning of the film. Following a juxtaposition of photos and credits for the film, we see an extreme close-up of Bonnie in bed. She is half-naked and wakes up and expresses a very clear sense of dissatisfaction with herself without even speaking a word. Before we even know her character, we know that she is a woman who is ready for something to happen in her life. I am utterly impressed by the amount of storytelling that took place during that first minute of silence. The third scene I was amazed by would have to be the ending of the film. I love how it just ends. There is nothing more to tell once Bonnie and Clyde are dead, other than that they are dead. There is a stark realism that speaks of consequences for actions and an uncontained lifestyle. Bonnie and Clyde were living with little regard for others, and they suffered the price of their lives for their selfish desires to be something, anything. Ultimately, Bonnie and Clyde is a story of humans letting their ambitions get the best of them, it is a story that tells us all to slow down and examine our lives because we only get to do it once.

Works Cited

Ebert, Roger. Bonnie and Clyde. Aug. 3, 1998 'rogerebert.suntimes.com.'. 2006.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980803/REVIEWS08/401010306/1023 >

Bonnie and Clyde. 'Filmsite.org.' 2006.http://www.filmsite.org/bonn.html>

Kaufman, Dave. Bonnie and Clyde. Aug. 9, 1967. 'Variety.com' 2006. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117789435.html?categoryid=31&cs=1>