People are walking down the street to see a new movie poster that displays two average people face to face, romantically looking like they’re in love.
Poster that previewed JTI…Mislead
The pedestrians are intrigued in the poster and wonder what the movie is. The movie is JOURNEY TO ITALY. Why would people be so excited to see a romance film? Because at that time, thats what the people thrived to see- two happy individuals that were madly in love. Of course this is not was the actual movie was about. In fact, it was almost the exact opposite..until the end. JOURNEY TO ITALY is an Italian Neorealism film. At the time of the release in 1954, people in the film industry tried to relate the main idea to what was going on in real life. This is why JTI was based so much off of a relationship from two people in the upper class because of the separation issues in classes. Thirteen years later in 1967, BONNIE AND CLYDE was released. A new movie era was formed at this time known as New Hollywood films. Romance movies were still the hot topic at the time but in a slightly different way. The values that were seen here was more based on the relationship between the two people rather than romance and their class. This is exactly what the audience wants. Arthur Penn actually didn’t like the idea of these two causing mischief but later thought that this would fit the setting of the present day.
^^^^This is a link explaining how much of a breakthrough B&C was to the New Hollywood era.
BONNIE AND CLYDE had a mix of romance along with a criminal relationship that they would connect with in a way of love. Because of the New Hollywood burst, BONNIE AND CLYDE was a major movie and was much more popular than JOURNEY TO ITALY was. The values were a bit different as well. B&C was based more on the side of sexual relations which is what the audience was eager to see. From the textbook, Short History of the Movies, it says that “The value of these new American “art films” reflected the sexual and social values of American film audiences of the period” (Mast and Kawin 293). Yes, people were majorly involved with the relationship factor, but also how the characters would sexually interact as well with physical violence conflict between characters. Both of these movies are involved with keeping the theme related to what was going on in the present time which makes both of these movies very conventional from almost every aspect. I did notice a few different film shots between both of the movies. I noticed that JOURNEY TO ITALY had a few jump cuts that were very noticeable but thats also because it came out 13 years before BONNIE AND CLYDE. I did not notice any flaws with film in BONNIE AND CLYDE besides the very low quality special effects (comparing to 2017). I really enjoyed how when Bonnie and Clyde were shot, they freeze framed the shot on their dead bodies to make the audience know that its the end of the road for these bank robbing lovers. It really made me feel like something major had just happened since these two were the MacGuffins of the film.
freeze frame of B&C
The genre from 1954 to 1967 truly has changed but still held the basic concept of romance. To me, it is astonishing how movie values can change in the matter of a decade. Just because movies don’t necessarily have the best graphics, they do have unique story lines and still give the audience a sense of related feeling to what the movie is trying to portray.
I also chose to watch BONNIE AND CLYDE and you mentioned that there was some romance but, it was mostly based on sexual relations. That is a good point because BONNIE AND CLYDE is not your typical romance film. Mostly because there is some violence and that was new to the New Hollywood Era.