Bonnie and Clyde tells a simple story of a boy and a girl. They meet by accident and together they embark on a road of crime, robbing banks, teasing the police, and killing people. They keep running away, while at the same time picturing a peaceful life in the future. And eventually their bodies are shattered into pieces with police bullets. In 1967 when the film was first released, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther remarked that it was “a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy” and a “blending of farce with brutal killings” as “pointless as it is lacking in taste” (Arnold 131). However, four decades after the release of the film, world-renowned director Quentin Tarantino commented that “the cinema of the 70s really started with in 1967 with the release of Bonnie and Clyde”, which “started the era that is now known as the Silver Age of Hollywood” (American Film Institute 00:00:24-00:00:47). What the former critic failed to recognize is how this film transcends its seemingly frivolous appearance and heralded a new era for American cinema, breaking its shackles of conventions and norms. The director Arthur Penn generally follows the pattern traditionally adopted in films featuring robbery as the main theme but included elements and spirits borrowed from the French New Wave to offer the American audience a refreshing experience.

Never had robbers been portrayed in a way that evokes sympathy among the audience before Bonnie and Clyde. The official trailer describes Bonnie and Clyde with such words—“They’re young, they’re in love, they kill PEOPLE” (“Bonnie And Clyde” 00:00:32-00:00:44). Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were young and beautiful, and they were generally fun to behold apart from killing people. From their perspective, viewers are shown their lives, their emotions, and mental struggles. They almost succeeded in locating the life they desired and viewers would naturally sense this immense sadness when being led to a tragic, almost inhumane ending where the two stared at each other with such affection and attachment before being rained with bullets. Seeing the tragic scene, even the sheriff who led the ambush feels sorry and has this look of sadness on his face (“Bonnie and Clyde Final” 00:03:07). This brutal act of slaughtering further evokes sympathy in the audience, which is unprecedented in previous Hollywood films.

Some critics denounced the film as violence and crime-provoking. But the violence and the sexuality depicted in the film are also unprecedented and lay a solid foundation for future films. The film “served, more than any commercial movie made in America before or since, to redefine the nature of acceptable on-screen violence” (Hoberman 116). Violence is reintroduced in this film as something that is completely frightening, cruel, bloody, and real. The smoke of gunpowder, bodies twitching and jolting because of the impact of the bullets, the blood, and the wound are techniques to be learned by future filmmakers. It influenced many modern films such as Pulp Fiction, where massive gore is employed. The significance of such realism lies not only in creating a spectacle and shocking audiences but also pulling them out of the comic, comfortable zone previously established and back into reality. Had we not accepted the fact that real blood can be produced by the violent acts, “the violence of the film would have been as laughably grotesque as the ineptitude of the major characters” (Rice 196). It is true that Penn portrayed Bonnie and Clyde as two lovable characters instead of complete villains but so is the fact that they died tragically. The tone of the film shifts from the joy and lightness to melancholy.

Bonnie and Clyde may be regarded as a Hollywood gangster film but it is innovative in including many other elements from outside the Hollywood system, namely the French New Wave. It may be regarded as a road movie as well. In fact, it is quite successful in this department. The story begins with a car, the relationship between Bonnie and Clyde deepened as they walk down the road, they fight and escape on the road, and they die on the road. The audience’s emotion will accordingly rise and fall according to these events unfolding on the road. This gangster, road movie, however, also contains comedy. Almost the whole film is set in a light mood, with chirpy country music playing in the background as they are being chased by the police. The sheriff is made fun of, and so is Clyde when he tries to explain to Bonnie that he fails at robbing a bank because it is broke instead of anything else. In terms of cinematography, the film is daring in breaking Hollywood norms by adopting jump cuts like those seen in Godard’s Breathless. Probably due to the fact that the screenplay was first finished by authors who admired the French New Wave and then revised by Truffaut, the film carries a scent of being exotic from the very beginning. In the first scene, the anxiety experienced by Bonnie is demonstrated by jump cutting her movements. She switches between different activities quickly as if everything is meaningless. She lays on her bed, clutching at her bed poles while being framed by them. These techniques are unprecedented.

As a result, the film resembles other mainstream contemporary Hollywood films in tone but differentiates itself from them by incorporation daring, bold new elements. Innovation in the film industry in the 1970s, therefore, may be attributed to Bonnie and Clyde.

Works Cited

Arnold, Gordon B. Projecting the End of the American Dream: Hollywood’s Visions of U.S.

       Decline. PRAEGER, 2013.

American Film Institute. “Quentin Tarantino On BONNIE AND CLYDE and Warren Beatty.”

YouTube, 6 Jan. 2010,      www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXwMKaTFOTI&ab_channel=AmericanFilmInstitute.    Accessed 4 Oct. 2020.

“Bonnie And Clyde (1967) Official Trailer #1 – Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway Movie.”

YouTube.com, uploaded by Movieclips Classic Trailers, 21 Sep. 2013,       www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZpm1zj9510&t=46s&ab_channel=Movieclips. Accessed 4     Oct. 2020.

“Bonnie and Clyde Final Showdown.” Youtube, uploaded by Sam Hodde, 8 Oct. 2013,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EddrEjG8K3I&ab_channel=SamHodde. Accessed 4 Oct.      2020.

Hoberman, J. “ ‘A Test for the Individual Viewer’: Bonnie and Clyde’s Violent Reception.” Why

       we watch: The attractions of violent entertainment, edited by Jeffrey H. Goldstein, New      York, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 116-143.

Rice, Susan. “Violence: The New Realism in Films.” Theology Today, vol. 29, no. 2, 1972, pp.

194-198.