#41 We just watched this on Netflix streaming: Bonnie and Clyde

The Film: Bonnie and Clyde.

I’m ashamed to say I’ve never bothered to see it because I was afraid I’d be disappointed. I kind of was, but I was impressed how the film was able to remain fresh and impressive even today. The movie is a simple story, just a biopic about the crime duo Bonnie and Clyde, but smartly makes the characters complicated and human.

The choice to make Clyde impotent and Bonnie a trashy girl with big-city dreams was shockingly bold for a sixties flick. I don’t know if either choice was factually accurate, but both give the characters a dynamic edge that would have otherwise made the movie a gangster movie.

Why to watch it: It is still a violent and somewhat tragic story.

How two moronic kids ended up wrapped in so much fame and crime is a pretty big mystery, however the movie makes a pretty good argument. Things can spiral out of control and when Clyde shifts and shoots a Bank worker, who is hanging on his car, it seems like a quick mistake they wouldn’t care about. They didn’t think about the consequences.

I was thinking about that scene a lot. If I were to shoot it (as a director) I might have done it in slow motion and had close ups of the shock of shooting someone’s face off. However, the more I thought about it, the more I decided it was done perfect. Clyde didn’t give a fuck, neither should the director.

Pay attention to this: How the movie establishes impending doom.

The greatest thrillers and crime films establish a feeling of dread and caginess – that no matter what the characters do, they’re stuck. The opening credits of the film are extraordinary. Films just don’t do this as much anymore – get to the theme almost immediately. The title cards and screen credits flash white then ‘bleed’ to red before changing. What a subtle, genius addition. Requiem for a Dream has a similar sequence where it has the title sequence slam from the top and bottom of the screen with a cell door noise.

Moreover, there is a famous sequence where Bonnie takes off into a field and Clyde takes off after her in a masterful wide shot. This might have been an attempt to escape or to even turn herself in, who knows, but Clyde finds her. The sky is clear and blue and an gloomy shadow is cast over the two as they embrace.

This shot has been analyzed quite a bit in the film’s history and deserves the discussion. Obviously a coincidence, but it harks back to a time when directors didn’t just shoot a scene for aesthetic value or to “look cool”, but to give some sort of visual symbolism. This is definitely still done today, but to varying degrees of sucess.

Kurosawa was the master at this. Hinting at ideas and emotions by the placement of his camera and framing. However, I’ve heard him mention that framing wasn’t often based on keeping modern objects such as telephone poles out of view. I always would joke in film school that one shot could change the world, but that was just a bullshit catchphrase.

One shot can change a movie though – making it into a masterpiece. Sometimes one shot can even change the way movies are made and enter our consciouness forever. Think of the first time you saw the star destroyer emerge from off-screen in Star Wars or the final shot of Godfather.  This movie had couple of those kind of moments. It suffers a bit from length and has problems with the characters not really having anything to do, but taking the movie in context (which one should never do) it is a masterpiece.

-Collin