Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Arthur Penn's infamous Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is based on the true story of bank robbers Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway). Together they form a gang that terrorises America, robbing and shooting their way to an inevitable but brutal end.

The most arresting character is Dunaway's Bonnie. She's flirtatious, impetuous, intelligent, nervy and loyal. Bonnie is also the most complex character, from the moment the audience is introduced to her we sense her boredom with life, her agitation and her frustrated sensuality.
As the film progresses Bonnie's apparent over exuberance and risk taking behaviour make way for someone intensely frustrated with her position in life. Bonnie is tired of her narrow world, tired of being poor, tired of being a waitress. More than any of the other characters it is Bonnie that the audience sympathises with when she is subjected to the noise and hysteria of Buck (Gene Hackman) and Blanche (Estelle Parsons). And it is Bonnie who rightly sees the dangers of having the screaming Blanche as part of the gang.

There is a jekyll and hyde element to Bonnie. On the one hand she is intelligent and deep thinking, writing poetry, patient with Clyde's apparent impotency and perceptive. On the other she is flighty, reckless and seems to have limited moral boundaries. Or perhaps she is just blinded by love. Whilst Bonnie participates in the robberies and brandishes a gun, she is also a lost girl who longs for her mother and is hurt by her mother's perception that it will all 'go wrong'. Initially the excitement of being on the run sustains Bonnie, but later she asks Clyde what he would do if they could start over, be 'clean'. His admittance that he would continue robbing banks, just not in the same state, seems to dissatisfy her.

There is an intense feeling of claustrophobia in Bonnie and Clyde. Each time Bonnie screams out in frustration over the close living quarters, shared with Buck and Blanche, the audience wants to scream their agreement. Much of the film is spent with five people squashed into cars of varying sizes. There is no room to breathe, no room to move. In contrast, when they are alone, Clyde and Bonnie frequent wide open spaces.

If Bonnie and Clyde exhibit a sort of dangerous glamour, it is a false one, that distances them from the reality of what their lives would be like without crime-what the lives of every other American is like. Set in the Great Depression, opportunities are limited for everyone, and in a sequence that could be straight out of The Grapes of Wrath the criminals come across a family camped by the side of the road with everything they own piled on top of their car. This is a tale of the American dream gone wrong, in part because there was no feasibility of the dream to begin with. A story of the immorality of youth, coupled with the dark underbelly of America's obsession with guns-both from the criminal point of view and from that of the law.

4/5