Bonnie and Clyde

During the 1960s Hollywood, along with the rest of the United States, underwent a radical transformation. The grand epics and good old fashioned genre films such as Westerns and Musicals,  became unpopular, and Hollywood started losing millions. In a desperate attempt to make some money, studios started to green-light risky projects they would never have considered in the golden age. One of the greatest of these films was Bonnie and Clyde.

Bonnie and Clyde tells the story of  a couple of sympathetic thieves, sometime lovers who go from state to state robbing banks, and having great fun at it. They send  pictures and poems of themselves (written by Bonnie) to the papers, and become celebrities of the common people who, at the time of the Great Depression, were disillusioned enough with banks to cheer for the people standing against them. In fact, one of the best scenes of the movie happens when Clyde helps a poor farmer shoot-up his former home which "the bank took."

 I love that "The Bank" is never given a specific name. It's just an abstract enemy that can stand for the economic system that failed the country during the Great Depression, and the government that failed the filmmakers of 1967. Bonnie, Clyde, and everyone else they meet fight against

Bonnie and Clyde is an explicit, violent movie. The filmmakers, as well as the characters, had the guts to go against what was accepted at the time. It had no problem showing skin and blood, being grim as well as perversely funny at the same time. For example, there is one bloody shootout in the film (it usually gets big laughs) where a character drops everything she's doing and runs around screaming, while the fight rages on around her. That juxtaposition of comedy and violence is one of the movie's biggest strengths. Something critics and studio executives did not understand was that something could be both funny and violent, effectively providing both shock and laughter simultaneously.

In their journey, Bonnie and Clyde encounter a C.W, a dimwitted mechanic who provides some of the films best jokes. In my favorite, C.W parks the getaway car while Bonnie and Clyde are robbing a bank.  They also meet Buck, Clyde's brother, played by Gene Hackman, who gives one of the most interesting, thought-provoking, and of course funny performances of his career.

One thing I must add is that this film is a beauty. The wardrobes, set designs and its graphic realism truly transport you to rural 1930s U.S and that makes the whole film much more enjoyable and the ending much more powerful.

Verdict- 4/4

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) 1h 51min.