Bonnie and Clyde Blog

For this week’s film, we look at the classic historical film Bonnie and Clyde. Famous and innovative for its new style, it helped usher in the next era of filmmaking, especially in the United States. The major thing that was so new about this film was its more graphic violence and much more obvious sexual overtones. This film may not be overly violent by the standards of today, but for 1967, this was a big deal. It certainly is the most graphically violent film that we have watched in class thus far. And when it comes to the sexual overtones, again, by today’s standards it is really not much. But this was groundbreaking for the time. As we discussed in class, censors placed heavy restrictions on what could even be hinted at, let alone explicitly shown. And while nothing is really shown, there is also nothing particularly left to the imagination or really any doubt about what is going on when something is going on. Compare it with, say, Sunset Boulevard, made 17 years before, it can be hard to tell what they are trying to say about Joe and Norma’s relationship, because they could not explicitly say or show anything and could barely even hint at things. This goes in line with what we know about what was going on in culture in 1967, especially compared to previous generations. The new generation was much less inclined to care about this kind of stuff and there was becoming less and less of a desire to police public morals. Obviously, this was not okay with everybody, hence why this film was groundbreaking in this regard and controversial. Between the violence and sensual nature of scenes, it was a new way of telling a story. As with moth historical films, we have to be careful about taking the story told as historical fact. After all, it is a movie meant to entertain, not a history textbook. It can tell us, though, about the time in which it is made and maybe compare it with movies on similar subjects made in another time. The narrative and point of view can also determine much about the movie, as this movie is told from Bonnie and Clyde’s perspective, naturally romanticizing and sympathizing with them. It makes it easy to forget that they were bank robbers who killed people and makes you almost root for them. A movie focusing on the police is not going to give that perception. With historical film, point of view and narrative are very important and part of why they should be taken with a certain grain of salt, accuracy-wise.