University of Virginia Library

Bonnie And Clyde—'Artistic Brilliance'

By John Marshall
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Scene: Law Almost Catches Up With Clyde . . . Only To Find The Tables Turned

Bonnie and Clyde is the movie
of now. St. Basely the Innocent
damned the film three times. Newsweek
shot down Bonnie and Clyde
in its first review, then pulled a
complete about-face in the following
issue, and at the end of 1967
called it "The Best Movie of the
Year, without reservations." In
Time's recent cover story, the
magazine criticized its earlier review
as "totally irrelevant," went
on to say that the picture is "the
kind that signals a new style, a
new trend," and concluded with
"Bonnie and Clyde is not only
the sleeper of the decade but also,
to a growing consensus of
audiences and critics, the best
movie of the year."

Certainly few unheralded
$2,500,000 movies have evoked
such a vast, but varied response.
There are people who will swear
that Bonnie and Clyde is the best
picture they have ever seen; there
are people who will swear just
as vehemently that it is the worst.
Revolutionary new styles and
trends-as McLuhan and the
Beatles-get that kind of reaction.

Stomach Churning

It should be noted that most of
the detractors of the film attack
Bonnie and Clyde because they
find its shockingly-realistic use of
blood - splattering violence
"stomach churning" (The Chicago
Tribune) or "unappetizing" (The
Chicago American). But surely
this is a specious tack for the
critics to follow when the real
Bonnie and Clyde were themselves
finally silenced by a thousand
rounds and when now every night
Americans can eat dinner as the
atrocities of Vietnam parade across
their television screens. Great films
can no longer afford to be shot
solely through rose-colored, Doris
Day lenses.

And Bonnie and Clyde is a truly
great film. The technique, the
scenes, and the characters are
uniformly memorable. The pace
and depth of the movie is astonishing
in the fact that the audience
is emotionally drained by laughter
in one scene, by sympathy in
another, and by horror in still
another. All this happens with such
an easy-flowing, smooth transition
that the audience is completely
hypnotized for the entire two hours
- which is all the more incredible
when one stops to consider that
national publicity has made the
film's basic story line almost as
well known as the story line of
Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Bonnie and Clyde begins with
scenes of light-hearted Keystone
Kops comedy, while Earl Scruggs'
quick-fingered banjo plays in the
background. But when the first
bloods spurts onto the screen from
the face of a bank teller, the audience
first feels itself caught in the
emotional dilemma of Bonnie and
Clyde-many of the scenes are still
hilarious, but the conscience balks
at allowing laughter when confronted
with so much murder and
gore.

As the situation for the Barrow
gang becomes more and more
desperate, the comedy deteriorates
into melo-tragedy and the banjo
background now strikes a very
discordant note. It is one of the
film's strongest points that, although
heir fate is as inevitable
as Oedipus', one is so mesmerized
by Bonnie and Clyde that right
up to the end there remains honest
faith that somehow they'll get away
after all.

Death Scene

Scene after scene displays remarkable
artistic brilliance. When
the Barrow gang gets together
with Bonnie's mother and family
for the last time, the film assumes
a grainy, brownish tint which accurately
duplicates the blurred-over
vision of memory reminiscing.
Bonnie and Clyde's death scene
ambush culminates in rapid-flash
views of their faces and then
switches to slow motion as their
bodies are riddled by ten seconds
of merciless machine gun fire. Inevitably,
the audience exits the
theatre stunned and silent.

In the final analysis, it is the
taut, honest, believable characterizations
that so thoroughly captivate
the audience. Each member
of the Barrow gang-and the supporting
cast as well-is finely
etched: Warren Beatty's slow-talking,
tousled-hair, easy-going,
boyishly-handsome Clyde Barrow;
Faye Dunaway's beret-wearing,
big-eyed, sensually-alive, utterly-devoted
Bonnie Parker; and
Michael J. Pollard's simpleminded,
Elmer Fudd-impish C. W.
Moss.

Bonnie and Clyde is a rare
work of the cinematic art developing
its potential.