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BONNIE AND CLYDE
Directed by Arthur Penn; with Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J.
Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Evans Evans, and Gene Wilder
1967
West Dallas waitress and the petty thief son of a sharecropper are Bonnie
and Clyde, Texas' most famous outlaw team. The movie's tagline, "They're
young, they're in love, and they kill people," should also include,
"and we like them anyway." Not only did the crime duo that
led the infamous true-life Barrow gang become a folk legend due to their
media-fueled bank robbing spree during the Depression, but the film
has spawned numerous homages over the years from Terrence Malick's Badlands
to Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Stylish and more violent
than moviegoers at the time were used to, Bonnie and Clyde brought the
mythic wild West outlaw into the modern world. The film was uniformly
panned on its first release and Warner Bros. was actually thinking of
dumping the film to a chain of Texas drive-ins. On its second release
it was nominated for ten Oscars and a Golden Globe, and took home Academy
awards for Best Supporting Actress (Parsons) and Cinematography. A favorite
scene with local relevance is when Bonnie first seizes the opportunity
to become a cultural icon: instead of killing Texas Ranger Frank Hamer,
she insists the Barrow gang pose for a photo with the stone-faced lawman
and send it around to all the newspapers.
West Dallas waitress and the petty thief son of a sharecropper are Bonnie
and Clyde, Texas' most famous outlaw team. The movie's tagline, "They're
young, they're in love, and they kill people," should also include,
"and we like them anyway." Not only did the crime duo that
led the infamous true-life Barrow gang become a folk legend due to their
media-fueled bank robbing spree during the Depression, but the film
has spawned numerous homages over the years from Terrence Malick's Badlands
to Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Stylish and more violent
than moviegoers at the time were used to, Bonnie and Clyde brought the
mythic wild West outlaw into the modern world. The film was uniformly
panned on its first release and Warner Bros. was actually thinking of
dumping the film to a chain of Texas drive-ins. On its second release
it was nominated for ten Oscars and a Golden Globe, and took home Academy
awards for Best Supporting Actress (Parsons) and Cinematography. A favorite
scene with local relevance is when Bonnie first seizes the opportunity
to become a cultural icon: instead of killing Texas Ranger Frank Hamer,
she insists the Barrow gang pose for a photo with the stone-faced lawman
and send it around to all the newspapers. 
