What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
Bonnie and Clyde is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#27)
100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies (#13)
100 Years...100 Passions (#65)
100 Years...100 Heroes and Villans (Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are the #32 villains)
100 Movie Quotes (#41 - Clyde Barrow: "We rob banks.")
The Revised Top 100 (#42)
10 Top 10's (#5 Gangster)
I watched Bonnie and Clyde instantly on Netflix, which was nice on my dark night from the theater. I only knew so much about the film from the level of its pseudo-permutation into the pop culture, which has waned in recent years, so I had very few expectations going in. I was hoping to enjoy it, really, and that was all. I did enjoy it, but, again, I didn't love this one. I was engaged the whole time but only in a bemused sort of way.
Bonnie and Clyde is a loosely biographical film about Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), lovers and partners in crime who cut a swath of murder and mayhem across half the country in the 30s in search of a good time. The movie posits that Clyde is studying Bonnie's mother's automobile one day shortly after he's released from prison for petty theft when Bonnie espies him from her bedroom window. As she's half naked, Clyde is smitten with Bonnie, and Bonnie feels the same for Clyde, particularly after he robs a store right in front of her. Seemingly soulmates, bored with life's conventions in the Depression era South and too smart for their own good (so they believe), the two gradually expand their gang to include C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard), the getaway driver, and Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and his wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons) in their bank robbing and murdering until their exploits for fun, fame, and fortune meet a predictably grisly end. There is also a brief but hilarious cameo from Gene Wilder in his first ever movie role.
The performances by Beatty, Dunaway, Hackman, and Parsons were all very funny, sly, and occasionally touching. I'm not sure that I would have given Oscar gold to Parsons, but I'm not sure who else was nominated in 1967. If Catharine Ross, from The Graduate, was nominated, I might have given it to her instead, but that's just me. Parsons screaming about everything didn't strike me as particularly strong acting, but it's the Academy, and this was forty years ago, so what do I know? I particularly enjoyed Warren Beatty, so young, so effacing, and so on top of his game. I have struggled with his acting prowess in recent years on occasion, but this film made me more of a believer, seeing the range of emotions displayed from a wink and a smile to outright temper to deep concern and worry for his "honey," Bonnie. Faye Dunaway was also good; my she had a string of great films in the late 60s/early 70s, didn't she? Her Texas accent was a little, well, forced, though. Or, maybe it was his. I don't know.
I liked the art direction and cinematography, with its grainy old-movie haze, and the direction was also very good. The ending scenes were truly groundbreakers, undoubtedly becoming the model for many a violent and slow motion demise for characters of all types in films to come. I also thought it was cool that they found so many different types of automobiles for the film to be available for theft by the Barrow gang. The pacing was a little choppy, however. The film seemed to slow to a crawl right in the middle, when they were establishing themselves as bank robbers of the century and when the love story between Clyde and Bonnie was coming in and out of focus depending on the distraction. I just found it hard to stay engaged in any kind of meaningful way at that point because it felt like the movie was as all-over-the-place as its title characters.
My biggest problem with the film was the story execution. When there's a true story put to film, often times details will be fudged for the artistic impact, and I have no qualms on that side of it for Bonnie and Clyde, but with all of the background material available to the screenwriters, I felt the story was just a little too trite for my tastes, a little too easy. Maybe their relationship was, in real life, all about the "wham, bam, thank you ma'am," fast-paced, and fueled by spontaneity and foolish decisions, but the film struggled to find a focal point, even when it should have been Bonnie and Clyde themselves. Was it about their love for one another? Their crime spree? Their sense of raw hedonism? It was, of course, about all of those things, but it meandered without finding that center. I think the viewer is supposed to accept that Clyde's literal impotence sparked his penchant for violence and crime, or that Bonnie was really just a mama's girl looking for a good time, so the character development was also a bit truncated. I think the problem came with, as the movie explanations by the All Movie Guide note, trying to paint Bonnie and Clyde as sympathetic anti-heroes. What is a sympathetic anti-hero? Batman is an anti-hero. He takes dark roads with the goal of justice in mind. Bonnie and Clyde were simply carefree criminals who occasionally did not rob poor people, and their love story, which was played largely for laughs and slapstick, was, as a result, largely less than compelling. They were also rebels, though, and this film was released during a time when youth rebellion--counter culture--was en vogue.
That's not to say that I didn't have a good time. It was a pleasure to see Warren Beatty in his prime and to watch a film that had some truly great elements to it, and I did laugh on occasion and smirked most of the time. Also, the ending was perfection even if the exposition left something to be desired. I'm just not sure I see it as one of the great American films. Bonnie and Clyde tumbled 15 spots on the revised list, but I probably would have dropped it a few more spots because it just didn't thrill me (or make my heart pound...#13, wha???). I'm thinking the film gets a 7.5 for me between shaky/entertaining and minor flaws/very good. If I missed the point, feel free to comment. As for tests, it doesn't pass. Obviously, I'm a little too lukewarm about the film to fork money over for it. The film is recommendable, though; it's not a wasted two hours and is something of the good time that Bonnie and Clyde seemed to have.