Bonnie and Clyde (1967) 111 Minutes

Our 64th Official Selection found egg on the face of a couple of Movienight

Members.

Rule-fixated Tooda, violated Rule 7 of our By-Laws and as a result ended up

inviting, un-inviting and then re-inviting his and Nubs’ friend Whitney to

the Back Yard. That hiccup delayed the start of Coolbaugh’s pick until almost

10 pm.

The other major Movienight faux pas was committed by the evening’s

SELECTOR, Coolbaugh. Despite the recent dust-up over Nubs bringing an

awful print of ‘The Conversation’ to the Back Yard, not to mention the lessons learned from Tooda’s ‘Visions of Light,’ Coolbaugh inexplicably presented us with a full-screen version of this classic film. This is only the second time in Movienight history that the Crew was forced to watch a film cropped for television on the Stucco (the first time was Coolbaugh’s ‘Bull Durham’). Adding insult to injury, it was discovered after the film that Coolbaugh had the Widescreen version available on the flip side of the DVD.

Snafus aside, the Back Yard was pretty packed last night. Wiener, Nubs, Tooda, Coolbaugh, Netti, WildCard Slim, Johnnie G., and Buffy were joined by Movienight newbies Whitney and Gabe bringing the attendance to ten.

Despite Tooda’s prediction of no more cold nights in the Back Yard, it was pretty brisk last night, and Movienight’s Meteorologist forecast the possibility of rain after midnight.

This was maybe the tastiest Movienight of all-time, as Jocelyn provided homemade date bars, Johnnie G. brought Toll House Cookies, Buffy had mini peanut butter cups on hand, and Coolbaugh busted out gourmet flavored popcorn. Despite the veritable buffet, voices were hushed and crunching was minimal for this landmark film.

‘Bonnie and Clyde’ marks the return of many greats to the Back Yard, but let’s start with the debut of two legends. Actor/producer Warren Beatty and director Arthur Penn both enter the canon with this pick. Veteran character actor Michael J. Pollard also makes his first bow on the Stucco here.

Since ‘The Conversation,’ three actors have been able to claim three-peat status on the Stucco, namely Dustin Hoffman, Harrison Ford and Roy Scheider. After ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ three more stars become three-peaters. Faye Dunaway (‘Network,’ ‘Chinatown’) is the first woman on the list, Gene Wilder (‘The Frisco Kid,’ ‘Blazing Saddles’) and Gene Hackman (‘The French Connection,’ ‘The Conversation’) round out the three-peat membership at six.

Screenwriters David Newman & Robert Benton’s work returns for the first time since Pat Towne’s ‘What’s Up, Doc?’

On February 25th, the sun goes down on Rule 6, Section E of the Movienight By-Laws, and the one-year ban on prison films is lifted. How this fact will affect Nubs pick - only time will tell.

“I ain’t gonna risk my life in Oklahoma.”

Written by: David Newman & Robert Benton

Directed by: Arthur Penn

BBD Comments:

So the good news first, or the bad news?

Let’s start with the good news-

The good news is this was a great pick. As Coolbaugh pointed out in his preamble, it is an inevitable Selection, but it’s timing was pitch perfect as a thoughtful follow up to Netti’s ‘Harold and Maude.’ ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ effortlessly cements this fable in an authentic world. This is not the imagined thirties of ‘The Sting,’ this is a seemingly real era, and so is the jeopardy our characters face.

While there are myriad historical inaccuracies in the story, it is of little matter as we rumble across state lines in one stolen car after another. In many ways, ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ is as much a Western as ‘Straw Dogs’ was, and the boisterous energy of the genre filled the Back Yard.

Beatty, Hackman, Dunaway, Parsons and Pollard are among the greatest ensembles put together for a motion picture. Arthur Penn deserves great credit for that, and for the incredible, heart-wrenching massacre that ends this film. Its brilliance is demonstrated in how quickly and often it was stolen by other directors. Two years after its release, George Roy Hill ended ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ with the same device. Wisely, he cut the film before showing Butch and Sundance actually getting shot, I would guess, at least in part, to avoid comparison to ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’ Five years after its release, Francis Ford Coppola would use practically identical photography and editing structure to depict Sonny Corleone’s death on the Jersey Causeway in ‘The Godfather.’ Arthur Penn was ahead of his time, and remains sadly under appreciated.

Bottom line, Coolbaugh brought some old school heat to the Stucco with this film, and I applaud the effort. I only wish… well, it’s unavoidable,

Here’s the bad news-

‘Bonnie and Clyde’ was shot in an aspect ratio of 1.85 : 1. For the uninitiated, that means the image’s width is 1.85 times its height. The print we watched was cropped for a television screen which has an aspect ratio of 1.33 : 1. In other words, we lost about 25% of the original film. This just leaves me crestfallen.

When I was a film and video counselor at a Summer Arts Program in Dover, MA. I made a point to tell my students the difference between a film cropped for television, and a film preserved as it was intended to be viewed by the letterbox format. Many of the kids were confused, as many others seem to be, by the black bars of the letterbox format. At that time, they had perceived the bars as blocking the image rather than preserving it. To demonstrate the difference, I set up two monitors and cued up both a cropped and letterboxed version of ‘Apocalypse Now,’ and played them side-by-side simultaneously. For the record, ‘Apocalypse Now’s aspect ratio is 2.31 : 1, which means the cropped version cuts out almost 45% of the image, and boy did the kids get the message. Manipulating widescreen images for a television aspect ratio fucks up movies in profound ways. The process adds edits to the film and artificial camera pans as well. Even when the colorization fad was at its zenith, I always felt that the destruction of films for presentation on a TV screen was a far greater threat to cinema.

Now I understand that Coolbaugh felt rushed last night, and that setting up in the dark is trying at times, but it is a disservice to all that Movienight stands for to show a butchered copy of a film. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I gotta hit Coolbaugh just as hard as I hit Nubs for the TCM logo that desecrated the Stucco a few weeks back. We sit in the Back Yard to “see movies the way they were meant to be seen” – and the print of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ we watched did not live up to that ideal.

I would be gushing about this film right now, but I can’t get past what a missed opportunity it was watching that butchered print. Though it was an honest mistake, every SELECTOR must make every effort to present to the Crew the best print available. Period.

To be fair, I had figured the DVD Eric brought to the Back Yard only had the cropped version on it, so I made my peace with the print and did my best to focus on the wonderful story of ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’ It was only after the screening that my heart sank when it was discovered Coolbaugh had purchased a two sided copy, and we had the original print available the whole time. I regret the missed opportunity, but must admit that 75% of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ is far better than 100% of many other films.

Great Selection Coolbaugh, I know the LAST thing you would ever do is willingly disrespect Movienight so I hope you take my diatribe with a grain of salt. Just one last bit of pedantic advice to you and all of our Selectors - next time heed my Grandma’s sage advice of “Measure Twice, Cut Once.” I swear it’s worth the trouble.

Onward.

Brandon Comments:

The current theme of the Back Yard seems to be ill-fated love—romance destined to end abruptly and unfairly. First with Netti’s ‘Harold and Maude’ and now with Coolbaugh’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’ Love, what that cruel bitch can do to a person.

‘Bonnie and Clyde’ is more than just a biography of attractive bank robbers with a short lease on life; it’s the private memoirs of two deviants who lit the candle at both ends just long enough to light two cigarettes. It’s a very personal look inside one person who wants nothing more than to be loved, and another person who loves himself so much he wants nothing more than to be immortalized. And through the countless bank robberies and murders they share, they do indeed fall in love with one another. But what the hell was up with Warren Beatty’s teeth? Was this before some type of major dental overhaul or were those teeth in the movie just make-up props?

And a special shout-out to the evening’s special guest…I think I dreamt that I was a cat with brown eyebrows when I got home that night.

Tasty movie, Coolbaugh. Now, what can honorably follow two twisted love stories on the Stucco? Perhaps a third?

Buffy Comments:

I don’t know if the real Bonnie Parker had the same icy glint of the killer in her eye that Faye Dunaway has; something tells me in a two-women-enter, one-woman-leaves situation, the smart money’s on Faye. She’s a tigress. Who can blame her Bonnie for raging once she gets out of her cage? Looks like men aren’t the only ones with homicidal tendencies in this world. (While on the subject of Ms. Dunaway, her gorgeousness in this film is reason enough to watch the movie. Literally breathtaking. Poor Warren didn’t look so pretty next to this gal…)

As for Clyde Barrow, according to IMDb he was rumored to be bisexual, not impotent. Beatty was willing to play him that way but was discouraged from it by the director, too bad, though probably wise for the times. I still don’t get why his performance actually is called impotent—I mean, his walk told me there wasn’t much wrong with the equipment, just his head. Or was that just me? The impotency, or whatever it was…well, Clyde’s chucking out the physical and showing his love for Bonnie in every other possible way, however imperfectly and even if it wasn’t out of good intention so much as fear, was the best thing he could have done for her. The knowledge that her value went way beyond being a good fuck is beyond a gift and more a benediction. Just the remedy for a long string of truck drivers.

One could say Bonnie and Clyde were revolutionaries, justified in their crimes by circumstance. I confess I’m a bit of a Bonapartist, despite my father’s better council and my protestations for peace, and the comparisons to “Les Miserables” started even before that scene on the porch where Clyde rallies the troops with his shirtsleeve tucked into his breast. But looking at the bodies strewn across the landscape in the film and the book and my own life (I’ve shot my way out of more than one desperate situation of my own making—coincidentally one of the biggest showdowns happening after my first viewing of just the last 10 minutes of this film, something I hadn’t connected until last Wednesday), it’s my feeling that guns, metaphorical or otherwise, are for cowards. Being justified doesn’t make one right, or the world a better place. The most revolutionary things Bonnie and Clyde did (at least in the film, I don’t know how things went for them day-to-day for real, of course) were to love each other completely and as they were and to honor and express their own, individual true natures. Loving and being yourself are far more dangerous and brave enterprises than killing and robbing (and way better methods of sticking it to the man), and I was glad their reward at the end was to die looking in each other’s eyes, together, as they wished.

Excellent choice, excellent follow up, Coolbaugh. Quite on point. Onward!

Netti Comments:

I imagine that this film affected the Viet Nam generation, because it allowed a look back to a simpler time and at the same time it allowed a look to the future: one in which the renegades, the rebels, and their causes would hurry toward their bloody end or drift into a restless conformity, no longer fulminating with absolute purpose. As Bonnie and Clyde cavort through the South one can't help but wonder if these aren't the disenfranchised youth of the sixties, questing for authenticity amidst unjust and debilitating circumstances. Coming out in 1967, I think that case can be argued successfully. Another theme that was slapped in our faces was the lack of Clyde's Zip, Thud. I don't know if it’s historically accurate but Clyde's inability to “get it up” was more than compensated with his kill count and most telling of all was Bonnie's massaging of Clyde's Smith and Wesson upon meeting him. Don't know what to draw from this exactly but I did thoroughly enjoy the notion that Clyde never actually is able to have sex with Bonnie until she has guaranteed him immortality. I must say, it was the most satisfying payoff of the film for me.

As far as the pick is concerned I thought it was perfect. A counter point yet thematically similar love story. Both were capable of a love that has no permanence. They were both of course doomed in short order, but they burned all the more brightly while they lasted. I think this would make a great double feature at any revival house. ‘Harold and Maude’ and ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’

Finally, (and I always seem to sneak this in at the end) the film is hysterical. There are some pitch perfect scenes and performances. Everyone was truly having fun and it shows. Cinematography was quite good (4:3 presentation notwithstanding). So, it is a little heavy handed with the celebration of the common man and his plights. The farmers were always drab silent and pitiable. Bonnie and Clyde, inordinately good looking and built, ride through their camps inspiring hope as they go. Hmmn. A bit much. But as we all know: Idealists, populists, and egalitarians will be riddled with lead in slow-motion, we see it time and time again, especially around Oscar season.

As far as honest men are concerned, every king should endeavor to keep them at a distance.

-Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu

It is, therefore, only under a democracy that the good citizen can reasonably hope to see a cessation of the triumphs of intrigue and crime; and to this end the people need only to be enlightened.

-Camille Desmoulins

Nubs Comments:

I’m sure everyone will pardon an unusually brief review from me on ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’ The only two who might be offended, Tooda and Coolbaugh, are standing behind me playing darts and have already given their exoneration. The circumstances behind my apparent apathy are that mainly I enjoyed the film and didn’t reserve too much criticism. The better reason being that it’s my birthday and the whole Crew, save JaJa who generously babysat, partied like true rockstars last night. I was overjoyed at the loyal dedicated Movienight attendance at this extracurricular field trip in which everyone, save Wiener, belted out some of their finest moments.

Though Netti and I agree a one-line “thumbs up” or equivalent is always acceptable, I will offer slightly more insight to ‘Bonnie and Clyde’s appearance. It was good, I liked it. No, really it was fun, but more importantly it’s a classic that’s hard to touch. It is original storytelling. Its once ground breaking romanticizing of violence and crime has been emulated over and over again in Hollywood making it hard for someone like myself, who was raised by its followers, to judge the elder statesman. I could nit pick about its loose narrative that looses focus and steam as it tends to dabble in blazing crime scenes, but that’s Hollywood. I will, however, call out the worst scene ever shown on the Stucco which took place when we go to meet Bonnie’s mother. For some reason the scene is shot in a completely different rustic style making it look like they used dailies. Rather than find a real actress to play Bonnie’s Mom they got a performer who stinks up the screen and is a big blemish on an otherwise pretty face.

Speaking of pretty faces, what I enjoyed most about this pick is all the brave, fresh performances by a cast of relatively unknowns that were discovered here. Legends like Faye Dunaway, Gene Wilder, and Gene Hackman earned, and I mean earned, their chops here. I had never seen it, it was on my to-do list, and so thank you, Movienight.

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