Bonnie & Clyde (1967) ****

 

Something was in the air in 1967; it was an absolutely great year for movies! Classics released that year include “The Dirty Dozen,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “The Graduate,” “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,” the noir, art-film “Point Blank,” “Hombre,” and one of my personal favorites, “Cool Hand Luke.” The arrival of so much great cinematic art in one year is probably explained by the societal upheavals of the 60's. Amid the movements for civil rights and women's rights as well as protests against the Vietnam War, people were ready for a newer, more modern style of storytelling.

For most of the 60's, Hollywood was still mostly cranking out typical, studio fare, stories where good guys wore white, and bad guys wore back, literally or figuratively. In France, however, New Wave directors like Godard and Truffaut were creating amoral, warts-and-all tales of outlaws and deviants. These were not morality tales. They were simply human stories, told without judgment. America's answer to the New Wave films was Arthur Penn's “Bonnie & Clyde,” one of the best movies in a year of great films.

Inspired by America's most famous outlaw couple, the movie is a tale of love on the lamb. Stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are brilliant, with great chemistry, even when they are discussing Clyde's inability to have sex with Bonnie. The film follows them as they meet, commit their first robbery, and eventually become famous as Depression-Era folk heroes, theoretically stealing from the banks who ruined the economy. (In real life, their favorite targets were small stores and gas stations.) They are eventually joined by Clyde's brother, Buck (Gene Hackman) and Buck's wife, Blanche, as well as a fictional addition to the gang named C.W. Moss (who serves as an amalgam of the many gang members who came and went in real life). The pressure inexorably builds as the five are always only one step ahead of lawmen who shoot first and ask questions later.

Beatty and Dunaway bring enough swagger and humanity to carry the movie, even if they didn't have an excellent supporting cast. Michael J. Pollard and Dub Taylor bring comic relief as C.W. and his dad, and Gene Hackman is as good as you would expect. I especially liked Denver Pyle as lawman Frank Hamer. The only off-note in the film is its depiction of Blanche, who comes across as a shrill, ridiculous harpy. (The real-life Blanche was said to have been disappointed with how the film painted her.)

Like Blanche Barrow, you just have to put aside any concerns about historical accuracy. There isn't any. The film version of the story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker takes so many liberties that it should probably be viewed as a strictly fictional work. Any similarity to real persons is entirely coincidental. The problem is, its hard to do that, to keep fact and fiction separate in your mind. That's always been my complaint about movies based on real life. The filmmakers generously grant themselves poetic license, telling themselves that audiences understand the difference between fact and fiction. In reality, it's very hard to keep those things separate, especially when the movie version is as compelling as “Bonnie & Clyde.”

4 stars out of 5