001/100 - #042 Bonnie and Clyde

The first movie of my AFI challenge is Bonnie and Clyde. I admit to not knowing much about the pair when I chose this film, though I am sure I've referenced them in conversation and I've even visited their death car on display in Primm, Nevada.

I thought the film would be quick and easy, which is was, but would I be blown away (so to speak)?

There is a lot to enjoy about this 1967 classic -- Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are gorgeous to look at and the supporting cast is amazing (I don't think I've seen Denver Pyle in anything other than The Dukes of Hazzard). Though Faye Dunaway and Estelle Parsons are often glaringly over the top, Warren Beatty and the supporting cast are natural and interesting. Despite their life of crime, you're rooting for Bonnie and Clyde for much of the film because they are simply so charismatic and appealing. But, like most good crime spree movies, the tone of the film changes and you know they are headed toward the well-known ambush on a lonely country road.

One of my reasons for watching these classic films is so I can better understand and recognize their influence in contemporary cinema. I thought about the 1994 movie Natural Born Killers several times while watching Bonnie and Clyde. While this movie is a romanticized historical drama and Natural Born Killers is a fictional commentary on modern society, the relationships, the violence and the desperation are similar. The success of Natural Born Killers is the perfect example of why Bonnie and Clyde is still a relevant movie and why the actual people involved are so interesting to us almost a century later.

While I started to become less sympathetic toward the characters as the seriousness of their crimes escalated, the final scene took my breath away. They were unsuspecting (though, of course, we suspect), trusting, unaware. And my favorite bit about the entire movie is that before you can process what you've just seen on screen... fade to black. The movie forces you to think about it long after it's over... a brilliant ending.

Though I don't have my own rating system yet (I'll edit this when I come up with something), I rated Bonnie and Clyde 3 out of 5 stars on Netflix and 7 out of 10 at Internet Movie Data Base. Overall, I enjoyed the film and I understand why it remains so popular and influential but the questionable acting and some strange editing choices in several scenes left it short of being a cinematic masterpiece to me.



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