Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Penn, USA)

A Level Film Studies - Focus Film Factsheet Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Penn, USA) Cinematography Component 1: Varieties of • Use of extreme close ups of Bonnie in the Film & Film-Making (AL) opening scene (lips, eyes) sexualise her and Component 1: American Film (AS) suggest this film will explore her identity. These shot choices also challenge classical Core Study Areas: Hollywood conventions establishing the Key Elements of Film Form film as a ‘New Hollywood’ production. Meaning & Response • Unconventional and creative framing of shots The Contexts of Film e.g. Bonnie shooting the tyre, the bank teller being shot through the car window. • Use of a filter in the scene when Bonnie meets Specialist Study Area: up with her mum lends the scene a dreamlike Auteur (AL) quality – a fantasy of how things could be if Bonnie had made different choices. Rationale for study Mise-en-Scène • Critical Acclaim: The film received Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best • Blood – although the film was stylised it Cinematography. It was among the first 100 did incorporate blood in a way that was films selected for preservation in the United uncommon in Hollywood films of that era States National Film Registry and is on the making the crimes more visceral and real. AFI’s list of the top ten gangster films of all • Costume – Bonnie’s costumes and styling time. The film was also one of the first films of become more polished as their crime spree the New Hollywood era, since it broke many continues and her confidence grows. cinematic taboos and created controversy • Colour – use of black in the scene where with its portrayal of sex and violence. Bonnie meets her mother for the last time creates a funereal tone and foreshadows the death of the protagonists. STARTING POINTS - Useful Sequences and timings/links Editing • 0:00 – 5:22 Opening scene introduces • Use of shot-reverse-shot in the diner conversation the two protagonists and their respective – the simplistic editing and use of close ups roles in society, establishes the genre and encourages the audience to focus on the introduces some of the taboos that make dynamic between the characters as Clyde is this film a ‘New Hollywood’ classic. revealed to be insightful and intuitive and Bonnie to be surprised and impressed. • 1:42:33 to the end – Closing scene is particularly • Closing scene – shot with numerous cameras useful in demonstrating the level of violence capturing the scene from different angles with in the film, the creative cinematography and some of the frames edited into slow motion the influence of other filmmakers on Penn. and others not, to create an overwhelming and disturbing spectacle. The scene was shaped by editor Dede Allen of whom Penn said, “she CORE STUDY AREAS 1 - STARTING wasn’t an editor, she was a constructionist.” POINTS - Key Elements of Film • Jump cuts used inspired by French New Wave Form (Micro Features) directors like Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut show Penn’s Film School background. 1 A Level Film Studies - Focus Film Factsheet Sound unrest in America when people, particularly • Use of the bluegrass song Foggy Mountain the young, were challenging the government’s Breakdown by Earl Scruggs & Lester Flatt role in the Vietnam war, there were race riots keeps the tone light during crime scenes and a large counterculture developing. The lending a comedic tone to some moments. The film’s anti-authority message reflected this. song also anchors the film geographically. The rise of New American • Lack of music in robbery scenes Cinema of the late 1960s lends them a sense of realism. • Economic breakdown of the studio era • Loud and explosive gunfire as the only sound • Audience decline / fragmentation – appeal in the closing scene emphasises the excesses of to younger audiences and ‘art-house’ Frank Hamer’s attack on Bonnie and Clyde. • 1967 – audience attendance rises for the first time • Counterculture of late 1960s - counterculture, CORE STUDY AREAS 2 - STARTING civil rights movements, unrest, polarisation. POINTS – Meaning & Response • Escalation of the war in Vietnam Representations • New directors - film buffs • Gender – Bonnie starts the film ‘trapped’ • Aesthetic influence of European art- inside the home and Clyde is first seen out house ink. French New Wave in the world reflecting the gendered norms • New technologies- zoom lens, stedicam for the era the film is set in. The rest of the • 1968 –the new X certificate film challenges these roles. Institutional • Sex – Bonnie breaks taboos of the time • The Hollywood studios were in decline and by initiating intimacy and oral sex is willing to take less financial risks so increasingly alluded to which was very controversial films were being produced by independent at the time of the film’s release. Clyde’s studios who, encouraged by changes to the impotence, ‘I aint much of a loverboy”, MPAA ratings system, tackled more taboo was also a taboo subject and challenged subjects and experimented with new film making stereotypes of the masculine virile hero. techniques. The film marked a turning point • Class – Bonnie and Clyde support the working in Hollywood as although it was produced by classes throughout e.g. encouraging the evicted Warner Bros, home of the gangster genre, a Otis Harris to shoot at the bank sign, letting the lot of control was given to Penn and Beatty. man in the bank robbery keep his own money. Penn said of Hollywood at that time, “It Aesthetics (i.e. the ‘look and feel’ wasn’t just that we were sick of the system. of the film including Visual style, At that point, the system was sick of itself.” influences, auteur, motifs) • Very diverse shot types, varying pace SPECLIAIST STUDY AREA - Auteur and discontinuity edits - the lack of clear - STARTING POINTS patterns convey the unpredictability of New • Arthur Penn’s leftist politics and interests Hollywood and the film’s protagonists. in social justice pervade this film and his • Inspired by Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai earlier work (see Mickey One) for the closing scene of the film. • Combining comedy and tragedy whilst working • Influenced by convention challenging French within clear genres (see Little Big Man) New Wave directors. Truffaut even made • Theme – façade vs reality contributions to the script. – “Your advertising is just dandy” • Screenwriters David Newham and Peter CORE STUDY AREAS 3 - STARTING Benton influenced by French New Wave POINTS – Contexts and auteurs of classical Hollywood (Hawks, Hitchcock, Ford & Welles) Historical • The film was released at a time of social 2.

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