Abishai100
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- Sep 22, 2013
- 4,959
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The iconic American historicultural film Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn), starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway and featuring a stellar supporting cast has become a worldwide gem, capturing all the social drama and romance surrounding the canonization and deification of the two legendary real-life American bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Bonnie and Clyde robbed banks in America during the Great Depression and breathed life into a society in desperate need of some kind of sideshow or distraction-story or folk-tale to get their minds off what was really depressing America --- complete financial worry.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were real criminals and were pursued by real lawmen, but their daring deeds seemed to fill a void in the American landscape, a sociocultural need to use storytelling to make sense of all kinds of dystopian madness, and their actual real-life romance reflected an American aesthetic towards drama, which is exactly what director Arthur Penn managed to capture in this timeless film about theft, displacement, fear, romance, journalism, style, violence, tragedy, and of course, depression.
This is truly an achievement in American film-making, and it deserves nothing less than 5/5 stars, and I'd argue it should be raised to the level of dioramic films such as Ben-Hur (William Wyler), It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra), Annie Hall (Woody Allen), Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy), and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper).
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Because Penn's film captures all the living drama of both bank robbery and societal defiance, the art for the film and poster for the film have been circulated and re-circulated around the globe, making it an image and stamp of true film-making pride.
Penn chose to give the film a very stripped-down and rustic look while offering the characterization and storytelling flow a very landscape-rich color and texture. This is both a street-wise story and an aesthetic experiment. The scenes of robbery and getaway, adventure and tragedy, and fortune and violence reflect Americans' love of cinema, colors, and cadence.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were romanticized in the press during the Great Depression in America as being a very iconic if unusual couple, a real daring duo, and Penn's film captures the magnetism between the two thieves in the story/movie in a way that Beatty and Dunaway manage to create and cast with great dynamic flair!
The cinematography in Bonnie and Clyde make this a truly outstanding Blu-ray HD film experience as well, for anyone who boasts such home-entertainment luxuries!
The image-stills from the production of this film have become historical treasures for movie-buffs as well as more romantic historians who seek to understand and appreciate the weight behind historical revisionism. Was the Great Depression an experience in endurance or an experience in lifestyle re-invention?
This is also a terrific movie for anyone in love with the storytelling and folklore surrounding bank robbery. Sure, there've been many entertaining bank robbery and heist films over the years, some portraying real-life robbers and featuring legendary/popular actors, including Heat (Al Pacino), Bloody Mama (Robert DeNiro), Killing Zoe (Eric Stoltz), Heist (Gene Hackman), Ocean's Eleven (Frank Sinatra), Out of Sight (George Clooney), and Inside Man (Denzel Washington), but what sets apart Bonnie and Clyde is its sheer presentation of cinematic diarism.
The car-chase scene(s) in Bonnie and Clyde are not to be missed and represent an old-world cinema aesthetic, which can definitely be separated from a new era aesthetic catering to more mechanical designs (e.g., John Frankenheimer's 1998 understated masterpiece Ronin).
BONNIE: Your advertising is dandy. Folks'd just never guess you don't have a thing to sell.
CLYDE: You could find a lover boy on every corner in town and it doesn't make a damn to them whether you're waiting on tables or picking cotton, so long as you cooperate.
BONNIE: Why?
CLYDE: We can be somethin' we could never be alone.
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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were real criminals and were pursued by real lawmen, but their daring deeds seemed to fill a void in the American landscape, a sociocultural need to use storytelling to make sense of all kinds of dystopian madness, and their actual real-life romance reflected an American aesthetic towards drama, which is exactly what director Arthur Penn managed to capture in this timeless film about theft, displacement, fear, romance, journalism, style, violence, tragedy, and of course, depression.
This is truly an achievement in American film-making, and it deserves nothing less than 5/5 stars, and I'd argue it should be raised to the level of dioramic films such as Ben-Hur (William Wyler), It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra), Annie Hall (Woody Allen), Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy), and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper).
====
Because Penn's film captures all the living drama of both bank robbery and societal defiance, the art for the film and poster for the film have been circulated and re-circulated around the globe, making it an image and stamp of true film-making pride.
Penn chose to give the film a very stripped-down and rustic look while offering the characterization and storytelling flow a very landscape-rich color and texture. This is both a street-wise story and an aesthetic experiment. The scenes of robbery and getaway, adventure and tragedy, and fortune and violence reflect Americans' love of cinema, colors, and cadence.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were romanticized in the press during the Great Depression in America as being a very iconic if unusual couple, a real daring duo, and Penn's film captures the magnetism between the two thieves in the story/movie in a way that Beatty and Dunaway manage to create and cast with great dynamic flair!
The cinematography in Bonnie and Clyde make this a truly outstanding Blu-ray HD film experience as well, for anyone who boasts such home-entertainment luxuries!
The image-stills from the production of this film have become historical treasures for movie-buffs as well as more romantic historians who seek to understand and appreciate the weight behind historical revisionism. Was the Great Depression an experience in endurance or an experience in lifestyle re-invention?
This is also a terrific movie for anyone in love with the storytelling and folklore surrounding bank robbery. Sure, there've been many entertaining bank robbery and heist films over the years, some portraying real-life robbers and featuring legendary/popular actors, including Heat (Al Pacino), Bloody Mama (Robert DeNiro), Killing Zoe (Eric Stoltz), Heist (Gene Hackman), Ocean's Eleven (Frank Sinatra), Out of Sight (George Clooney), and Inside Man (Denzel Washington), but what sets apart Bonnie and Clyde is its sheer presentation of cinematic diarism.
The car-chase scene(s) in Bonnie and Clyde are not to be missed and represent an old-world cinema aesthetic, which can definitely be separated from a new era aesthetic catering to more mechanical designs (e.g., John Frankenheimer's 1998 understated masterpiece Ronin).
BONNIE: Your advertising is dandy. Folks'd just never guess you don't have a thing to sell.
CLYDE: You could find a lover boy on every corner in town and it doesn't make a damn to them whether you're waiting on tables or picking cotton, so long as you cooperate.
BONNIE: Why?
CLYDE: We can be somethin' we could never be alone.
====
"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)