Bonnie and Clyde
I didn’t actually know that they were real people. All I know that this is a famous classic, and that I have always wanted to see it.
As a historical account, the film doesn’t have much to offer. It’s largely an adventure film, exploiting some real facts but mostly it stands on its own. But as an adventure film, the film is a little bit too gory, with the characters constantly fearing to die to the point of panicking like crazy. Perhaps it makes most sense to view the film as a misguided love story.
Most of the good scenes in the film involve Bonnie and Clyde together – alone. They have their relationship troubles, especially when Blanche was added to the group, but their first meeting, the scene where they bonded with the farmer family who got driven away from their farm and finally their last day together were probably the most interesting parts of the film for me. In fact, the most memorable part of the film was precisely the end, where Bonnie and Clyde actually died together. I find it remarkable that they put Bonnie into a romantic white dress, and that this death scene had to come shortly after they found something like bliss in their relationship. The impact of the scene was also heightened by the disturbing attractiveness of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. (How does she manage to keep her hair so immensely stylish all the time?)
The only good scene not involving Bonnie and Clyde alone is definitely the one with the hostages. Gene Wilder only had a very short role but boy he is awesome in it already. It was probably the only truly humorous scene of the entire film and it worked well.
Apart from that, “Bonnie and Clyde” was an interesting, fairly suspenseful story, and quite revolutionary for a film at that time. Criminals (in fact murderers) were portrayed as likable, yet they died a gruesome, very visually shocking death. But for me, the film has too many weaknesses to be recommendable. All other characters besides Bonnie and Clyde were rather boring and just served as plot devices, and the 60s style of the film strongly disturbed me considering that it is supposed to play at the beginning of the 30s – that mixture doesn’t necessarily look bad, but it certainly looks very wrong. Watch the film but don’t expect too much.