Bonnie and Clyde – The French New Wave in Hollywood
Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) was the start of the Hollywood Renaissance Movement – one that is filled with previously taboo topics that cinema tried to stay away from. The initial release was lukewarm and it was only though Pauline Kael’s lengthy essay, that praised the film, allowed the film a second chance. The graphic violence and sexual nature of Bonnie and Clyde’s relationship excited the American public, who thought of the real duo as noble populists. Penn did not shy away from the gritty and dirty lives of the criminals and that cemented Bonnie and Clyde within global iconic film status. The film reused techniques of the French New Wave, to draw the younger generation of moviegoers back to the cinema.
The film is based on the real-life Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, criminals in American West during the Great Depression. The film scandalised the conservatives, starting with a nude scene of Faye Dunaway who plays the titular character of Bonnie and ending with the graphic rampage of their death. The film showed blood and gore explicitly and the audiences enjoyed each violent scene. However, despite such strides in portraying the lives of violent criminals realistically, the film uses the subtleties of the French New Wave liberally and the connection between the two movements are palpable.
Warren Beatty who plays Clyde, also acted as the producer of the film, and had originally approached French New Wave directors to make the film. So, the influence of the French New Wave had begun at the very conception of the show and would go on to influence Penn’s version of the pseudo-autobiography. The tone of Bonnie and Clyde utilised French New Wave techniques of characterisation of the protagonists, fast cuts, and spontaneous music to shift tone abruptly.
Bonnie and Clyde echoed one of the most well-known French New Wave movies, Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960). We see similarities in the protagonist Michel and Clyde, anti-heroes who were arrogant, rebellious and believed themselves to be above the law. Both characters have a hyper masculine and sexual façade, Clyde putting on the mask of a Western outlaw and Michel as the classic Hollywood gangster. Their downfall is the very thing that makes them so attractive, their brutality and confidence that serves to attract characters and audiences alike. The audience grows to root for these morally repugnant characters even though they know that these crimes cannot go unpunished and their eventual deaths are not celebrated by the audience.
The camera techniques in Bonnie and Clyde are also distinctively like the New Wave movement. A scene that shows this perfectly is the ending scene where Bonnie and Clyde are viciously gunned down. The abrupt change in tone occurs when Mr Moss suddenly ducks for cover, the characters go from carefree with long takes to an abrupt burst of short and fast cuts. The change of tone is particularly jarring as within that few minutes of the scene the audience go from feeling carefree to free. The film does not even allow the audience to process their emotions as the characters are shot at in a long slow motion that seems almost beautiful in its choreography. The loud gunshots start of jarring but becomes almost like background music as the characters fall in slow motion with blood spewing out from wounds. Their deaths becomes a performance despite the horrific, almost cruel, killing.
Lastly, Bonnie and Clyde uses banjo music to convey a change in tone in the film. In scenes where the characters are robbing banks, the sombre and serious tone of the robbery itself is quickly switched to a fun and spritely one through the sudden quick strum of banjo music during the duo’s getaway. The song, Earl Sruggs’ “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” becomes emblematic and undercuts the seriousness of the show. It is comedic in nature and such a song paired with car chases immediately after a stick up allowed Penn to shift the film’s tone precipitously.
Hence, Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde is hallmarked for triggering a whole new set of Hollywood films that were unabashedly violent and sexual. It opened the cinema up for the wider audience and revived a dying industry by bringing New Wave techniques directly into the Hollywood studios.
Bibliography:
Narelle (2017), Bonnie and Clyde – The French New Wave in Hollywood.
Available at : https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/narelle001/bonnie-and-clyde-the-french-new-wave-in-hollywood/ (accessed 13th November 2019)
Images in order
1 - found at: http://crimefeed.com/2017/01/serial-killer-cinema-10-movies-based-bonnie-clyde/ (accessed: 13th November 2019)
2 - found at: https://journeysindarknessandlight.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/growing-up-with-movies-introduction-and-episode-1-bonnie-and-clyde-1967/ (Accessed 13th November 2019)
3 - found at: https://www.express.co.uk/pictures/pics/4230/Faye-Dunaway-60s-American-actress-pictures/Faye-Dunaway-and-Warren-Beatty-star-together-in-the-1967-film-Bonnie-and-Clyde-95600 (accessed 13th November 2019)
4 - found at: http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2017/8/16/bonnie-clydes-50th-anniversary.html (accessed 13th November 2019)
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