Bonnie and Clyde (film)

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Movie
German title Bonnie and Clyde
Original title Bonnie and Clyde
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1967
length 107 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Arthur Penn
script David Newman ,
Robert Benton ,
Robert Towne
production Warren Beatty
music Charles Strouse
camera Burnett Guffey
cut Dede Allen
occupation

Bonnie and Clyde is an American gangster movie - drama from 1967, directed by Arthur Penn , tells the story of the criminal couple Bonnie Parker, played by Faye Dunaway , and Clyde Barrow, played by Warren Beatty , known as Bonnie and Clyde told . The couple managed to achieve national fame in America in a very short time in the 1930s.

action

Summary

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow from Texas decide to pursue a gangster career together. They drive in stolen cars and spend the night in changing accommodations. The first bank they robbed has no money; then they rob a grocery store, and Clyde can just fend off an assault. On the way the two met C. W. Moss and accepted him into the gang. The next bank robbery is a success, but Clyde shoots a chaser in the process. Clyde meets with his brother Buck and his wife Blanche in a remote location. In another exchange of fire with the police, Buck now also kills a man. Despite Blanche's reluctance, they now have no choice, the two join the gang. Together they raid another bank and move to a neighboring country. The next time a car is stolen, they kidnap a young couple for fun. They treat the couple with humor and the two quickly lose their fear. At Bonnie's request, they are released again after a short time. Bonnie is at a low point on her nerves and wishes to visit her mother. The danger that the police are watching Bonnie's family is high, but Clyde grants her wish. In fact, there is another argument with the sheriffs. Buck and Blanche are injured during the escape. The gang is surrounded by police officers in the open field, Buck is shot and Blanche is captured. Bonnie and Clyde are shot, but brought by C. W. to his father. He collaborated with the police to negotiate a relatively mild sentence for his son. C. W. obeys his father and leaves the gangster couple when the opportunity arises. Shortly thereafter, Bonnie and Clyde end up in an ambush - the two die in a hail of bullets.

Detailed presentation

The following two text panels appear:

"BONNIE PARKER, was born in Rowena, Texas, 1910 and then moved to West Dallas. In 1931 she worked in a cafe before beginning her career in crime. ”
( Bonnie Parker was born in Rowena , Texas, in 1910 and moved to West Dallas . In 1931, she worked in a cafe before embarking on a criminal career.)
"CLYDE BARROW, was born to a family of sharecroppers. As a young man he became a small-time thief and robbed a gas station. He served two years for armed robbery and was released on good behavior in 1931. "
( Clyde Barrow was born into a poor farming family. As a young guy he became a crook and robbed a gas station. He sat for two years for armed robbery was dismissed in 1931 for good conduct.)

Texas, 1930s. Bonnie Parker is naked in her room in a country house and through the window sees a man, Clyde Barrow, tampering with her mother's car. She puts on something and rushes down to him. He denies that he wanted to steal the car and promptly invites Bonnie to town for a drink. On the way he tells her that he robbed a bank. Bonnie starts flirting with him. In town, Bonnie provocatively claims that he has too little courage to shoot with a pistol in a robbery. He then raids the grocery store across the street and steals a car with Bonnie in order to escape. Now they introduce each other and kiss. When Bonnie gets too close, Clyde stops and gets out. Bonnie is upset and wants to leave, but Clyde convinces her to stay by complimenting her.

The two are talking in a restaurant. Clyde makes Bonnie want to quit her waiter job to come with him to get rich. They steal another car and move into a shabby, abandoned house. While they are doing target practice outside, the former farmer who owned the house until the bank seized it came by. Clyde gives him the opportunity to shoot the sign of the bank he hated with his pistol.

Bonnie and Clyde plan their first bank robbery together. Clyde tries his hand at it while Bonnie waits outside in the car, but learns that the bank recently went bust. Bonnie laughs out loud and the two drive on. Next stop is a grocery store, where Clyde wants to steal food. But one of the employees surprises him from behind with a cleaver, he can only just fend off the attack and flee. At a gas station they engage the young gas station attendant C. W. Moss in a conversation. They excite him to join them. In the meantime, the worker who was beaten up in the Clyde attack had identified Clyde as the culprit to police. Bonnie hugs Clyde at night, but they are disturbed by C. W's snoring.

At the next bank robbery, C. W. is the driver, while Bonnie and Clyde enter the bank armed. C. W. stupidly parks the car in a parking space so that the gangsters with their bags of money can only escape with great difficulty; which is why Clyde will take him to his chest later. A bank clerk hangs himself on the driver's door, Clyde's bullet hits him fatally in the face. At some point, Clyde asks Bonnie if she wants to get out of the business, because she still has the chance to get away undetected. But she wants to stay with him. They get closer to each other, but Clyde breaks off prematurely, he gives the impression of being impotent.

The next day, the three of them get a visit from Clydes' brother Buck and his wife Blanche. In a conversation with Clyde, Buck asks him not to tell Blanche about the crimes. Together they drive to Buck and Blanche's new house and have fun there. After a boy has recognized the criminals, the police suddenly appear at the door. A violent exchange of fire ensues in which several police officers are hit. The gang manages to flee with a hysterically screaming Blanche in the car. Bonnie can't stand Blanches nagging anymore and wants Clyde to kick them out. He refuses, the women ranting at each other, but finally get along again.

Historic photo of real people Bonnie and Clyde, March 1933

In the newspaper they read about the manhunt for the so-called "Barrow gang", then they stop at a lake. The Texas Ranger Frank Hamer slowly approaching the vehicle, but Clyde can overpower him from ambush. They tie him up and humiliate him. They take a photo of him where they present him as their prisoner - this photo is later published in the newspaper. After the ranger spits in Bonnie's face, Clyde freaks out and throws the ranger into the nearby lake. Buck prevents Clyde from seriously harming the ranger, they throw him into a boat and leave him drifted into the middle of the lake. Buck and Blanche also take part in the next bank robbery. The gang makes loot, with Clyde being forced to shoot a police officer, the police in two cars pursue. After various exchanges of fire, the gang escapes to the neighboring state of Oklahoma . When dividing the stolen money, Blanche is outraged because she should not be involved in the loot. Clyde gives in, but Bonnie disagrees. Because of damage to the vehicle, they steal another car in a small town. The owner and his lover pursue the gang, but then decide to turn back and see the police. Thereupon the gang turns their vehicle in turn, makes fun of it to chase the couple and to take them prisoner. They fool around with the "abductees", but when the man reveals that he is an undertaker, Bonnie abruptly abandons the two of them in the middle of the night on the street.

Bonnie tries to escape on her own as she longs for her mother - but Clyde catches up with her and gets her to go to her mother's house together. The next day, the group meets with Bonnie's large family in a deserted place. While the children are joking with the men, Bonnie's mother reveals her great fear for the daughter. After the gang moved into a vacation home, Blanche and C. W. found food in town. A man sees C. W's pistol and alerts the police. During the night she approaches the house with a large contingent and opens fire. The persecuted, however, were able to flee again using machine guns and hand grenades; however, both Buck and Blanche are injured in the head - making Blanche blind. The gang was forced to spend the night in the open air.

Historic photo of the wrecked Ford V8

The next morning they are surrounded by police officers. During the escape, Clyde is injured in the arm, Blanche is captured and Buck is fatally wounded. Bonnie, Clyde and C. W. flee on foot, with Bonnie being hit by a bullet. C. W. drives the two injured people in a stolen car to a homeless camp, where they are supplied with drinking water. Then he drives her to his father. He feigns friendliness and hospitality, but he betrays his antipathy for Bonnie and Clyde to C. W. when he attacks him as neglected because of a simple tattoo. Meanwhile, Blanche is interrogated by ranger Frank Hamer. He elicits the name of C. W., previously unknown to the police.

Bonnie wrote the poem The Story of Bonnie and Clyde , which was later printed in a newspaper. The two camp on a meadow and Clyde apparently succeeds in sexual intercourse for the first time. C. W's father contacts the police and forbids his son to be picked up by Bonnie and Clyde as planned. The latter leave the city without C. W. because they cannot find him straight away and several police vehicles turn up. On the way they come across C. W's father, who pretends to have a flat tire. The couple stops, C. W's father takes cover, Frank Hamer and other police officers, who are hiding in a bush, open fire from machine guns. Bonnie and Clyde are riddled with countless bullets.

History of origin

The script for the film was originally penned by David Newman and Robert Benton , journalists for Esquire magazine . In their work, the authors take up the themes and style of the French Nouvelle Vague . Benton about the script:

“ I think what attracted us, what we tried to bring to the screenplay, was that Bonnie and Clyde were not conventional villains and not conventional heroes, they were some mixture, but we were determined to see them with some sympathy. "(German:" I think what interested us and what we also tried to bring into the script is that Bonnie and Clyde were neither conventional villains nor conventional heroes, but a mixture - but we had to see them with a certain sympathy. " )

They then sent the script to the director, François Truffaut, whom they admire . Although he showed interest, he gave priority to his film project Fahrenheit 451 and sent the script on to Jean-Luc Godard . However, his extraordinary ideas of a possible staging were not compatible with the conditions of the studios.

Warren Beatty at an Academy Awards, 1990

The script next came into the hands of Warren Beatty , who previously founded the independent production company Tatira Productions with his friend Arthur Penn (both of whom had worked together on Mickey One before) . He acquired the script and asked a number of directors - in vain - until he got Arthur Penn's approval. Beatty and Penn wanted to make changes to the script, especially the bisexuality of Clyde both disliked. Instead, they decided that he should be impotent.

Beatty hired Robert Towne to review the script . Towne rewrote many scenes over and over until both Beatty and Penn agreed. One of the most important changes concerned the relationship between the gangster couple and C. W. Moss. In the original script, this one - fictional - ménage à trois , a sexual three-way relationship. Clyde was heterosexual, C. W. developed as a comic character. Incidentally, Towne is listed as a special consultant in the opening credits , while Newman and Benton are named as scriptwriters.

Beatty was able to solicit a production participation from Warner Bros. to finance the film after receiving rejections from United Artists and Columbia Pictures . The film was shot on original locations.

Soundtrack

reception

Bonnie and Clyde was initially only shown in small arthouse cinemas and, after the consistently negative response in the newspapers, even removed from the cinemas entirely. Only a re-release, which was started with a large advertising campaign at Beatty's urging, brought the film laurels. Several newspapers revised their first reviews because they saw Bonnie and Clyde as a turning point in American cinema. The existential confrontation with the true story as well as the high level of cinematic violence, which was unique at the time, were the focus of the reviews.

The term " New Hollywood " was later established , as the nucleus of which Bonnie and Clyde, together with the film The Graduation Exam , also released in 1967, is considered. The main feature of this style is turning away from the classic Hollywood style - through a narrative style based on European cinema and some innovations in the language of film . The cinematic portrayal of violence culminates in this era in The Wild Bunch - they knew no law .

Although Bonnie and Clyde is a studio production, there are approaches of the auteur film : Producer Warren Beatty acted at the same time as an actor, which was quite unusual for the time, and had a great artistic influence on the film.

National Film Registry logo

The motif - gangster couple on a self-destructive tour de force against society - is subsequently taken up again and again in countless variations (e.g. in Thelma and Louise , Natural Born Killers ).

Nowadays the film Bonnie and Clyde enjoys cult status.

The US National Film Registry has included the film in its “list of particularly worth preserving films”; the American Film Institute lists Bonnie and Clyde at number 27 on its "100 Years - 100 Movies" list. The film was also selected in the 2005 Time selection of the best 100 films from 1923 to 2005 .

Reviews

Shortly after its premiere on August 13, 1967 in New York , the film received mostly negative reviews:

“Such ridiculous, camp-tinctured travesties of the kind of people these desperadoes were and of the way people lived in the dusty Southwest back in those barren years might be passed off as candidly commercial movie comedy, nothing more, if the film weren't reddened with blotches of violence of the most grisly sort. "

"Such ridiculous, camp- soaked travesties of the kind of people who were these desperados and the way people in the dusty Southwest lived in those barren years might have passed for an openly commercial comedy film, and nothing else, if the film would not have been reddened with stains of the most terrible kind of violence.

- Bosley Crowther : The New York Times

Over time, however, critics became convinced that Bonnie and Clyde were a groundbreaking work for the development of the film:

Bonnie and Clyde is a milestone in the history of American movies, a work of truth and brilliance. It is also pitilessly cruel, filled with sympathy, nauseating, funny, heartbreaking, and astonishingly beautiful. If it does not seem that those words should be strung together, perhaps that is because movies do not very often reflect the full range of human life.

“ Bonnie and Clyde is a milestone in American film history, a work of truth and brilliance. The film is relentlessly brutal, filled with sympathy, hideous, funny, heartbreaking and incredibly beautiful. If it seems that these terms do not go together, it may be because films rarely show the full range of human life. "

- Roger Ebert : Chicago Sun-Times , September 25, 1967

“The adventurous and tragically ending story of a gangster couple in the American Southwest of the 1920s, staged by Arthur Penn with formal skill and ambiguous sarcasm. […] Based on actual events, Arthur Penn developed his outsider ballad to mirror American consciousness in the 1960s; the myth of the 'good gangster' is invoked and at the same time subjected to a critical revision. "

- Lexicon of international film

“The headstrong young couple and their incompetent accomplices are portrayed with humor and affection, which as the plot progresses are masked by the growing threat of a bloody ending. The moments of realistic portrayal of violence are impressively inserted into the large frame of childish fantasy. "

- rororo film dictionary

“Arthur Penn showed bank robbers Clyde Barrow and his lover Bonnie Parker not as the professionals they presumably were, but as young people who live the way they want and only become outsiders because the circumstances are not that way, but mean . "

- Uwe Nettelbeck

Awards

Oscar 1968

Golden Globe Award 1968

British Film Academy Award 1968

  • British Film Academy Awards in the Best Young Actor category for Faye Dunaway and Michael J. Pollard
  • Nominations in the categories of Best Picture and Best Foreign Actor (Warren Beatty)

Further awards

American Film Institute Awards :

  • 1998: No. 27 in the list of the best 100 films of all time (2007: No. 42)
  • 13th place on the compiled list of the 100 best thrillers of all time
  • 65th place in the list of the 100 best romance films of all time
  • Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty played characters Bonnie and Clyde made it to number 32 on the list of the top 50 villains of all time
  • The quote: We raid banks reached number 41 in the list of the best 100 movie quotes of all time
  • 2008: 5th place in the top 10 gangster films of all time

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ellis Amburn: The Sexiest Man Alive: A Biography of Warren Beatty. Harper, New York, 2002.
  2. ↑ Bonnie and Clyde ( Memento of the original from February 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at poenack.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.poenack.de
  3. ↑ Review by Bosley Crowther
  4. ^ Review by Roger Ebert
  5. ↑ Bonnie and Clyde. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  6. ↑ Liz-Anne Bawden (Ed.): Rororo Filmlexikon. Rowohlt, Hamburg, 1978.
  7. ↑ Quoted from Willi Winkler: To die more beautifully . Süddeutsche Zeitung of 23 August 2017, p. 10