BONNIE AND CLYDE Flashcards
Director
Arthur Penn
Producers
Warner Beatty
Distributors
Warner Brother-Seven Arts
New Hollywood
New Hollywood, sometimes referred to as the “American New Wave”, or “The Hollywood Renaissance”, refers to a movement in American film history from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in the United States
With audiences continuing to decline and financial problems mounting by the late 1960s, the studios had to find a way to reinvent themselves and make the films that would engage the crucial youth audience, which as we have already seen, was an increasingly significant target for the film industry. The studios had witnessed (and largely ignored) a series of revolutions in European filmmaking from the mid 1940s onwards (we’ll come back to these later) and the fifties and earlier sixties work of pionering independent American producers and directors (such as Nicholas Ray, Elia Kazan, John Cassavetes, Sam Peckinpah, Sydney Lumet and Stanley Kubrick) who wanted to incorporate these new approaches to filmmaking into their own productions. The studios considered them too unusual and experimental to be appealing to American audiences. However, the box office success of a trio of American films made in the unconventional style of the European “new waves”: The Graduate (1967); Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969), made them take notice. All three films had been producer/director lead and made on low budgets, all three had been surprisingly successful at the box office – bringing in income of around 10 times their production costs. They demonstrated to the studios that there was an appetite amongst audiences (particularly the all important youth audience) for a more experimental approach to narrative, editing and cinematography and that a new breed of young writers, producers and directors, left to work without interference from the studios, could produce material that would unlock the studios’ access to the youth market. These three films effectively shifted the film industry away from a distribution lead approach to filmmaking and towards a production lead model and ushered in a period, lasting from about 1970 to 1980, of unprecedented levels of funding and creative freedom for filmmakers and the creation of a string of films that are considered classics today.
Features of New Hollywood
Taking advantage of new technology and using small production teams to reduce costs and therefore increase independence from studios.
A focus on characters who are outsiders and/or from ordinary backgrounds. Often a focus on young characters.
A focus on anti authoritarian/anti establishment characters who the audience are encouraged to sympathise/empathise with or see events from the perspective of.
Contemporary mise en scene, modern settings, characters and costumes.
Realistic approach to mise-en-scene: location shooting, realistic approach to costume and performance.
A realistic approach to narrative, narrative perhaps based on personal or contemporary experience. Use of complex, elliptical, often inconclusive narratives that reflect the arbitrary nature of real life.
Lack of non diegetic music, use of modern or contemporary music when it is used.
Use of little known or non-professional actors.
In some films, more openness about nudity and more explicit representations of sex, drug taking and violence.
An often fragmented, non linear approach to editing. Extensive use of montage and jump cuts, less reliance on continuity editing and shot-reverse-shot.
Use of longer lenses, with shallower depth of field. More extensive use of close ups than in previous generations of filmmaking.
Collaborative Process
The idea for the film came from its writers, Robert Benton and David Newton. They had written the script in the early 1960s, influenced by the French New Wave, particularly Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film Breathless, and it was Benton and Newton who first tried to get the film produced, approaching Arthur Penn to direct (he was busy with other projects at the time and couldn’t commit). They then approached Truffaut and Godard who were unwilling or unable to take up their offer.
The rights to the script were then bought by Warren Beatty, an actor who came to be associated with the New Hollywood movement and who had worked with Arthur Penn previously on Mickey One. Beatty drove the project forward as star/producer and attempted to get a number of directors (including Godard and Penn again) to take on the project before Penn finally agreed to direct. Beatty made key creative decisions in the film, having an input into further edits of the script and making major choices about casting.
Editor Dede Allen had a major impact on the final look of the film. She was instrumental in bringing the montage editing techniques used by the filmmakers of the French New Wave into the American film industry.
Veteran cinematographer Burnett Guffey also had a major influence on the final look of the film, winning an Oscar for his work.
Unlike films we have studied made by writer/producer/directors such as Orson Welles or the Coen Brothers, Bonnie and Clyde is perhaps more of a collaborative achievement rather than being the product of an individual auteur. What is significant though is that it is a film very much lead by its production team, without any creative input or alteration from the studio.
New Hollywood Period
1969s-1990
Budget of the film
2.5 milion USD
Actors
Warren Beatty Faye Dunaway Michael J. Pollard Gene Hackman Estelle Parsons Denver Pyle Dub Taylor Evans Evans Gene Wilder
Characters
Warren Beatty...Clyde Barrow Faye Dunaway...Bonnie Parker Michael J. Pollard...C.W. Moss Gene Hackman...Buck Barrow Estelle Parsons...Blanche Denver Pyle... Frank Hamer Dub Taylor...Ivan Moss Evans Evan... Velma Davis Gene Wilder... Eugene Grizzard
Film summery
- Young adults Bonnie Parker, a waitress, and Clyde Barrow, a criminal just released from prison, are immediately attracted to what the other represents for their life when they meet by chance in West Dallas, Texas. Bonnie is fascinated with Clyde’s criminal past, and his matter-of-factness and bravado in talking about it. Clyde sees in Bonnie someone sympatico to his goals in life. Although attracted to each other physically, a sexual relationship between the two has a few obstacles to happen. Regardless, they decide to join forces to embark on a life of crime, holding up whatever establishments, primarily banks, to make money and to have fun. They don’t plan on hurting anyone physically or killing anyone despite wielding loaded guns. They amass a small gang of willing accomplices, including C.W. Moss, a mechanic to fix whatever cars they steal which is important especially for their getaways, and Buck Barrow, one of Clyde’s older brothers. The only reluctant tag-along is Buck’s
