This movie is very conflicting to me, but I'm not 100% sure why. Let's try and figure that out. Here we get the story of a small-town girl named Bonnie (Faye Dunaway) who becomes enamored with a man named Clyde (Warren Beatty). He takes her away into an adventure of bank robberies and running from the law. They eventually pick up others, including C.W. Moss (Michael Pollard); Clyde's brother, Buck (Gene Hackman); and Buck's wife, Blanche (Estelle Parsons). They travel the country as things continue to spiral out of their control.
As I'm watching, the first hour of the film has me totally engaged. The writing and acting is solid. The chemistry between the two leads is strong. The most surprising thing about the film was the amount of comedy. The first "robbery" is priceless. And then, around the halfway point, Gene Wilder shows up out of nowhere for about 5-10 minutes. I loved that short segment, and I wished he was in more of the overall film.
But then the second half came and I start to feel the drag. I start feeling a bit of repetitiveness. The excitement kind of went away. It's not until maybe the last 20 minutes that things start picking up again and get more exciting once more. The writing and acting is (for the most part) still relatively solid, but it felt a wee bit too long.
There were some specifically annoying aspects of the film. First wasn't the most frequent, but there were some editing techniques that were bogglingly bad. They would just shift within the same frame instead of going to a new angle, which made it just look choppy. The second was the character of Blanche, who annoyed me to no end. I know she's supposed to be more unlikable, but she drove me crazy.
All that being said, the movie as a whole was really good. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I don't think it was perfect, but the characters were good and the acting and chemistry between said characters was great. There were multiple scenes that were fantastic--or at least had the potential to be even greater had it not been for wonky editing. I do very much recommend it, though, if you have ever been interested in seeing it.
A Keanu 'Whoa'
(P.S. That wraps up Crime Month Part 1! You might have noticed I doubled up on this particular day. I did this because, unfortunately, this month just so happened to end on a Wednesday, leaving no room for this final Extra to fit unless within this day. That being said, we are moving into Crime Month Part 2. While Part 1 was focused more on cops, robbers, and heists, Part 2 is more on gangsters and mafia types... which makes Bonnie and Clyde the perfect segue film. This month has been pretty unexciting for the most part, with maybe a couple exceptions. Here's to hoping a different kind of crime will change these feelings.)
Just watched this again the other day, and Blanche is easily the worst part about this film. Like you said, she is supposed to be unlikeable, but she's overbearingly annoying.
ReplyDeleteI hate this film. Hate it. I understand why it's important, but I did not enjoy a single moment of this film. I've got no reasons or arguments as to why, I just loathe every bit of this film.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you appreciate my deep insight. :P
Red: Indeed.
ReplyDeleteJames: lol... so over your last 3 comments, I've deduced that you really like the one I disliked and you dislike all the ones I really liked.
Heh, I have Bonnie and Clyde at my number two film of all time right now. It was number one for a while, but Rear Window came back to reclaim its rightful place before too long. But I do think Bonnie and Clyde is pretty flawless - even Blanche's annoyingness is intentional, and after about the third or fourth rewatch, she doesn't even annoy me anymore.
ReplyDeleteCurious about the editing mistakes you noticed, though - do you have specific examples? I'd like to run through the film and look. I don't recall noticing any, but I sometimes miss stuff like that if I'm invested enough (and I am with B&C).