Bonnie & Clyde (1967/HD-DVD + DVD-Video Set/Warner Home Video)
Picture: B+/B- Sound: C+/C Extras: B Film: B+
Note: This film has also been issued in
the Blu-ray format.
Among the
many questions I get asked is to define what a New Wave or New Wave is. There are many ways to approach the
answer. You can say some stupid thing
(and delude yourself into thinking you are smart) by saying you even get it or
not, or you can be like Billy Joel in It’s Still
Rock N Roll To Me (which he cut when Punk & New Wave arrived) and say
there is no distinction, which is not quite correct either. Then you can explain that it is a new stage
of an art form and that it does matter, as in music, when it was about the last
great run of Pop/Rock worldwide before the whole music industry started having
troubles and all Rock was overtaken by Hip Hop after too much Rock became
tired.
Filmmaking
works the same way, between countries of origin, stories, genres, trends and
the difference between escapism and realism.
When Hollywood and Italy had the only two standing cinemas left after
WWII, Hollywood’s Studio System took a hit it never recovered from. The dream factory was still in tact, but it
had to deal withy the horrors WWII unleashed, TV arrived and then they lost (in
an anti-trust ruling) ownership of their theater chains. Italy was in shambles and invented
Neo-Realism and the French came up with their New Wave, which broke Hollywood
conventions of editing, narrative, made jump cuts a part of narrative language
when applied properly and the innovations soon surfaced worldwide like all good
influences do.
Sure,
most films botched the ideas, but those that did not became classics. The new French approach to editing made Lawrence Of Arabia (1962) the greatest
of the outright big screen epics and many a U.S. filmmaker watched, including
many that came from the exciting early days of live TV. Arthur Penn was one of them, trying new
things as soon as he made the move to feature films. In 1963, he made the transitional post-Noir Mickey One, then in 1965 came into
conflict with Columbia Pictures with his bold, rule-breaking The Chase (from the producer of Lawrence Of Arabia) which was taken out
of his hands. This only strengthened his
resolve and his next film, Bonnie &
Clyde (1967) would go even further.
Set at
Warner Bros., the studio saw it at first as another slick exploitation film,
but Penn and his team knew better. This
included co-star Warren Beatty, who had more than just the lead role; he was
also part of the creative process exploiting his growing box office power. After pushing the studio to reconsider and
getting more critical acclaim on their side, the film received a proper release
and was a huge hit. Penn was suddenly
one of the most important directors around and Beatty one of the most powerful
stars.
The
Gangster genre was dead for the most part by then, which accounts for some of
the studio’s original reasoning, but all of them were losing money and when a
new breed of filmmaking was finding its audience, the powers that be
relented. Though it was soon hijacked,
mutilated and twisted to make money, the film is rightly sited as one of the
films of what was an American New Wave, though this needs deeper exploration. For Bonnie
& Clyde, the storyline had more energy than previous heist, robbery and
gangster films. These were not
cigar-chomping, lazy know-it-alls who sit around thinking they are all
powerful. By 1967, that sounded more
like a bad corporation than anything else.
Instead,
these were a young couple in love who were out of control in a world where the
unfair circumstances of The Depression then mirrored the oppression of Vietnam,
civil injustice, low wages, lying and misogyny in 1967. Add the anything-can-happen storyline, blunt
realism; stylized violence that has more impact today than the mutilation in
our current Torture Porn cycle and an additional naturalism that was especially
fresh at the time and the revelation was a huge hit. It also proved than a mature, high quality,
intelligent film could be a big hit, something certain people have been trying
to deny since the 1980s.
Faye
Dunaway (in one of her best performances) was a perfect match for Beatty’s
Clyde Barrow as Bonnie Parker and though the boy/girl relationship plays loose
with the history a bit, the film has so much else to say and show that those
obstacles are quickly overcome. Once you
start watching, it is hard to stop because like all classics, there is never a
false note and every scene seems necessary.
This was made by people who love movies and it was one of many landmarks
in the 15 years that would change film forever before the massive regression to
soulless blockbusters about nothing began in the 1980s.
The Godfather proved there was more room for
the Gangster genre to return and Penn continued in the same form for four more
impressive films before winding down, a point from which he never returned at
this peak. So what else made this film
work so well? David Newman and Robert
Benton (later of What’s Up Doc? and Superman - The Movie) wrote an amazing
screenplay, Burnett Guffey (the original All
The King’s Men, Homicidal) more
than proved he could handle color as well as he could handle black and white
with a look that was as dynamic as the material. Dean Tavoularis (later Production Designer
for Zabriskie Point, Little Big Man and most of Francis
Coppola’s films) did the amazing art direction and Dede Allen’s editing was
immediately hijacked by everyone who could imitate it, starting with (as noted
by others) Butch Cassidy & The
Sundance Kid.
This new
reissue of the film is much better than the early cardboard-snapper DVD we have
had to tolerate for so many years, with two HD versions the impetus for this
improved edition.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on the HD-DVD and lower-def,
anamorphically enhanced DVD are from the same HD master, which has some detail
issues, some spots that show the film needs work and color that is not at its
best throughout. You can see how good
that color can look in the first trailer in the supplements, but this was
issued in dye-transfer three-strip Technicolor prints at the time and Warner
needs to find one of those prints to fix this film. Hope the negative is in good shape. The Dolby Digital Plus 1.0 Mono on the HD-DVD
is a little better than that of the Dolby 1.0 on the DVD, but both are limited
in fidelity, the soundmaster is apparently missing and I would have settled for
a 2.0 tack with a simple stereo boost, even as an alternate track. Even 2.0 Mono would not have hurt either and
Charles Strouse’s music deserves better.
What about the masters to those?
Extras
include two theatrical trailers, additional scenes of interest, Warren Beatty
Wardrobe Tests, a History Channel profile of the duo called Love
& Death and three-part (75 minutes long) documentary Revolution! The Making Of Bonnie &
Clyde including Beatty in a rare moment where he talks about one of his
past works. The HD-DVD comes in a
bookcase package with a nicely illustrated color booklet with additional text
not found in the DVD version.
Of
course, no review would be complete without giving credit to the terrific
supporting cast, including Gene Hackman, Michael J. Pollard, Estelle Parsons,
Denver Pyle, gene Wilder and an uncredited Frances Fisher among others. Despite some limits and the desire to read
and see more about the film, it is great a decent version of this classic and
now that it is available in more accessible versions, it will be rediscovered
by new generations of film fans. That
cannot happen soon enough.
- Nicholas Sheffo
