Bonnie & Clyde Close-Up: Opening Sequence

Overview:

Bonnie Parker lies naked and clearly frustrated by her boredom at home. She sees a man outside trying to steal her mother’s car, who she confronts. She quickly falls for the man and walks into town for him, asking questions about him and where he’s from. He shocks her by revealing that he has been released from state prison for armed robbery. She provokes him to rob a store to prove that he did so, which he promptly does, forcing the couple to giddily flee the town in a stolen car together. The man reveals that his name is Clyde Barrow.

Key Elements:

Cinematography –

The film intersperses the opening credits worth real photographs taken from the Great Depression era of the 1930s, grounding the film in the real life time period and economic climate it takes place in. Film camera shutter clicks are times with he cutting of photos and credits to further establish the olden time period. The names of the actors fade to a red font, foreshadowing violence. Pictures of them in character further grounding these characters as real people. A lack of non-diegetic sound here immerses the audience and gives the film a documentary film, also due to the real images shown here.

The film does not follow the conventional Classical Hollywood Style of introducing the location of the new scene is set in to the audience through an immediate establishing shot, instead opening on an extreme close up of Bonnie’s lips, immediately sexualising her. This shot is disorienting for the audience due to the lack of context to buildup to it. The camera pans to show her reflection in a mirror, done with a hand-held camera, new technology at the time that had been embraced by the French New Wave for its casual apparel and easy use. Making films for a low profit utilising a small budget with low cost equipment. The camerawork feels improvised with not pre-planning or choreography, instead filmed in the moment, similarly to the performances and dialogue. The entire sequence is shot through close-ups os Bonnie’s face, keeping the environment hidden to the audience and therefore going directly against the Classical Hollywood Style, instead concentrating on conveying her frustration and boredom over the location. This is seen in how the camera rises up to an extreme close up of her eyes looking off screen at nothing in particular. When this happens, the camera misses the focus point, and we can see it re-focus onto her face, which makes the cinematography feel improvised and causal, taking inspiration from the French New Wave style of filmmaking,

Clyde and her are shown in shot reverse shots through a netting over her bedroom window. This is not removed to improve the clarity of the shot for the audience, instead obscuring the view. This is because, in the style of the French New Wave, the filmmakers always shot on location instead of on set because it was cheaper and gave the films a sense of realism. This also results in no control over the lighting of the scene, seen in how Clyde is in shadow when peering into Bonnie’s mothers’ car. The film was shot on location in southern states since they were the poorer ones in the 1960s that had not yet fully recovered from the Great Depression, and so still looked economically damaged. Zoom lenses are used in the film to captures the action from a distance and reduce the need to stop and start the shooting constantly for new shots.

Despite the story being largely about crime, we are not shown the robbery here, as the film primarily focuses on the relationship between Bonnie and Clyde, a pair of people who rob banks. The film denies the audience the pleasure of seeing the action, which they expect to see, to instead keep their attention on the emotional connection between the two protagonists. As the two escape in a stolen car, inside the car we see a projected backdrop, but outside it the film was shot on a real location in rural Souther Texas.

Sound –

When Bonnie confront Clyde outside, the dialogue is poor quality and very hard to hear, both due to the strongly southern accents and the poor sound quality. This is because the film was short on location, and so the dialogue said while shooting is what we hear, and isn’t added or clarified/improved in post-production.

The majority of the sequence contains only diegetic sound as the films was shot on location, adding to the sense of realism and truthfulness prevalent in the film and how it is made. As the couple escape, a jaunty upbeat bluegrass banjo tune plays to give the scene an excited, jovial and care-free feeling, reinforcing the tone of the film, a love story with a backdrop of crime. It also shows how much fun the two have while/from robbing places.

Editing –

Mise-En-Scen –

Bonnie being shown behind the bars of her bed is symbolic of her feeling imprisoned in her home.

As the two walk though the street together, we see the paint on the walls peeling off, and a quiet and empty street. This shows the backdrop of poverty in the story, but what location shown is real due to the film being shot on location, typical of the French New Wave style of filmmaking.

Performance –

In her room, Bonnie’s movement are random and seemingly in-planned, adding a sense of realism and improvisation to the scene. Her accent is deeply southern instead of an artificial Mid-Atlantic accent to portray a more realistic representation of the regional accent and the characters in the film.

As Clyde walks across the road to rob the store, we see he has a prominent limp. This links to his story about him chopping of two of his own toes in prison to get off of work detail, portraying him as a mysterious and flawed character, and Warren Beatty method acted to achieve a sense of realism in the film.

Context:

F.D.R campaign posters are plastered on walls to immerse the audience in the 1930s time period, alongside the decaying town which establishes the impact of the Depression on society.

Representations and Aesthetics:

For 1967, this is a borderline offensive and at least a risky way of presenting a leading female role. It is provocative and suggestive, establishing Bonnie as a rebellious character in the 1930s and edging what can be permitted to be shown in a film by the Hayes Code. This can also be seen in how flirtatious she is with Clyde, and the phallic imagery used in the coke bottles and Clyde’s pistol, sexually suggestive imagery considered edgy in the 1960s. The film also presents Bonnie’s beauty in a naturalistic way, showing her without much intervention or artificial beauty created through the use of lighting to highlight or enhance her features.

Bonnie is a bored, uneducated waitress living in a small, quiet town. Clyde is an ex-convict bank robber. As is characteristic of the French New Wave, the film follows two real people living real lives, making the story (somewhat) more relatable for the people watching it.

Auteur:

Dede Allen allowed for the film’s sound design to be deliberately shoddy as she took much inspiration from the French New Wave style of filmmaking and editing. Robert Pentonville and David Newman made the dialogue feel real and I provided, which it largely was, to add to the sense of realism in the film. The director, Arthur Penn, and Warren Beatty, the producer, both made the film feel authentic and realistic in its style through a deliberately poor quality for a Hollywood film.