New Gangsters, New Historiography: Bonnie and Clyde Anonymous College

The film Bonnie and Clyde (1967, dir. Arthur Penn) is more than an escapist fantasy that lets the audience root for the bad guys. It is a groundbreaking example of American cinema, one that can also be used to construct a historiography of American cinema in the 1960s. The film may seem “dated” now to viewers, but this exemplifies the film’s status as a stunning example of the 1960s aesthetic. This essay examines the filmic aspects that make Bonnie and Clyde seem so very “1960s,” focusing on specific moments, shots / angles, aesthetics, and the film’s relationship to other film movements such as the French New Wave in order to put forth the argument that audiences should consider the film as more than a crime movie: it is an important and representative chapter of an era in American cinema. Ultimately, this film – putatively about an incident from the 1930s – is really a comment on the tensions and problems in 1960s America. Thus, the film is more about the 1960s than it is about the 1930s.

Throughout, the film has an aesthetic that mixes both mainstream 1960s styles and nods to the French New Wave. Even though the film is set in the 1930s, it has a strongly 1960s aesthetic, as seen in the opening shot in which Bonnie, nude,...