Bonnie and Clyde ( 1968)

FILM OF THE WEEK

12.05am, Friday, RTÉ 2

“At this point, we ain’t headed for nowhere, we’re just running from” Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are both superb in Arthur Penn’s award- winning biopic of the Depression- era couple who engaged in an infamous crime spree that accorded them near folk- hero status. From the opening shot, where Faye Dunaway is framed by her steel bed frame to suggest her feelings of ensnarement, Bonnie and Clyde is a hugely innovative piece of cinema. Penn and Beatty were clearly influenced by the Nouvelle Vague and the film incorporates many of the techniques first employed by Godard and Truffaut.

On the acting front, Beatty has seldom delivered a better performance, while Dunaway made the most of her co- starring role. With its jaunty, Bluegrass score and handsome leads, Bonnie and Clyde seems to set out its stall as a comedy caper movie, but from the moment during an early getaway that Beatty shoots a bystander full in the face, the tone instantly changes. Beautifully photographed in sepia tones by Burnett Guffey, Bonnie and Clyde contains one of the most famous denouements in cinema history, as our two anti- heroes are ruthlessly machine- gunned in slow motion in a sequence which is as poetic as it is violent. Interestingly, the part of Bonnie Parker was originally offered to Jane Fonda but she turned it down as she was living in France at the time ( with Roger Vadim) and didn’t want to return to America. Bonnie and Clyde was nominated for nine Oscars, winning for Guffey’s cinematography and supporting actress Estelle Parsons. Watch out for Gene Wilder making his feature film debut.