Realism in film relies on both narrative and visual realism, it produces a slice of ‘real’ life on screen by focusing on dull aspects of everyday life. In Bonnie and Clyde, realism is shown throughout, in scenes in particular is the nature-landscape kind of rural places in which they find to rest at. In particular later on in the film, C.W goes to a camp looking area to get water. It shows the realism of the time of the Great Depression and after effects of the economic crash.
Tone
The tone, which is the mood or atmosphere of a film scene, in Bonnie and Clyde is a calm and romantic yet at the same time extremely violent (the end scene) tone. The tone changing so much in Bonnie and Clyde could be foregrounding Bonnie and Clyde themselves and their bipolar personality’s.
Visual Style (French New Wave)
In Bonnie and Clyde the influence of the French New Wave is shown in many aspects. The style and editing used in this film show typical French New Wave techniques of characterisation of the protagonists, fast cuts, and spontaneous music to shift the tone abruptly.
An example of realism in Bonnie and Clyde would be the verisimilitude that comes with the violent scenes. Before the New Hollywood era, heavy uses of things like blood were uncommon in films, so Arthur Penn challenges this by presenting a realistic depiction of what would have happened to characters when shot at.
Tone
Suspense is built in the final scene of the film, with the fast paced editing between shots creating a sense of panic for the audience before the eventual firing of the guns.
Visual Style
A common camera shot during the French New Wave era was tracking shots. One scene in which these are used in Bonnie and Clyde is the scene where Clyde exits the car to run after Bonnie. The camera follows the vehicle as it moves, as opposed to remaining stationary and having the car go into the distance.
In Bonnie and Clyde, Bonnie holds just as much power as Clyde as they work together and posses the same motives. Yet throughout, the representation of women is different to men as they turn against each other like the characters Blanche Barrow and Bonnie Parker (seen below). They seem to turn against each other perhaps because Bonnie wants to be the only female holding the power and also because Blanche is not a criminal like Bonnie.
Men
Throughout Bonnie and Clyde, there are obvious men who hold more power like Clyde and his brother Buck Barrow (image 2), compared to C.W (image 1), as they treat C.W as someone with less power. This is changed because C.W has to look after them, showing his ture friendship yet when he brings them to his dad to take care of them, his dad convinces him to help set Bonnie and Clyde up in order for them to be captured and killed. C.W turns into the powerful character. So in Bonnie and Clyde, men are represented as power holders and are used to show the difference of status (Clyde v.s C.W).
Authority Figures
While Bonnie and Clyde are on the run, they seem to keep dodging the authority, though this Sheriff captures them they decide to mess with him, showing the lack of power held by the Sheriff when it came to ‘powerful’ criminals like Bonnie and Clyde. Yet at the end, the authority make a comeback and manage to capture Bonnie and Clyde.
People Of Colour
The people of colour in Bonnie and Clyde is not hugely spoken on and the plot does not include much about the people of colour and their significance, despite their significance in the Great Depression in real life back in the 1930s. However a previous farm worker appears with another previous farm worker (image below) when Bonnie and Clyde and practising shooting. Bonnie and Clyde lend their gun to these farm workers to use, giving them much joy. Their is a moment of silence as appreciation in this scene, showing Bonnie and Clyde’s sympathetic personality’s when not in their criminal mindsets, just being normal people.
Working Class Americans
In the movie Bonnie and Clyde, working class Americans were represented in a way that showed that the people of time were suffering from economic collapse. This can be seen in scenes like when C.W drives to a rural area in which people are camped in to find some water for Bonnie and Clyde (image 1), and when Bonnie and Clyde are found practising shooting guns and the previous farm workers show up with their family in the car (image 2). Bonnie and Clyde symbolise the two naïve lovers who decide to carve out their own American Dream by rejecting the failing economic systems during the Great Depression. Though Bonnie and Clyde were actually liked by a lot of the public because so much of the working-class population of the United States were hit hard by the depression, many were more sympathetic to criminals who were targeting banks and other financial institutions, which were perceived to have been behind the economic collapse.
