Arthur Penn‘s “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) is a violent entertainment written by two men who want it to harbor some serious overtones. It doesn’t really, except that, being relentlessly tragicomic, its comedy is comic indeed and its tragedy, with realistic bloodshed, is tragic indeed. It isn’t frivolous. Or inartistically made. Superbly directed by Penn, who knew how to be powerful, and edited by Dede Allen, its camera placement and camera movement are marvels. The screenwriters are David Newman and Robert Benton, and one wonders why Benton couldn’t give us in 1984 something better than “Places in the Heart.”
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