Benton, Robert, and David Newman. "The New Sentimentality." Esquire Jul 1964: 25-31 

Robert Brenton and David Newman’s article entitled The New Sentimentality was published in July 1964 as the cover story. The article defined the old sentimentality as comprised of, “‘values” that everyone could see, bywords that meant the same to all: Patriotism, Love, Religion, Mom, The Girl” (25). The new mentality represented a shift in these values, a shift that everyone was taking part in, but no one noticed. The new sentimentality is comprised of values that, “differ slightly from man to man, because one of the definitions of New Sentimentality is that it has to do with you, not what you were told or taught, but what goes on in your head, really, and in your heart, really” (25). Instead of groveling at the foot of a higher authority telling you what to respect, what to believe or what to buy, people were starting to strive for unique self-representation, in any and all forms. Later in the article, its authors break down numerous categories into both new and old sentimentality, including politics, sports, love, sex and so on. One section they break down is “life patterns” with “common sense, loyalty, and selling out” categorized as old and “wounding and being wounded, vulnerability, change and inherent flaws” as the new. The article tries to convey the culture shift occurring in the 60s and how it can be represented through pop culture, politics and just about everything else.
The article by Benton and Newman in 1964 was written as they were beginning to flush out their treatment of Bonnie and Clyde. The two authors wanted to write a script that embodied everything they had written about in this article, and the story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow turned out to be just what they were looking for. The pair separated themselves from society and its norms well before the counterculture of the 60s and took America on a daring and troublesome ride. Benton and Newman wrote everything aspect of their New Sentimentality into their script. The two were looking for something to define their theory in the New Sentimentality and success of their film that exemplified that very theory proved the authenticity behind their claims.

Berstein, Matthew. "Perfecting the New Gangster: Writing "Bonnie and Clyde"." Film Quarterly 53(2000): 16-31 

Mathew Bernstein’s article in a 2000 publication of Film Quarterly entitled The New Gangster revolves around the writing and meaning of Bonnie and Clyde. The article covers the famed screenwriters, Robert Benton and David Newman and their obsession with French New Wave cinema and how it influenced the writers’ treatment and final draft of Bonnie and Clyde.
The article cites the two Esquire writers essay, The New Sentimentality, as their inspiration and foundation for their Bonnie and Clyde project. Bonnie and Clyde represented everything their essay stood for, “Bonnie and Clyde is about style and people who have style. It is about people whose style set them apart from their time and place so that they seemed odd and aberrant to the general run of society” (19).
The article then covers the gradual progression of the script from being a purely New Wave, irregular narrative, to a more classical, Hollywood narrative and back again. Oddly enough Bernstein claims that Francois Truffaut, while he was involved with the project, did more to Americanize the script than anything else. It was Arthur Penn that finally realized the film’s potential to break down barriers between American films and European art cinema.
The most interesting part of the progression of the film’s script comes from the racy sexuality that was originally part of the film. The first treatment of the script contained an active and well functioning sex life for the two protagonists, which of course was later switched to Clyde’s asexuality. The original script even contained strong hints of a threesome between Bonnie, Clyde and their partner C.W. Moss. However W.D. Jones, the actor originally cast for the role of Moss, was an entirely different actor, “he was an air-head, blond stud” (20). The final script shows a scene where Bonnie shrugs when Clyde turns her down, clearly sexually frustrated, but, “by contrast, in the first script draft, Bonnie casually walks to the door of the room and yells for Jones to come in to help them get going, as if she was calling him in for dinner” (21).
The clear toning down of the sexuality in Bonnie and Clyde can be seen as a compromise to allow the excessive violence to exist untouched. The many re-workings of the script saw a dramatic change from Benton and Newman’s original vision, but Penn and Beatty were able find the happy medium between overly New Wave and overly Hollywood.