Steele, Robert. The Good-Bad and Bad-Good in Movies: Bonnie and Clyde and In Cold Blood. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Inc., 1973 

 

 

Robert Steele’s essay in John G. Cawelti’s Focus on Bonnie and Clyde discusses two of the most important film critics’ opinions of the violence in the film regarding Bonnie and Clyde. A conversation between Richard Schickel, a critic for Time magazine, and Bosley Crowther, a former critic for The New York Times becomes the basis for the article regarding violence in cinema and the moral obligations of both the filmmakers and critics alike. Schickel adopts the opinion that it is a filmmaker’s responsibility to reflect the times, which would of course include portraying violence. Crowther, however, agrees with that statement, but believes that Bonnie & Clyde, “had gone beyond the bounds of good taste and judgment in the way it presented these killers” (115).
Steele’s follows the conversation with a critique of the two critics’ views by examining how and for what reason violence is used in the film. Steele’s main argument revolves around the difference between art and entertainment, “art is entertainment, and some entertainment may be art” (117). He believes that Schickel’s claim that films should represent society would be true should it apply to documentaries, but Arthur Penn’s film strives to be art, and not simply a truthful depiction.
Steele, while defending the use of violence to a certain extent, finds complaints with the film from an artistic viewpoint instead. Slow motion and fast paced editing in the final shootout separate the deaths of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow from every other death in the film elevating them to a heroic status, but for what purpose? He classifies the film as taking, “a tragic stance without giving us a tragedy” (119). Steele feels that Penn’s use of artistic editing and cinematic devices become “shenanigans” (120) because they are meant simply to disguise the underlying unpleasantness of a story where the two beautiful heroes die. In this sense, Penn’s stunning and artistic use of violence adds nothing to the film other than making it entertainment genius.