Bonnie and Clyde remains as influential today as it it was in 1967. This film has been charged with glamorizing criminals and elevating the acceptable threshold for screen violence. Additionally, French New Wave Cinema heavily influenced the film, particularly in its mixture of tones and choppy editing. Director Arthur Penn began a new tradition of auteur-driven projects and capitalized on the weakening Production Code, which permanently changed the Hollywood Studio System. While it was not the first film to depict violence, it was the first do so in the name of art film and in such an extreme manner. The reception of this film was controversial, with some critics praising its innovativeness, while others condemned the explicit violence. These sources lend insight into the controversy surrounding Bonnie and Clyde, the influence of French New Wave Cinema, and the impact of Arthur Penn on New Hollywood. Drawing inspiration from French New Wave cinema, Bonnie and Clyde broke Hollywood taboos by portraying murdering bank-robbers as a glamorous and sympathetic romantic couple.

Bernstein, Matthew. "Perfecting the New Gangster: Writing Bonnie and Clyde."
Film Quarterly 53.4 (2000). JSTOR . 26 Mar. 2008

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Bernstein’s article analyzes the continual script revision of Bonnie and Clyde to demonstrate how the film integrated characteristics of French New Wave cinema with conventions of Hollywood. Screenwriters David Newman and Robert Benton were great admirers of French New Wave Cinema. In fact, Francois Truffaut even helped edit their script after turning down the position as director. According to Bernstein’s analysis of the script, the French New Wave influenced the original concept, storyline, narrative structure, and character development. Newman and Benton were focused on developing Bonnie and Clyde as endearing bad guys. Similarly, the writers tried to create a mixture of tones through juxtaposition of opposites, such as the combination of comic relief with gory violence. The original script was actually even more European in style, but revisions create a more coherent and Hollywood style by making Bonnie and Clyde more conventionally romantic and strengthening the linear narrative by focusing mainly on Bonnie and Clyde’s perspective. This article also demonstrates how Arthur Penn and his team broke tradition and started a new era in Hollywood. For example, despite offending studio-head Jack Warner, Newman, Benton, and Penn were determined to include gory action sequences and charged language.
This article demonstrates how Newman and Benton used the stylization of French New Wave to create a new American gangster, mainly through a mixture of tones and juxtaposition of opposites (such as love and crime, or comedy and violence). Additionally, the writers knowingly and purposefully broke social conventions of Hollywood. For the first time, brutal criminals were likable, and horrific scenes were integrated with comic undertones. As a result of Bonnie and Clyde, directors earned more power and took greater stylistic risks. Films, therefore, were developed according to new institutional standards with significantly less studio influence.

Demonstrates the fact that Philadelphia was, to some extent, on the cinematic cutting-edge during the 1960’s.  Of course, the bulk of the movies advertised in the Inquirer seem to be the standard big-budget Hollywood fare, but there were also theaters, like the Bryn Mawr, that were up-to-speed on world cinema movements.  The fact that this article was included in the “Amusements and the Arts” section is proof that there was interested in this type of film in Philadelphia.  By A. Migdail

Amphibiologie: Ethnographic Surrealism in French Discourse on Jazz

Journal article by Matthew F. Jordan; Journal of European Studies, Vol. 31, 2001

Amphibiologie: Ethnographic Surrealism in French Discourse on Jazz

Journal article by Matthew F. Jordan; Journal of European Studies, Vol. 31, 2001

Staples, Donald E. "The Auteur Theory Re-examined". Cinema Journal, Vol. 6. (1966 - 1967): 1-7.

Donald Staples chronicles the development of the auteur theory in this article. Starting with the birth of auteur theory in the 1954 Cahiers du Cinima article by Frangoise Truffaut, in which Truffaut attempting to criticize .screen-writers. cinema., in which the creative process essentially ended once the screen-writer finished writing the script. From that point, a director merely put the writing on film without leaving a personal creative imprint on the film. As a result of Truffaut.s article, critics began to put emphasis on auteur theory when writing their reviews. It became necessary for a director to use the film as a way of inventing a personal aesthetic and for each film to demonstrate a step in the overall progression of the director.s creativity. The French New Wave is always closely associated with the concept of auteur theory. Director.s who were part of the movement often took control over the creative aspects of their film and oftentimes films by French New Wave directors are particularly distinct in style to the point where a director.s trademarks become recognizable.

Klawans, Stuart, Michelson, Annette, Peqa, Richard, Schamus, James, Turvey, Malcolm. "Round Table: Independence in the Cinema". October, Vol. 91. (Winter, 2000): 3-23.

This roundtable discussion features the five above-named film scholars who gathered to discuss independent cinema. Specifically, the scholars wanted to make an attempt at defining independent cinema and discussing how it came to be over the course of the past forty years. It is noted that in recent times, the film industry is more horizontally integrated than it several decades ago. For this reason, Richard Peqa argues that American cinema has really become a single body and that independent and .dependent. cinema are not truly separate entities, because the smaller studios that put out independent films are being absorbed by big name studios. James Schamus notes however that there are still tensions within the film industry that create distinction between these two types of cinema. The discussion turns to French New Wave cinema at one point and it is noted how the movement and how it spurred independent cinema by offering the public an alternative to the domineering American film industry. The movement was aided by the French government who offered subsidies to independent studios and rewards for directors making their first films. This governmental compensation drew a crowd of younger directors who, in turn, attracted younger audiences. On a large scale, the movement can be seen as a reaction or act of rebellion against the more streamlined big budget movies from big name American studios.

Callenbach, Ernest, Marcorelles, Louis. Jean-Luc Godard's Half-Truths. Film Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 3. (Spring, 1964): 4-7. This article offers a brief analysis of Jean-Luc Godard.s film techniques. It breaks down Godard.s methodologies into three topics: Godard as a man of letters, Godard as Brechtian, and Godard and the .cinima direct.. The first topic discusses Godard.s love of language, which is made evident by the often poetic albeit unrealistic dialogue. Quoting Godard himself, the authors note that when Godard was a young boy (he was part of a large bourgeois family), his family would often read out loud together, which quite possibly fostered Godard.s love of recitation out loud. .Godard as Brechtian. refers to Godard.s use of Brechtian techniques which are marked by creating a detached feeling within the audience in order to encourage reflection and logical observation of what is occurring onscreen. Vivre Sa Vie demonstrates such a technique by separating the film into twelve .tableaux., which precludes any natural or realistic flow between scenes. Lastly, .Godard and the .cinima direct.. discusses Godard.s attempts to use the camera to seize everything that happens around him. Godard.s films often used varying amounts of improvisation. In the film Une Femme est une Femme, leading actress Anna Karina finished a scene in which she was crying and, while still on camera, made a candid comment about the beauty of a woman crying. Rather than cut this unintended comment, Godard left it in the film. The authors of the article conclude that, a much as Godard wanted to capture what happened around him, he never went to the .edge of truth.. The authors suggest that he had a fear of deranging the moral comfort of the viewer, or perhaps himself.

Harrison, Jeffrey L. Jean-Luc Godard and Critical Legal Studies (Because We Need the Eggs). Michigan Law Review. Vol. 87, No. 7. (Jun., 1989): 1924-1944. Jeffrey Harrison draws an unusual comparison between law and the French New Wave cinema in his essay on critical legal studies. Critical Legal Studies is a new field of legal studies that is labeled .legal realism.. It centers around the view that law is not just a set of constant rules. Rather, laws exist in a state of constant contradiction, governing many hierarchies. By coming into conflict, laws are able to resolve themselves and synthesize, and then lead to greater conflicts. Harrison draws a connection between this movement in law and the French New Wave movement in film. Using Jean-Luc Godard as his focal point, Harrison points out how Godard.s films attempted to take cinema back to zero by breaking all rules and thus shattering all preconceived notions. Godard presented his films in irregular and often jarring fashions, by incorporating jump shots, meaningless narratives, and by paying close attention to seemingly meaningless details. Godard.s films have goals that resemble the goals of Critical Legal Studies: attempting to present reality in ways that ignore prior rules and precedents. Harrison.s article also lists the themes that Godard often covered in his films, and many of these themes can be found in Vivre Sa Vie, such as: free will vs. determinism, subjectivity vs. objectivity, and capitalism.