Bonnie and Clyde: A Love Story

Penn’s film Bonnie and Clyde encourages the viewer to sympathize with the outlaws, by making their love life together on the run central to the film, rather than their crimes. By characterizing the couple as “young” and “in love,” the audience focus is on the love between Bonnie and Clyde. The first time the couple meets in the film, there is blatant sexual tension. Bonnie is naked when she sees Clyde attempting to steal her mother’s car. Clyde offers to buy her a Coke, and commits his first robbery while she watches. There is great focus on Clyde’s inability to have sex with Bonnie, and the robberies are conveyed as a way for Clyde to show his prowess. (Freud would have a field day with the implicit and explicit sexual nature of this film.)

        

 While the audience does view some of the robberies and murders that Bonnie and Clyde commit, these scenes are sparse and considerably short. It is the attention given to the couple’s life together that allows the audience to experience their humanity, and, therefore to sympathize with them. Bonnie and Clyde are depicted as primarily bank robbers in the film. The audience is given repetitive assurance that the banks are corrupt. For example, the scene in which Bonnie and Clyde meet the previous owner of the home they stay in when they flee their first robbery. The ex-homeowner tells Bonnie and Clyde that the bank took his house away from him, and there are multiple shots of his truck loaded with his wife, children, and all of their belongings. Clyde gives the man his gun to shoot the sign on the lawn that states that it is property of the bank. Clyde then tells the man that he and Bonnie are bank robbers. The audience is then able to view the bank robberies as justified. Despite all of the crime within the film, the love story of Bonnie and Clyde is what prevails. Following the shoot-out that eventually killed Buck and landed Blanche in jail the couple stays with C.W.’s father. Once Bonnie and Clyde recover from their gunshot wounds, there is a scene in which the audience can only assume that the couple has finally consummated their relationship. This is indicative to the audience that despite all of the turmoil surrounding their crimes and life on the run that their love continues to flourish and thrive.