Bonnie and Clyde are two American outlaws who have escaped their average, not-getting-any-better lives. However, their elusion ensnares them into something that’s more inescapable: pursuit by the authorities. In Arthur Penn’s 1967 gangster drama, "Bonnie and Clyde," he uses the concept of framing to highlight the sense of entrapment that his two protagonists experience as they sink deeper and deeper into a life of crime.
One example of such use of Burnett Guffey’s cinematography comes in the opening scene with Bonnie Parker in her bedroom. Throughout the opening three shots, the viewer senses Bonnie’s entrapment through an alteration between close-ups and extreme close-ups. The closeness of the camera suggests limited space, hence the feeling of being trapped. In the film’s very first shot, there is an extreme close-up of Bonnie’s lips, which was considered to be unnatural for the start of a film, when year’s before the opening shot would normally be a long shot. This is then followed by her gazing at herself in the mirror with disappointment, unsatisfied with the monotony of her life. The viewer can’t see the full frame of the mirror, but can still see her trapped in this reversed image of herself, in a frame within a frame.
The camera then cuts to her standing up, looking around her room in a displeased manner. This medium shot permits the viewer to get a better sense of the room’s interior. The roof of Bonnie’s bedroom is low-hanging, heightening the feel of being boxed into a certain situation, as the set design contributes to the film’s theme of entrapment.
Afterwards, the camera cuts to Bonnie lying down on her bed, first looking at the bedposts, then furiously hitting them with her fist. She then grabs onto them and frames her face between them, like a prisoner at the bars of a jail cell door. The camera then moves into another extreme close-up, this time zeroing in on her eyes, offering a greater emotional connection to the viewer of what she is a feeling. With these close-ups and extreme close-ups, there is a significant sense of Bonnie being trapped within the frame. As she fills up the screen, it’s as if she doesn’t have enough space to move in the shot.
A shot later in the film that expresses Bonnie’s entrapment is right before she and Clyde are gunned down. In this scene, they stop their car to offer Mr. Moss assistance with his truck. As soon as Bonnie and Clyde realize what is about to happen, the director uses quick cuts in the edit of the two looking at each other one last time. The final shot of Bonnie before the bullets fly is a close-up of her as she looks at Clyde through the car’s windshield. What suggests the entrapment is the look on her face as it expresses a realization that their death is at hand, it’s inescapable. Her face is a balance of a gaze that is both longing and says that what is about to happen has been inevitable the whole time. This relates to a quote from David A. Cook’s book, "A History of Narrative Cinema," in which he says, “By midfilm the lovers are clearly doomed, but nothing could prepare audiences in 1967 for the apocalyptic violence of the ending…,” (849). By saying that the two protagonists are “clearly doomed,” that ties into their fates being sealed by their choices.
Throughout the film, Arthur Penn employs many shots of the characters framed inside the car, furthering the theme of entrapment. One particular scene that does so is when Bonnie, Clyde and C.W. drive into a Hooverville after a brutal gun battle with the police. C.W. gets out of the car to get water for an injured Bonnie and Clyde. As C.W. goes back into the car to give the two their water, the viewer sees Bonnie and Clyde through the windshield. There’s the frame of the windshield in the frame of the screen. But then, a girl walks over to the window in the back of the car and looks through at Bonnie and Clyde. This helps the viewer take a greater notice of the third frame, and can now see the use of a frame within a frame within a frame. The viewer sees the protagonists trapped between two sets of people who want to see them succeed: the audience, and the shanty town residents.
There is another shot in this scene that frames Bonnie and Clyde inside the car. This one involves one of the men reaching through the open window to gently touch Clyde’s arm, and the viewer sees Clyde’s entrapment by his framing inside the car. By having the man touch Clyde, it’s as if he was trying to make sure that Clyde was alive, to confirm the existence of his hero. This shows a connection between Clyde’s space and the man’s space because Clyde, as well as Bonnie and C.W., were once poor like the Hooverville residents, but are now defenders of the poor by robbing banks. During this scene, one woman provides the trio with food, so as to make sure their heroes are restored to health. Towards the end of the scene, the viewer hears a woman ask, “Is that really Bonnie Parker?” This line of dialogue is spoken in a way that has the woman express a sense of wonder as she’s meeting a hero. Bonnie and Clyde’s entrapment comes into even bigger play here because it registers the fact that because they are now seen as heroes, they must go through their mission to redeem the less fortunate. They are trapped in their roles. The scene produces anxiety because the viewer sees the two injured and wants them to heal, as do the Hooverville residents who are counting on the two protagonists to continue their mission to seek retribution for the poor. As Cook states, “Their targets are not the common people, but the avaricious banks and the armies of police that protect them – in other words, ‘the system.’ Bonnie and Clyde…resonated perfectly with the revolutionary tenor of the late 1960s,” (849). It is now the job of Bonnie and Clyde to protect those who have been victimized by those who were supposed to protect them, so the two protagonists must take on the jobs that they placed upon themselves.
Penn also uses shots photographed from inside the car of characters outside the car. One shot that does so is in the Hooverville scene as well. As the camera is inside the car, it positions some residents of the Hooverville in the frame of the back left-hand passenger seat. The effect of the framing expresses how these people were confined to the outside because they couldn’t afford homes. This is their form of entrapment. Their space contrasts with Bonnie and Clyde’s space because the two of them have so little space in their car and between the authorities, whereas the Hooverville residents have an abundance of space in their outdoors surroundings. The framing allows for the viewer to sympathize with these residents because as the viewer sees them in their predicament, it is evident that they want Bonnie and Clyde to heal so they can continue to exact justice for the citizens who lost everything in the Depression. Arthur Penn makes full use of framing in order to express the entrapment of his characters. He makes the audience fully aware of the degree to which the characters are stuck in their positions, and extracts an emotional response from the viewer; more so because the viewer knows that Bonnie and Clyde are eventually killed by the authority; because this is a true story, there isn’t any escaping from their fate. Penn fully recognizes this and uses expert cinematography to capture it.
Works Cited
Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.
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