Gangster Story
by Arthur Penn (1967)
This film tells the story of the most famous criminal couple in history, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who were active in the southern-central United States during the early 1930s. Through robberies and murders, escapes, and chases, we witness their tragic yet inevitable end.
“With me, you won’t have a minute of peace!”
“Is that a promise?”
(Bonnie Parker to Clyde Barrow)
“One day they will fall together;
And they will bury them side by side;
For few it will be a pain
For the law a relief
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.”
(Bonnie Parker – 1934)
An Epic Finale.
I hope you’ll forgive me if I start with the ending. There’s no spoiler in this case.
What exists is a fundamental film in its importance, serving as a dividing line, alongside Nichols’ The Graduate, between what came before and the so-called “New Hollywood.”
A film that draws inspiration and life from the French New Wave and our own spaghetti westerns (not coincidentally, the direction was first offered to Truffaut).
A new, different cinema that went against the prevailing trend, against the spectacle and the big productions, against the star system.
Thus, independent productions arose, with total control by directors/authors over their films, just as was happening in Europe.
No more unreachable stars represented on screen but ordinary men and women, with their problems and anxieties, in which the audience could identify.
Now, let’s get to the final scene.
Memorable, epic. Eighty shots in about three minutes, filmed in two takes with four cameras and then masterfully edited by Jerry Greenberg.
A revolutionary montage that stuns and provides no respite as we witness what is a true ballet of death.
A rain of bullets tragically concludes the earthly existence of Bonnie and Clyde, whose bodies collapse and writhe in agony on the ground.
In the end, what remains is a silence, almost surreal, with the camera lingering for a moment, not on the corpses but on the living.
Everything remains still for a moment, with no music accompanying the images, just a funereal atmosphere before the fateful title THE END.
Penn wanted an unforgettable conclusion for his film, something unique and never seen before.
What he achieved is one of the most beautiful endings in the history of cinema.
Gangster Story is a significant work in the gangster film genre.
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