Bonnie and Clyde and Harold and Maude : Narrative and style of The New Hollywood
By Daniel Blumensev
Americans going to the picture show on a weekend in 1970 would no longer see marquees with Pillow Talk (1959 Michael Gordon) and My Fair Lady (1964 George Cukor) written on them, but The Landlord (1970 Hal Ashby) and Five Easy Pieces (1970 Bob Rafelson) instead. Unlike Pillow Talk and My Fair Lady in which American audiences would splendor in the pictures’ utopias and fantasy worlds, unconsciously accepting the Hays code’s abundant restrictions, pictures like The Landlord and Five Easy Pieces would wake audiences up due to their themes of equality and border-line nihilism, respectively, reflecting a veracity that Pillow Talk and My Fair Lady was never allowed to possess. The Landlord and Five Easy Pieces were films that came from the watershed of the Hollywood Renaissance, being the creative say of the director and not producer period of Hollywood filmmaking, from the late sixties to early eighties (Biskind 1999: 126). The Renaissance, influenced by foreign art films and classical Hollywood cinema, was ‘[A] period of great artistic achievement based on ‘new freedom’ and widespread experimentation’ bringing pictures that challenged the political, social and cultural views of the time with new narrative and stylistic conventions (Kramer 2005: 1). The counter-culture film and the genre revisionist film were two prominent types of pictures during the Renaissance, such as Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude (1971) and Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967), respectively.
The narrative and stylistic conventions of classical Hollywood were generally inviolate in order not to risk any box office loss. Its pictures possessed linear narratives (and extreme censorship, brought upon them by the Production Code of 1930, censoring sex, violence and all forms of dissolute behavior, letting no crime go unpunished (Anger 1975: 214). Stylistically, classical Hollywood followed continuity editing: the maintenance of a continuous story, not having its illusion broken by distinct cutting, and additionally, stars were a must to sell the picture (Jewell 2007: 166).
Harold and Maude’s narrative revolves around a controversial romance, violent black comedy and anti-establishment and counter-culture themes. Stylistically, the film has a full non-diegetic soundtrack of songs, and furthermore, the film is a counter-culture picture, thus rebelling against everything that’s unfair and old (including classical Hollywood style), therefore Harold and Maude constitutes a complete break from the narrative and stylistic conventions of classical Hollywood. However, unlike the counter-cultural Harold and Maude, Warren Beatty’s passion project is both different and similar to classical Hollywood. It is narratively different by its controversial tonal shifts, rebelling against Hollywood’s narrative clichés and by its extreme violence, and stylistically different due to its rebellion against continuity, fast cutting and slow motion. However due to being an homage to Warner’s 1930s gangster films, the film is also similar to classical Hollywood, having a linear narrative and the criminals punished at the end.
The narrative and stylistic conventions of classical Hollywood were generally inviolate in order not to risk any box office loss. Its pictures possessed linear narratives (and extreme censorship, brought upon them by the Production Code of 1930, censoring sex, violence and all forms of dissolute behavior, letting no crime go unpunished (Anger 1975: 214). Stylistically, classical Hollywood followed continuity editing: the maintenance of a continuous story, not having its illusion broken by distinct cutting, and additionally, stars were a must to sell the picture (Jewell 2007: 166).
Harold and Maude’s narrative revolves around a controversial romance, violent black comedy and anti-establishment and counter-culture themes. Stylistically, the film has a full non-diegetic soundtrack of songs, and furthermore, the film is a counter-culture picture, thus rebelling against everything that’s unfair and old (including classical Hollywood style), therefore Harold and Maude constitutes a complete break from the narrative and stylistic conventions of classical Hollywood. However, unlike the counter-cultural Harold and Maude, Warren Beatty’s passion project is both different and similar to classical Hollywood. It is narratively different by its controversial tonal shifts, rebelling against Hollywood’s narrative clichés and by its extreme violence, and stylistically different due to its rebellion against continuity, fast cutting and slow motion. However due to being an homage to Warner’s 1930s gangster films, the film is also similar to classical Hollywood, having a linear narrative and the criminals punished at the end.
Starting off with Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude, although being a critical and commercial failure, the film gave Ashby’s contemporaries hope that films like this can be made. To understand what this refers to, one must split Harold and Maude’s unique aesthetic into two parts, with the first being the film’s eccentric narrative and stylistic conventions (Davidson 2016: 157). Thomas Elsaesser states that unlike classical Hollywood, many new Hollywood films have characters whose ‘Ideas of happiness and freedom imply emotional bonds that are lived outside the nuclear family’ (Elsaesser 2003: 58). Elsaesser’s statement is accurate to Harold and Maude as, in the words of producer Charles Mulvehill, the film’s plot revolves around ‘A boy [screwing] his grandmother’ (Biskind 1999: 174). This bizarre and controversial plot is the film’s first narrative difference from classical Hollywood narrative.
During post-production of Billy Wilder’s Love In the Afternoon (1957), Allied Artists would not release the picture since the film ended with Audrey Hepburn running away with Gary Cooper with no sign of wedlock to come. Wilder thus had to dub in Maurice Chevalier’s voice saying that they were soon married. This incongruity, still dominant in 1957, was the influence of the Production Code that rid all Hollywood pictures of immorality (Anger 1975: 214). Thus a plot so sexually taboo as Harold and Maude’s romantic relationship between a boy and a 79-year-old lady, including the element of copulation, would have never been allowed during the censor-dominated classical Hollywood era, demonstrating Ashby’s film’s break from classical Hollywood narrative.
‘[New wave Hollywood] films grew increasingly more anxious, alienated and nihilistic’ (Quart and Auster 1984: 7). In Harold and Maude this is evident as before Harold meets Maude and realizes how to live, he was in fact utterly anxious, alienated and on the border of nihilism due to his mother’s repressed traditions forced upon him. This morbid narrative represents a clear break from classical Hollywood narrative in which productions were controlled by studios and a depressing narrative would surely loss them money. On top of possessing these pessimistic new Hollywood narrative characteristics, Harold and Maude expresses them through black comedy, a style too remote and hazardous for the Hays office. When one thinks of black comedy in classical Hollywood, truly only Preston Sturges comes to mind, and even he, vaguely. Apart from Sturges’ Unfaithfully Yours (1948 Preston Sturges), Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964) is really the only other classical per se film that uses black comedy, however even Dr. Strangelove was a British-US collaboration and could be seen as very early Hollywood new wave. Thus the narrative technique of black comedy is truly a break from classical Hollywood and Harold and Maude’s multiple black-humored Vietnam jokes, Harold setting fire to himself, whimsically deciding to chop off his fake hand and even the blasphemous painting on the Holy Mary and comically disrespecting funeral ceremonies, all demonstrate the film’s break from classical Hollywood narrative style.
‘[New wave Hollywood] films grew increasingly more anxious, alienated and nihilistic’ (Quart and Auster 1984: 7). In Harold and Maude this is evident as before Harold meets Maude and realizes how to live, he was in fact utterly anxious, alienated and on the border of nihilism due to his mother’s repressed traditions forced upon him. This morbid narrative represents a clear break from classical Hollywood narrative in which productions were controlled by studios and a depressing narrative would surely loss them money. On top of possessing these pessimistic new Hollywood narrative characteristics, Harold and Maude expresses them through black comedy, a style too remote and hazardous for the Hays office. When one thinks of black comedy in classical Hollywood, truly only Preston Sturges comes to mind, and even he, vaguely. Apart from Sturges’ Unfaithfully Yours (1948 Preston Sturges), Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964) is really the only other classical per se film that uses black comedy, however even Dr. Strangelove was a British-US collaboration and could be seen as very early Hollywood new wave. Thus the narrative technique of black comedy is truly a break from classical Hollywood and Harold and Maude’s multiple black-humored Vietnam jokes, Harold setting fire to himself, whimsically deciding to chop off his fake hand and even the blasphemous painting on the Holy Mary and comically disrespecting funeral ceremonies, all demonstrate the film’s break from classical Hollywood narrative style.
Although Harold and Maude is not distinctly violent, the film does show violence both, comically: with Harold’s random cutting off of his fake hand, with a straight face, and explicitly: with Harold burning himself, hanging himself and performing Hara-kiri on himself with a little blood appearing, which would not be allowed in classical Hollywood as according to the Code: ‘brutal violence must not be presented in detail’ (Jewell 2007: 118). Furthering this point, when someone got shot or killed in a classical Hollywood film, you would never show the shot hitting the body but instead, cut to the shot after, to the reaction of pain, thus once again: Ashby’s film’s narrative style constitutes a break with classical Hollywood’s narrative style (Jewell 2007: 118).
A distinct narrative difference in Harold and Maude is the counter-cultural themes in its plot, such as ridiculing America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, going against the government and authority and promoting the sense of leftist hippy freedom. Counter-culture refers to a way of life and set of attitudes opposed to the prevailing social norm (Quart and Auster 1984: 73). While classical Hollywood supported the political values of America in its pictures such as disproving Senate corruption and revering the presidency of Abraham Lincoln in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), New Hollywood challenged them. Unlike during the classical Hollywood days, Hollywood studios in the 1970s would give creative control to directors, who’s original work was apparently popular with contemporary audiences, and the studios would ultimately profit from their pictures (Biskind 1999: 126). Like the idea of these directors, Hal Ashby’s was the support of the counter-culture movement. Harold and Maude’s writer Colin Higgins and its director Hal Ashby were against the living room war, Vietnam, thus Ashby’s film went against America’s involvement in the war, ultimately ridiculing its hypocrisy, being a narrative convention completely different from Classical Hollywood.
A distinct narrative difference in Harold and Maude is the counter-cultural themes in its plot, such as ridiculing America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, going against the government and authority and promoting the sense of leftist hippy freedom. Counter-culture refers to a way of life and set of attitudes opposed to the prevailing social norm (Quart and Auster 1984: 73). While classical Hollywood supported the political values of America in its pictures such as disproving Senate corruption and revering the presidency of Abraham Lincoln in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), New Hollywood challenged them. Unlike during the classical Hollywood days, Hollywood studios in the 1970s would give creative control to directors, who’s original work was apparently popular with contemporary audiences, and the studios would ultimately profit from their pictures (Biskind 1999: 126). Like the idea of these directors, Hal Ashby’s was the support of the counter-culture movement. Harold and Maude’s writer Colin Higgins and its director Hal Ashby were against the living room war, Vietnam, thus Ashby’s film went against America’s involvement in the war, ultimately ridiculing its hypocrisy, being a narrative convention completely different from Classical Hollywood.
Harold’s mother, deciding it’s time for Harold to do something with his life, sends him to his cousin: a Vietnam veteran, with the intention of getting her son to join the war. However, after explaining the benefits of joining the army and fighting for your country, having no anti-war claim, the vet suddenly salutes a photograph of his commander by pulling a string on his uniform that causes his stub to salute, looking absolutely ridiculous. Furthermore, a moment too controversial to make the final cut, the film’s trailer has a one-legged vet falling humorously when reaching for a flower, ultimately telling audiences how ridiculous the pointless war made him. The film even includes a scene in which Harold mocks the violence of the war by acting out a scene for his uncle in which he craves blood and is overly excited to kill and deform other human beings when drafted. A narrative so strongly against the government’s foreign politics demonstrates the independence of the new wave and clearly signifies Harold and Maude’s complete break from classical narrative, a narrative controlled by the film’s studio and cleared of any anti-establishment ideas by the Hays Code (Jewell 2007: 118).
Furthering the idea of anti-establishment in classical Hollywood, a blacklist was published in the Hollywood Reporter in 1947 by the House Committee on Un-American activities naming certain persons working in Hollywood as Communists and demanding them to testify in court (Anger 1975: 358). This phenomenon, which continued until 1957, ended the careers of many thriving Hollywood personnel, deeming them as Communists and ones that discretely placed anti-American propaganda in Hollywood films (Anger 1975: 358). The difference between the narratives of classical Hollywood and Harold and Maude rests in the fact that although Ashby’s film bombed in theaters due to its controversial romance or even due to its anti-establishment themes, the film was still allowed to be made, as during the new Hollywood era, unlike classical Hollywood, directors were in control of the subject and the film was in fact released and distributed by Paramount with its anti-government themes in tact.
Furthering the idea of anti-establishment in classical Hollywood, a blacklist was published in the Hollywood Reporter in 1947 by the House Committee on Un-American activities naming certain persons working in Hollywood as Communists and demanding them to testify in court (Anger 1975: 358). This phenomenon, which continued until 1957, ended the careers of many thriving Hollywood personnel, deeming them as Communists and ones that discretely placed anti-American propaganda in Hollywood films (Anger 1975: 358). The difference between the narratives of classical Hollywood and Harold and Maude rests in the fact that although Ashby’s film bombed in theaters due to its controversial romance or even due to its anti-establishment themes, the film was still allowed to be made, as during the new Hollywood era, unlike classical Hollywood, directors were in control of the subject and the film was in fact released and distributed by Paramount with its anti-government themes in tact.
Harold and Maude’s anti-government narrative can be summarized by the argument of Thomas Elsaesser. Elsaesser introduces the counter-cultural crossover in which the law and the outlaw change place (Elsaesser 2003: 58). This theme is true to Ashby’s film as when Harold finds his path with Maude, they begin to live free, live everyday to the fullest and also steal cars, and run away from the authorities. Although these actions are against the law, in Harold and Maude they are part of the lovers’ philosophy of freedom, thus the audiences, having a connection with the two, justify their wrong actions in the context of this narrative, as viewers are on their side, which supports Elsaesser’s point of new Hollywood films ‘[having] a notable bias for the underdog, the outsider [and] the outlaw’ (Elsaesser 2003: 58). Although akin to classical Hollywood narrative in the fact that the lovers’ actions are, in a way, punished, with Harold ultimately loosing Maude at the end of the picture, there is also a sense of ‘getting away with it’, being a clear break from classical narrative, as Harold ultimately leaves the morbid final scene skipping and playing his ukulele, showing the audience that he has decided to live on and, like his deceased lover, will continue to break the law.
This divergence from classical Hollywood narrative in terms of the freedom theme expressed throughout Harold and Maude is not only expressed in the film’s narrative through supporting the attractive outlaws, being the two lovers, but also through the film’s style. Old Hollywood never incorporated non-diegetic songs into their soundtrack, meaning if a song was heard, there would always be someone shown on the screen singing it. However, demonstrating a clear break from classical style, New Hollywood films such as The Graduate (1967 Mike Nichols), Coming Home (1978 Hal Ashby) and of course Harold and Maude all possess a soundtrack full of non-diegetic songs. Ashby’s film’s soundtrack was fully produced by Cat Stevens, having written some original songs for the film as well as using some existing ones. This non-diegetic soundtrack is the stylistic difference between Harold and Maude and classical Hollywood style. Cat Stevens songs not only gave the film a fresh sound but a fresh feel as well, as titles such as ‘Don't Be Shy’ and ‘If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out’ strengthened the entire freedom element of the film, making audiences understand that they can do what they want, even so far as against the authorities, a controversial message that would never have been allowed in classical Hollywood style.
The second part of Harold and Maude’s aesthetic is its implicit rejection of old Hollywood through the symbolism of Harold’s mother and Maude. Harold and Maude’s narrative and style is so different from that of classical Hollywood’s that even in the film’s narrative, a symbolic rejection of old Hollywood is present through the symbolism of Harold’s mother and Maude, being the film’s second part of its eccentric aesthetic. Harold’s mother Mrs. Chasen, played by the classically trained Vivian Pickles, is a woman who identifies herself as an aristocrat, defined by wealth, education and alleged good manners, and wants her son Harold to follow in the same path (Davidson 2016: 149). Maude, played by American Ruth Gordon, although of an aristocratic European background, represents the opposite: an anti-materialistic, anti-aristocratic rebel, living life freely and to the fullest (Davidson 2016: 149). This difference between the two women is the difference between old and new Hollywood. Classical Hollywood, like Mrs. Chasen, was repressed and went by many strict rules burdened upon it by the Production Code. Old Hollywood moguls such as Jack Warner, head of Warner Brothers until 1969, were extremely wealthy (like Harold’s mother) and were experts at what kind of picture brought them big money, thus were reluctant to accept change such as new kinds of pictures, or symbolically: Maude. This is evident in the film as Harold’s mother is unwilling to accept Harold’s borderline nihilism, lack of interest in marriage, settling down, morbid interests and especially his decision to marry a ‘grandmother’, as these are things that she does not engage in herself. In fact, the entire idea of the rebellious nature of new Hollywood films going against the system of classical Hollywood such as Bob Rafelson’s complete destruction of classical narrative structure in Head (1968) or Woody Allen’s similar treatment of classical style in Annie Hall (1977), is clearly represented by Harold himself, played by Bud Cort, who rebels against his mother’s aristocratic wishes for him by purposefully hurting her by continually pretending to commit suicide (Davidson 2016: 149).
Supporting this idea of contract between mother and son, in the first act of the picture we get a shot of Mrs. Chasen turning on the radio which starts playing Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto 1#, and then her getting into her enormous swimming pool, relishing in her domestic opulence. We then dolly out to reveal Harold floating as if dead in the corner of the pool. Mrs. Chasen rolls her eyes and continues swimming. Having Mrs. Chasen turn on the radio herself, starting the powerful classical composition, and Hal Ashby residing on the long shot of Mrs. Chasen getting into the pool, links music to character, expressing Mrs. Chasen’s aristocratic, wealthy and classical ways, contrasting her way of life to that of the suicidal morbid Harold, purposefully rebelling against his mother: having the violent strikes of the concerto playing exclusively during the two shots of Harold’s underwater arduous close-up.
Although Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude demonstrates a clear break from classical Hollywood style, both narratively due to its theme of a controversial romance, black comedy, anti-authority and anti-Vietnam stances as well as its overall symbolic meaning of being an anti-old Hollywood film, and stylistically due to its non-diegetic theme pushing soundtrack, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde is both different and similar to old Hollywood style.
Although Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude demonstrates a clear break from classical Hollywood style, both narratively due to its theme of a controversial romance, black comedy, anti-authority and anti-Vietnam stances as well as its overall symbolic meaning of being an anti-old Hollywood film, and stylistically due to its non-diegetic theme pushing soundtrack, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde is both different and similar to old Hollywood style.
The difference and similarity of Bonnie and Clyde to old Hollywood style rests in the film being a genre revisionist picture, a common new Hollywood practice of updating classical genres to new themes and with modern stylistic techniques. Thus because of this style, Penn’s film is both different from classical style due to possessing new narrative and stylistic techniques, but also similar to it due to also possessing some old techniques: keeping the roots of the genre it is revising, in tact.
Penn’s film is an homage to Hollywood gangster movies of the 1930s (Kolker 1988: 30), thus narratively the film is exactly like classical narrative in the sense of it being of linear structure: a story told without any shifts in time, going from point A to point B, with a climax and a resolution and, like in 1930s gangster pictures, Penn’s film punishes Bonnie and Clyde for their immoral actions (Biskind 1999: 35). Although Bonnie and Clyde possesses no note to the viewer of the studios stance against crime, it does however, like classical Hollywood, but more impactfully, punish its outlaws at the end. Although death was in fact the real end of Bonnie and Clyde, the film’s ending use of violence to emphasize the wrongfulness of the outlaws’ actions is truly what makes the picture similar to classical Hollywood’s anti-crime attitude. The distinct violent punishment by gunfire of the outlaws in Penn’s film echoes the censorship of the Production Code of classical Hollywood, reminding viewers of James Cagney’s violent electric chair execution in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938 Michael Curtiz). Robert Towne, who was hired to fix the script, even moved the scene of ‘Bonnie’s blow of consciousness when Eugene reveals his occupation of undertaker’ to before the scene of Bonnie’s reunion with her mother, in order for the reunion to be a bittersweet one instead of a happy one, reflecting a sense of her and Clyde’s inevitable doom (Biskind 1999: 32).
However, due to being a picture of revisionist intent, the film inevitably brings forth new narrative and stylistic conventions. Continuing with the mention of Robert Towne, the screenwriter purposefully rid the film’s narrative of classical Hollywood clichés, and included WC Moss having trouble finding a parking space and having difficulty getting out, and Bonnie counting all of her change at a restaurant (Biskind 1999: 33). The film also narratively diverges from classical narrative in tone. Influenced by French New Wave’s Jean-Luc Godard, Penn’s film shifts from morbid scenes of bloody violence to a comic and upbeat tone, supplied by the jocular bluegrass picking of Flatt and Scruggs (Friedman 2000: 50) during the chase scenes, as well as humorous undertaker scene (Quart and Auster 1984: 85)
The explicit violence in Bonnie and Clyde demonstrates a clear break from classical narrative, as, like described earlier with Harold and Maude, classical Hollywood’s production code restricted the presentation of murder in a single shot, especially explicitly, whereas Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn’s intent was to shock audiences by showing the gruesome act of killing itself, blood and all, such as the close-up of a police officer getting shot in the face through a car window with no cuts, for audiences to witness and comprehend the horrors of murder. The same goes for the violent finale, with cartridges being emptied into Bonnie and Clyde instead of the single bullet, making audiences physically sick and see and understand the true amount of punishment the outlaws deserve for their immoral actions. The film’s other use of violence was that against the establishment, brutally murdering the authority figure through the car window is like brutally murdering the government, punishing it for its absurd involvement in the Vietnam War (Biskind 1999: 49).
Stylistically the film disregards the conventional establishing shot of classical style and creates meaning through opening up on an extreme close-up of Bonnie’s face, representing the boldness of the film’s style as well as of Bonnie herself (Friedman 2000: 101). The film dissolves to this close-up from a photograph of Clyde Barrow, ultimately linking the two characters’ destinies, and the close-up specifically shows Bonnie’s mouth, introducing her sexuality, one that we quickly learn needs to be satisfied. The film also uses a technique unknown to classical style: slow motion, inspired by the French New Wave, to effectively emphasize the punishment and gruesomeness of Bonnie and Clyde’s gunfire deaths (Quart and Auster 1984: 84).
The explicit violence in Bonnie and Clyde demonstrates a clear break from classical narrative, as, like described earlier with Harold and Maude, classical Hollywood’s production code restricted the presentation of murder in a single shot, especially explicitly, whereas Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn’s intent was to shock audiences by showing the gruesome act of killing itself, blood and all, such as the close-up of a police officer getting shot in the face through a car window with no cuts, for audiences to witness and comprehend the horrors of murder. The same goes for the violent finale, with cartridges being emptied into Bonnie and Clyde instead of the single bullet, making audiences physically sick and see and understand the true amount of punishment the outlaws deserve for their immoral actions. The film’s other use of violence was that against the establishment, brutally murdering the authority figure through the car window is like brutally murdering the government, punishing it for its absurd involvement in the Vietnam War (Biskind 1999: 49).
Stylistically the film disregards the conventional establishing shot of classical style and creates meaning through opening up on an extreme close-up of Bonnie’s face, representing the boldness of the film’s style as well as of Bonnie herself (Friedman 2000: 101). The film dissolves to this close-up from a photograph of Clyde Barrow, ultimately linking the two characters’ destinies, and the close-up specifically shows Bonnie’s mouth, introducing her sexuality, one that we quickly learn needs to be satisfied. The film also uses a technique unknown to classical style: slow motion, inspired by the French New Wave, to effectively emphasize the punishment and gruesomeness of Bonnie and Clyde’s gunfire deaths (Quart and Auster 1984: 84).
Additionally, during this same scene fast cutting is used between the close-ups of Clyde and Bonnie to emphasize the brevity of their final connection with each other before their deaths as well as their realization of the inevitability of the situation.
Bonnie and Clyde is also different from classical Hollywood style in the way of being, like Harold and Maude, a counter-cultural work, being a picture against the establishment. Bonnie and Clyde, until the finale, destroy the authority and become the authority figures themselves (Quart and Auster 1984: 85). Destroying the authority, according to Peter Biskind, represents the film’s destruction and ‘[Screw] you’ to Vietnam, to the repressed old American generation and to the fading society of old Hollywood (Biskind 1999: 49). Penn’s film opened the movies for the young, having kids identify with the outlaws, as the outlaws destroyed what the young generation did not have power to destroy themselves. Thus the film’s rebellion against the old and unfair and the audiences’ identification with the pictures’ villains were things that classical narrative style did not possess.
That same marquee that only yesterday read The Landlord and Five Easy Pieces now reads The Last Picture Show (1971 Peter Bogdanovich) and The Last Movie (1971 Dennis Hopper), a year later. Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, though with some nuances, owes everything to John Ford, being the last classical American picture in a way. However Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie is an unprecedented experimental meditation on Westerns, colonialism and death (Biskind 1999: 124). The difference between Bogdanovich’s and Hopper’s works towards classical Hollywood style, is as close as you can get to the difference between Bonnie and Clyde and Harold and Maude towards the same topic. Like the radically different The Last Movie, Harold and Maude also constitutes a complete break with the censored and law-abiding narratives of classical Hollywood, due to its controversial romantic plot, anti-authority and anti-Vietnam mood and violent black comedy, and with classical Hollywood style, due to its non-diegetic songs soundtrack. Whereas like Picture Show, Bonnie and Clyde is both different from classical Hollywood narrative and style due to its revisionist nature: possessing tonal shifts, rebellion against Hollywood’s narrative clichés, continuity, slow-motion and extreme violence, ‘murdering’ America’s old ideals and absurd politics, but also similar due to its homage to 1930s gangster pictures, having a linear narrative and a finale of the punishment of the criminal.
Bonnie and Clyde is also different from classical Hollywood style in the way of being, like Harold and Maude, a counter-cultural work, being a picture against the establishment. Bonnie and Clyde, until the finale, destroy the authority and become the authority figures themselves (Quart and Auster 1984: 85). Destroying the authority, according to Peter Biskind, represents the film’s destruction and ‘[Screw] you’ to Vietnam, to the repressed old American generation and to the fading society of old Hollywood (Biskind 1999: 49). Penn’s film opened the movies for the young, having kids identify with the outlaws, as the outlaws destroyed what the young generation did not have power to destroy themselves. Thus the film’s rebellion against the old and unfair and the audiences’ identification with the pictures’ villains were things that classical narrative style did not possess.
That same marquee that only yesterday read The Landlord and Five Easy Pieces now reads The Last Picture Show (1971 Peter Bogdanovich) and The Last Movie (1971 Dennis Hopper), a year later. Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, though with some nuances, owes everything to John Ford, being the last classical American picture in a way. However Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie is an unprecedented experimental meditation on Westerns, colonialism and death (Biskind 1999: 124). The difference between Bogdanovich’s and Hopper’s works towards classical Hollywood style, is as close as you can get to the difference between Bonnie and Clyde and Harold and Maude towards the same topic. Like the radically different The Last Movie, Harold and Maude also constitutes a complete break with the censored and law-abiding narratives of classical Hollywood, due to its controversial romantic plot, anti-authority and anti-Vietnam mood and violent black comedy, and with classical Hollywood style, due to its non-diegetic songs soundtrack. Whereas like Picture Show, Bonnie and Clyde is both different from classical Hollywood narrative and style due to its revisionist nature: possessing tonal shifts, rebellion against Hollywood’s narrative clichés, continuity, slow-motion and extreme violence, ‘murdering’ America’s old ideals and absurd politics, but also similar due to its homage to 1930s gangster pictures, having a linear narrative and a finale of the punishment of the criminal.
Bibliography
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Friedman, L. (2000). Bonnie and Clyde. 1st ed. London: British Film Institute.
Horwath, A., King, N. and Elsaesser, T. (2003). The Last Great American Picture Show. 1st ed. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
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Kolker, R. (1988). A Cinema of Loneliness. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Quart, L. and Auster, A. (1984). American Film and Society since 1945. New York: Praeger.
Filmography
Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) Directed by Michael Curtiz [Film]. USA: Warner Bros.
Annie Hall (1977) Directed by Woody Allen [Film]. USA: Rollins-Joffe Productions.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Directed by Arthur Penn [Film]. USA: Warner Bros.
Coming Home (1978) Directed by Hal Ashby [Film]. USA: Jerome Hellman Productions.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Directed by Stanley Kubrick [Film]. USA: Hawk Films.
Easy Rider (1969) Directed by Dennis Hopper [Film]. USA: Pando Company Inc.
Five Easy Pieces (1970) Directed by Bob Rafelson [Film]. USA: BBS Productions.
Harold and Maude (1971) Directed by Hal Ashby [Film]. USA: Mildred Lewis and Colin Higgins Productions.
Head (1968) Directed by Bob Rafelson [Film]. USA: Raybert Productions.
Love in the Afternoon (1957) Directed by Billy Wilder [Film]. USA: Billy Wilder Productions.
My Fair Lady (1964) Directed by George Cukor [Film]. USA: Warner Bros.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Directed by Frank Capra [Film]. USA: Columbia Pictures Corporation.
Pillow Talk (1959) Directed by Michael Gordon [Film]. USA: Universal International Pictures.
The Graduate (1967) Directed by Mike Nichols [Film]. USA: Lawrence Turman.
The Landlord (1970) Directed by Hal Ashby [Film]. USA: Mirisch Company.
The Last Movie (1971) Directed by Dennis Hopper [Film]. USA: Alta-Light.
The Last Picture Show Directed by Peter Bogdanovich [Film]. USA: BBS Productions.
Unfaithfully Yours (1948) Directed by Preston Sturges [Film]. USA: Twentieth Century Fox.
Annie Hall (1977) Directed by Woody Allen [Film]. USA: Rollins-Joffe Productions.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Directed by Arthur Penn [Film]. USA: Warner Bros.
Coming Home (1978) Directed by Hal Ashby [Film]. USA: Jerome Hellman Productions.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Directed by Stanley Kubrick [Film]. USA: Hawk Films.
Easy Rider (1969) Directed by Dennis Hopper [Film]. USA: Pando Company Inc.
Five Easy Pieces (1970) Directed by Bob Rafelson [Film]. USA: BBS Productions.
Harold and Maude (1971) Directed by Hal Ashby [Film]. USA: Mildred Lewis and Colin Higgins Productions.
Head (1968) Directed by Bob Rafelson [Film]. USA: Raybert Productions.
Love in the Afternoon (1957) Directed by Billy Wilder [Film]. USA: Billy Wilder Productions.
My Fair Lady (1964) Directed by George Cukor [Film]. USA: Warner Bros.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Directed by Frank Capra [Film]. USA: Columbia Pictures Corporation.
Pillow Talk (1959) Directed by Michael Gordon [Film]. USA: Universal International Pictures.
The Graduate (1967) Directed by Mike Nichols [Film]. USA: Lawrence Turman.
The Landlord (1970) Directed by Hal Ashby [Film]. USA: Mirisch Company.
The Last Movie (1971) Directed by Dennis Hopper [Film]. USA: Alta-Light.
The Last Picture Show Directed by Peter Bogdanovich [Film]. USA: BBS Productions.
Unfaithfully Yours (1948) Directed by Preston Sturges [Film]. USA: Twentieth Century Fox.