Enzian to show ‘Bonnie and Clyde’

Image copyright Warner Brothers

The Enzian Theater in Maitland, Florida, will screen a 35mm print of Bonnie and Clyde (5 stars) at 9:30 p.m. tonight. The 1967 masterpiece, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in August, is part of the theater’s Cult Classics series.

Directed by Arthur Penn and produced by Warren Beatty, the film is a landmark of American cinema, though it borrowed some editing techniques from French New Wave. Challenging moviegoers’ notion of film itself, Bonnie and Clyde – the biographical story of two bank robbers on the lam – wasn’t just a stylistic break from previous gangster flicks but also a thematic one, as it frankly depicted violence and sexuality.

Featuring Beatty as Clyde Barrow and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker, the film is also wildly entertaining and hilarious, thanks in large part to an excellent supporting cast that includes Gene Hackman, Michael Pollard, Estelle Parsons, Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor and Gene Wilder in his big-screen debut.

The film received 10 Academy Award nominations, including four acting nominations and a best-picture nod. It won best cinematography and best supporting actress (Parsons) but lost best picture to In the Heat of the Night in a year that also included The Graduate, Cool Hand Luke, Jungle Book, Belle de Jour, The Dirty Dozen and Le Samourai. But the film also received criticism — which seems almost comical now — for straying far from the real story of Barrow and Parker, and also for opening the floodgates of movie violence made possible by the imminent collapse of the Motion Picture Production Code.

Get your tickets before they sell out by visiting enzian.org/film/bonnie-and-clyde/.

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