Bonnie and Clyde

Think about the following two excerpts from the Kael article. Choose one and explain if you agree or disagree with the quote and why. Choose a scene from the film to back up your statements and discuss the quote and the scene cinematically. Be sure to use the cinematic vocabulary you have learned thus far. Also, choose one scene and in one paragraph discuss any influence you see from any scene in The 400 Blows.


Quote #1:
"[It's]because the young French directors discovered the poetry of crime in American life (from our movies) and showed the Americans how to put it on the screen in a new, "existential" way. Melodramas and gangster movies and comedies were always more our speed than 'prestigious,' 'distinguished' pictures; the French directors who grew up on American pictures found poetry in our fast action, laconic speech, plain gestures. And because they understood that you don't express your love of life by denying the comedy or the horror of it, they brought out the poetry in our tawdry subjects. Now Arthur Penn, working with a script heavily influenced--one might almost say inspired--by Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, unfortunately imitates Truffaut's artistry instead of going back to its tough American sources. The French may tenderize their American material, but we shouldn't. That turns into another way of making 'prestigious,' 'distinguished' pictures."

Quote #2
"Suddenly, in the last few years, our view of the world has gone beyond 'good taste.' Tasteful suggestions of violence would at this point be a more grotesque form of comedy than Bonnie and Clyde attempts. Bonnie and Clyde needs violence; violence is its meaning. When, during a comically botched-up getaway, a man is shot in the face, the image is obviously based on one of the most famous sequences in Eisenstein's Potemkin, and the startled face is used the same way it was in Potemkin--to convey in an instant how someone who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the irrelevant 'innocent' bystander, can get it full in the face. And at that instant the meaning of Clyde Barrow's character changes; he's still a clown, but we've become the butt of the joke.

The 400 Blows

I hope you all have read the Marilyn Fabe essay I gave you. If you haven't yet, go away from your computer right now and take 15 minutes to read the essay.

OK. Now, take a look at this quote from Truffaut in a 1966 interview:

"Before I met Rossellini, I wanted to make films of course, but it seemed impossible. A dream. He made it all seem easy. He has a powerful gift for simplification. He told me, it isn't hard to write a screenplay, you only have to look at the reality around you...The 400 Blows owes a great deal to Rossellini...[H]e showed me that things must be close to life."

Think about this quote and respond to it, using at least one scene from The 400 Blows. Feel free to include evidence from Rome Open City to back up any statements you make regarding Rossellini's filmmaking style. Write at least 3 meaty paragraphs (be sure to write cinematically) and use at least one quote from the Marilyn Fabe essay. Also, tell me your favorite scene and why (cinematically).

Due Wednesday, May 2.

The Awful Truth

Think about the film's mise-en-scene. Choose a scene in the film and discuss the mise-en-scene (costumes, set, properties, etc.) and its relation to the scene and the film as a whole. Use at least 2 hearty paragraphs for your discussion.

Also, please post your favorite line from the film.