Bonnie and Clyde

Sometimes I look at the tale of Bonnie andClydein an odd way.  It was the depression and they were in the middle of the boring, flat mid-west.  They were young, crazy and faced with the choices of sit around and rot in the dust or run off, have fun and raise a little hell.  Their main problem was, they raised loads of hell.

When we first see Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway), she’s alone in her room, bored, naked and all she has to look forward to is her next waitress shift.  But outside her window, she sees a young man hanging around her mother’s car.  This is Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty).  They hang out around town for a while, just talking.  He says he’s done time for armed robbery.  That fascinates a bored girl.  Everything happens so casually, just as in conversation.  Before we realize what is happening,Clydehas robbed a store and the two are exchanging names as they steal a car.

You could say these two move pretty fast, but that only applies to their life of crime.  Though it’s easy for Bonnie to get stirred up and attempt a ravenous make-out session while Clyde is driving the getaway car,Clydemakes it clear that he “ain’t much of a loverboy”.  To Bonnie’s disappointment, she’s just run off and become an outlaw with someone who won’t have sex, which seems to be Bonnie’s main asset and outlet.

Soon the Barrow gang is expanding.  While Bonnie andClydeare driving through, they recruit a young man tending a gas station, C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard).  He seems like just another bored kid who decides on a whim that running from the law is more exciting than sitting around in the dust.  Later,Clydemeets up with his brother and sister-in-law, Buck (Gene Hackman) and Blanche (Estelle Parsons).  Buck knows all about his little brother’s growing list of run-ins with the law and tries to keep all that from his wife.  The whole gang decides they should just lay low for a while, but when they’re found out, Buck and Estelle shoot and run with the rest, permanently attaching themselves to the Barrow gang.

The gang finds themselves in some of the most screwball situations.  When a lone Texas Ranger tries to sneak up on the gang, parked in the woods for a break, he ends up with his arms tied and in a photo shoot.  Buck brings out his camera and takes a few priceless shots of Bonnie andClydeposing with the bound lawman.  Later, there’s a hilarious scene where the gang steal the car of a young man, Eugene (Gene Wilder).  He and his girlfriend Velma (Evans Evans) start chasing the gang in another car, but decide to turn back fearing they’re armed.  Soon, they’re riding around, with the Barrow gang, stopping for hamburgers and having a grand time.  Hanging around with the Barrow gang sounds like a real fun time, unless you’re an undertaker.

Bonnie soon sees that this life on the run is harder and less romantic than she thought.  She misses her family and refuses to let go of her old life, saying she wants to live near her mother again.  As the law moves closer, it’s clearer that those things aren’t going to happen.  It’s kind of sad really, but eventually Bonnie makes her own mark on the world and tells the story of her andClydein a way that makes sure they’re remembered forever.

To this day, the term Bonnie andClydehas a hint of romanticism in it.  We know they robbed banks and killed people along the way and by definition they are considered bad people.  But there are still ideas of rebellion, adventure and charm associated with the unforgettable duo.  Somehow, I think Bonnie andClydeappreciate us remembering them as just a couple crazy kids raising some hell in a time that needed a little excitement.

“All I can say is, they did right by me – and I’m bringin’ me and a mess of flowers to their funeral.”

Chinatown

The role of a private investigator is to snoop.  To get down into the muck and find out the dirty truth.  That’s exactly what JJ ‘Jake’ Gittes (Jack Nicholson) does in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.  It is 1937 in Los Angeles and Jake is a private detective specializing in cases of adultery.  When a Mrs. Mulwray hires him to see if her husband, Hollis (Darrell Zwerling), is having an affair, the wheels are slowly set in motion for Jake to uncover a huge conspiracy with the city’s water management, corrupt land use, incest and murder.

Hollis Mulwray is the chief engineer at the city’s water department, and currently in high profile while Los Angeles is experiencing a drought.  Jake’s investigation finds Hollis dealing with business and visiting the ocean for hours.  The man seems to have water on the brain.  Then Hollis is found dead, very odd for a man to die of drowning during a drought.  Could it be murder?

Through a tip, Jake learns that water is being dumped somewhere every night.  As he investigates, a man warns him to keep his nose out of their business by slicing Jake’s nose.  The giant gauze bandage Nicholson sports for the next while is an unforgettable image of the film.

Then there’s the issue of Mrs. Mulwray.  It seems that the woman who hired Jake was an impostor and the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) wants Jake to drop the investigation on Hollis.  But between the possibility of a murder, something fishy going on with the water and falling in love with Evelyn, Jake is in too deep to go back now.  Soon he’s drug Evelyn even further into the mess and realizes she has been keeping some dark secrets.

To me, Chinatown can feel like a cousin to classic film noir.  There is a mix of crime, corruption, and Jake first thrown into this by a deceitful woman.  Thing is, Jake has the look, but not the archetype personality for noir.  For that, he would need to be gruffer, meaner and have more dirt on his hands.  For the most part, his conscious is clear, just a Private Eye doing his job.  He is simply not hard nosed enough, otherwise it wouldn’t have sliced so easily right?  Nicholson is good at going over the top, but he’s relatively calm in this role.  He’s just the soft spoken guy who finds himself in the middle of the maze with no control.  The one time Jake really turns into a hard-nosed tough guy is when he slaps the truth out of Evelyn, and that just ends in a whole new level of secrecy that he should have never uncovered.

Chinatown is a classic that can be enjoyed time after time.  The plot is very smart and thrilling enough that I still find new pieces and clues along the way in my multiple viewings.  Between the mysteries being revealed along the way, the suspense and the exciting scenes that make this film a thriller, the only reason people may not enjoy Chinatown is its bummer ending.

“Forget it, Jake.  It’s Chinatown.”

Network

“We could make a series of it. “Suicide of the Week.” Aw, hell, why limit ourselves? “Execution of the Week.” “Terrorist of the Week.” I love it. Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, automobile smash-ups: “The Death Hour.” A great Sunday night show for the whole family. It’d wipe that fuckin’ Disney right off the air.”

With that bit of dialogue, I fell in love with this film.  Network tells the story of people working within a television network, how ratings rule their lives and how they try to reflect the world’s views by the shows they decide to air.  The film is full of interesting, fleshed out characters that make us believe that they can be this eccentric and so ruled by their television lives.

First there’s Howard Beale (Peter Finch), an aging news anchorman who announces his retirement and his suicide to take place at the end of next Tuesday’s program.  With the network going into damage control over Beale’s inappropriate newscast, they decide to let him go on the next day to apologize.  Instead, he tells the world that he “just ran out of bullshit.”  The ratings for his blunt honesty are through the roof and soon Beale has his own show as a prophet, rambling and getting people to shout out their windows all over the country.  Together they yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Dianne Christensen (Faye Dunaway) is the young vice-president for UBS and has been looking for some edgy programming to reflect the anger that Americans are feeling.  When Howard yells bullshit, she finds her goldmine.  Dianne is part of the first generation to have television all their lives, and therefore has much different views that her older coworkers, like Max Schumacher (William Holden), a long time friend of Howard’s.  Max and Dianne start a relationship, even though Max is married, but he sees that Dianne is a sub level of human who has been too heavily influenced and desensitized by television.

I believe that is the main point of the film: television has defined how we live our lives.  It’s how we learn to deliver snarky one-liners with perfect timing, how to enter a room with the right presence, how to pause for dramatic effect.  Television shows us what’s in style, how to wear it right and how to walk in it.  It even shows us definitions for love, joy, anger and happiness.  How would we know these emotions if we had not grown up with defining images being flashed before us?

In the end, Network is too dark to be satire, I don’t believe it was meant to be interpreted in a satiric manner.  It seems to serve more as a warning for what television could (and has) become.  Channel surf on a Sunday morning and the images of some television preachers are very similar to Howard Beale’s raving rants just before he collapses into thunderous applause.  We now watch and vote for the next musical sensation and watch young people try to find their true love out of a hand full of contestants.

Network is full of strong language and the ideas that we’re becoming less genuinely human because of television may not be what everyone wants to think about.  But it’s a great movie, the acting is superb and worthy of the three Oscar wins by Beatrice Straight, Dunnaway, and the late Finch.  I strongly recommend Network.

“I’m not sure she’s capable of any real feelings. She’s television generation. She learned life from Bugs Bunny.”