Theme Of Violence In Bonnie And Clyde And The Wild Bunch

2. Aesthetic Brutality – The Role of Violence in Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch

This thesis chapter is devoted to the detailed analysis of some elements of the films Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch, in order to unfold their inherent aesthetics.

Through checking and examining a few scenes, the chapter aims to prove, that violence can usefully fit into the narrative, be stylishly composed and supported by other tools. In order to elaborate this topic connecting to Penn’s and Peckinpah’s films, the chapter will cover the violence depiction, the film techniques which were used to emphasise it, along with the main characters and themes. As both directors employed similar techniques, the movies will be inspected under the same subchapters

in parallel.
The secondary literature, which has been already used for the first chapter, fulfils a supplementary function in the following subchapters. Within the three smaller topics, the featured citations from Harris, Prince, and Grønstad provide major guidelines.
All things considered, this approach will hopefully shed a light on the meaning of ‘aesthetic violence’ considering the title movies.

2.1. The Vehicle of Skillful Depictions – Violence as Plot Device

The movies of our topic contain some violent scenes, which are appealingly choreographed and supportive devices to the plot mechanism of the film.

Usually, it is highly arguable to state that a brutal and bloody movie or its scenes can be appraised as enjoyable and essential at the same time. However, the following scenes of the movies can be seen as stylish examples with narrative purpose.

In Bonnie and Clyde, as Mark Harris also states, the “skillful depiction of violence” prefigures the characters, the tone and the serious outcome (87). The couple’s criminal life is rather playful, especially at the beginning. From the excited gunplay of their first encounter (06:50 to 07:10), over their early failures at bank robbing (in a scene at 17:40–19:20), the film slowly reaches the point where the violence starts to escalate. This is a medium shot at 27:02 when Clyde kills a bank manager shooting him in the head through the car window.

Later, a strikingly eventful sequence is used as another clear turning point of the story: it becomes obvious that the golden, lucky days of the expanded gang are over. Close to the end of the movie, the Barrow gang is ambushed during one night. Clyde’s brother suffers a serious headwound at 1:18:28, others are also injured. At 1:21:16 the camera is in a

fixed