Bonnie and Clyde Perhaps it is set in the Depression
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2025 10:31 am
For decades, without the approval of the Production Code, large-scale distribution was next to impossible for Hollywood film producers. However, by the 1960s the code, which had been under pressure throughout the 1950s, was starting to look redundant. In the 1960s, more explicit European films were regularly shown in American theaters, with Hollywood studios involved in their distribution.
Considering the content of many of these films, such distribution was without any code approval. More important to studios than the code’s seal of approval, however, was the fact that many of these films turned out to be a huge box office draw. It could be argued that the code’s life support systems were turned off when, at the end of 1967, Time published a first page accompanied by images of Bonnie and Clyde proclaiming: “The New Cinema… Violence… Sex… Art. ”
of the 1930s, but the attitudes and politics exhibited were those phone number library of the nascent 1960s counterculture. Tellingly, the film’s protagonists and those they enlist in progress road to helping them with their criminal enterprises are not just outside of society – they oppose the foundation of society: the rule of law and all that it stands for. In their opposition to society, this on-screen criminal gang creates an alternative society to the mainstream.
While not quite a commune, this alternative society is one where the gang decides their own morality, enjoying a creed of free life and free love, seemingly at no cost to them. themselves – their victims don’t matter. As the film’s commercial said: “They are young, they are in love … and they kill people.” On the other hand, those they murder or steal from the screen rarely speak in this film. This is also the case for the authorities who set out to capture the criminal gang. These law and order officers are portrayed as bossy, lacking in humor, warmth and humanity, which is shown to the public as residing within the gang.
Considering the content of many of these films, such distribution was without any code approval. More important to studios than the code’s seal of approval, however, was the fact that many of these films turned out to be a huge box office draw. It could be argued that the code’s life support systems were turned off when, at the end of 1967, Time published a first page accompanied by images of Bonnie and Clyde proclaiming: “The New Cinema… Violence… Sex… Art. ”
of the 1930s, but the attitudes and politics exhibited were those phone number library of the nascent 1960s counterculture. Tellingly, the film’s protagonists and those they enlist in progress road to helping them with their criminal enterprises are not just outside of society – they oppose the foundation of society: the rule of law and all that it stands for. In their opposition to society, this on-screen criminal gang creates an alternative society to the mainstream.
While not quite a commune, this alternative society is one where the gang decides their own morality, enjoying a creed of free life and free love, seemingly at no cost to them. themselves – their victims don’t matter. As the film’s commercial said: “They are young, they are in love … and they kill people.” On the other hand, those they murder or steal from the screen rarely speak in this film. This is also the case for the authorities who set out to capture the criminal gang. These law and order officers are portrayed as bossy, lacking in humor, warmth and humanity, which is shown to the public as residing within the gang.