The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde took many liberties with the infamous couple's true story. It is to be expected coming from Hollywood but is nevertheless disappointing if you're looking for accuracy and fact. From their meeting all the way to their death scene the film is riddled with inaccuracies and half-truths.
In the life accounts of Bonnie and Clyde, the couple met at a friends house, becoming inseparable. In the film, a cocky and arrogant Clyde is creeping around outside of Bonnie's house, casing out her mothers car to steal. Bonnie catches him and goes with him to town and watches him rob a grocery store before jumping into the car to escape and molesting him as they speed away. After watching the documentary, the first few scenes in the film seem overly forced and unbelievable. I'm sure that was all added for dramatic effect and to garner interest in their story, however it seems to me that instead of stealing out of necessity and frustration as Clyde had started out, the film seems to show him acting out of pleasure.
The film skips completely around Clydes Back story and the reasons why he is robbing in the first place. They don't seem to take much account of his criminal past and prison time except to mention him cutting off his toes twice. The film also would lead you to believe that Bonnie is slutty and wild in nature, someone who is always craving more out of life and can only find it by running around with Clyde shooting people. I think in the effort to make this film seem exciting and grand the producers left out the important information about how Bonnie and Clydes relationship really grew. They left out the mention of all of the love letters the couple exchanged that undoubtedly deepened and pushed their love for each other along in life. As a matter of fact they didn't show or allude to any separation of the couple at all in the film.
While the film did stray and change their story, they did ad some interesting imagery leading up to and during the death scene. In Bonnie's poem about her and Clyde she uses the line “If they try to act like citizens and rent them a nice little flat, about the third night they‘re invited to fight by a sub-guns rat-tat-tat”. In an ironic twist the producers end the movie with the couple being killed while trying to do a normal good citizen type deed. It is after Clyde stops to help W. D’s father with his tire that the couple is killed in a hail of gunfire. The editing in the death scene also shows a flock of birds being startled from the tree row right before the gunfire starts. You see the birds take off and watch as Bonnie looks to the birds and trees, and can see the recognition on her face that something is very wrong. In her poem Bonnie also mentions pigeons along with spotters and rats, in reference to police or “the law”. Fitting then that the pigeons take off from the trees that the cops themselves are hiding in, making Bonnie and Clyde aware that something is about to happen.
One of the central themes that you can follow in the film and in Bonnie and Clyde's real lives is the idea of family. You can see that Bonnie and Clyde kept a tight knit group in the film and in life. Clyde taking on a father figure to Bonnie as well as a lover of sorts. Clyde's brother Buck was his literal brother and also seemed to act brotherly toward the group as a whole, He helped them along and offered encouragement. His wife Blanche was the motherly conscious of the group, trying to get them to stop and act right. W.D. In the film was a composite of several characters, acting as kind of a slow little brother at times and also filling the role of some of Clyde's prison buddies. The film portrayed W.D. As someone who blindly followed Bonnie and Clyde, admiring and emulating them in an effort to impress them and make himself a needed member of the group. Bonnie and Blanche did not get along, but Bonnie went so far as to take on a motherly role to Blanche as well in the film, comforting her and in one scene, caring for the wounds to Blanches eyes, It is also hinted at in the film that W.D. Had a crush on Bonnie or thought to impress her in some way. Also noticeable is how the group really does need each other, They each fill a familial role and are always looking out for each other during their gun battles with the police. It is seen many times in the fact that they are constantly slowing down the car to let one of the group jump in as they escape. In many of the car scenes you can see them holding onto each other, tending to their various wounds. In one scene in particular you can witness the love that both W.D. And Clyde both share for Bonnie as she is hit by gunfire and laying out in a field. W.D. And Clyde both appear distraught and steal a car before carefully picking Bonnie up and taking her away. This leads to W.D. Taking the couple to his fathers home and insisting on their care, When his father insults the pair in conversation with W.D. And criticizes his son for a large chest tattoo he has gotten, the producers make a big deal to show how indignant W.D. Gets about it, stating that Bonnie thinks the tattoo is great and then defends his friends to his father.
The last bit of difference between real and film that didn't go over well with me was how the film depicted the death scene. It is made very apparent in life and in the film that Bonnie and Clyde desperately needed each other emotionally in a very real way. Throughout their time together from words and actions it is made plain that they love each other very deeply. It is also simple fact that they did indeed die together side by side in the car. In the real photos you can see Clyde in the drivers seat slumped over and riddled with bullets. Bonnie physically rests against him on his right shoulder in death, the two are physically touching in their final moments. The film took that away from them, depicting Bonnie as dangling upside down out of the car while her lover is outside of the car laying face down in the dirt. Overall, I think this was one of the biggest differences between the film and life that should not have been altered.