R.I.P. Bonnie & Clyde Director Arthur Penn

Arthur Penn, the director of Bonnie and Clyde, a truly revolutionary film and perhaps Rock Turtleneck's favorite film all time, passed away yesterday at the age of 88.

Released to confused and finally enraptured audience in 1967, Bonnie and Clyde was the first to do many things filmgoers today take for granted, mixing sex, violence, comedy in a way that had never been done before. It also used the tale of Depression-era outlaws to make comments about modern times, such as the Vietnam War, the government, the farming and banking industries and the nature of fame. Working with the producer and star Warren Beatty, Penn brought an art-house sensibility to American popcorn pictures and created a massive hit film.


As Penn's New York Times obituary notes, "Many of the now-classic films of what was branded the New American Cinema of the 1970s — among them Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather — would have been unthinkable without Bonnie and Clyde to lead the way."

Interestingly, before casting himself as Clyde Barrow, Beatty considered having Bob Dylan play the role. Dylan was also looking to the past (from the Depression all the way back to the Old Testament) to shed light on the present with his masterpiece of the same year, John Wesley Harding.

In addition to kicking off a bold brilliant golden age of American Cinema, the lives, crimes, myths and legends of Bonnie and Clyde also spurned several musical tributes. Georgie Fame had a hit across the pond in 1968 with "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde"


And Serge Gainsbourg, the French prototype for Austin Powers, recorded a brilliantly sleazy tribute song and video to Bonnie and Clyde with his girlfriend at the time, a rather pretty bird named Brigette Bardot.

Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot - BONNIE and CLYDE
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Perhaps inevitably, Jay-Z and Beyonce brought Bonnie & Clyde into the bling age with their 2003 musical tribute to the glamorous outlaw lifestyle.


R.I.P. and TCB Mr. Penn.