Berstein, Matthew. "Perfecting the New Gangster: Writing "Bonnie and Clyde"." Film Quarterly 53(2000): 16-31 

 

Mathew Bernstein’s article in a 2000 publication of Film Quarterly entitled The New Gangster revolves around the writing and meaning of Bonnie and Clyde. The article covers the famed screenwriters, Robert Benton and David Newman and their obsession with French New Wave cinema and how it influenced the writers’ treatment and final draft of Bonnie and Clyde.
The article cites the two Esquire writers essay, The New Sentimentality, as their inspiration and foundation for their Bonnie and Clyde project. Bonnie and Clyde represented everything their essay stood for, “Bonnie and Clyde is about style and people who have style. It is about people whose style set them apart from their time and place so that they seemed odd and aberrant to the general run of society” (19).
The article then covers the gradual progression of the script from being a purely New Wave, irregular narrative, to a more classical, Hollywood narrative and back again. Oddly enough Bernstein claims that Francois Truffaut, while he was involved with the project, did more to Americanize the script than anything else. It was Arthur Penn that finally realized the film’s potential to break down barriers between American films and European art cinema.
The most interesting part of the progression of the film’s script comes from the racy sexuality that was originally part of the film. The first treatment of the script contained an active and well functioning sex life for the two protagonists, which of course was later switched to Clyde’s asexuality. The original script even contained strong hints of a threesome between Bonnie, Clyde and their partner C.W. Moss. However W.D. Jones, the actor originally cast for the role of Moss, was an entirely different actor, “he was an air-head, blond stud” (20). The final script shows a scene where Bonnie shrugs when Clyde turns her down, clearly sexually frustrated, but, “by contrast, in the first script draft, Bonnie casually walks to the door of the room and yells for Jones to come in to help them get going, as if she was calling him in for dinner” (21).
The clear toning down of the sexuality in Bonnie and Clyde can be seen as a compromise to allow the excessive violence to exist untouched. The many re-workings of the script saw a dramatic change from Benton and Newman’s original vision, but Penn and Beatty were able find the happy medium between overly New Wave and overly Hollywood.

Gelley, Ora. "Ingrid Bergman's Star Persona and the Alien Space of Stromboli." Cinema Journal 47.2 (2008): 26-51.

Gelley tracks the course of Ingrid Bergman's career, moving from her beginnings in Sweden, to her time in WWII era Germany, to the peak of her popularity in Hollywood, and finally to her films and romantic entanglements with the famed director Roberto Rossellini. Over the course of this article, Gelley addresses many issues but places a continual focus on the shifting acceptance and use of Bergman's sexuality. Gelley states that while off-screen (until the time of her affair with Rossellini) Bergman was portrayed as innocent and virtuous, on screen she often took on the roles of “the other woman,” prostitutes, or women with questionable morals. Bergman’s sexuality was not only affected by the roles that she took on, but also by the methods of acting that she (and at times her directors) chose to utilize in each of her films. The restrained movement that characterized her collaborations with Hitchcock allowed her to achieve success in Hollywood and with the American people. However, when Bergman began to work with Rossellini her movement and acting method reflected an actor, and subsequently a group of characters, that embraced her own sexuality. While Gelley argues that it is this acceptance of female power that alienated Bergman from her Hollywood fan base, it also allowed her characters to become not only representations of strong women, but also to become central to Rossellini’s commentary on the state of Europe after World War II.

Addressing Bergman’s work in Spellbound, Gelley highlight Hitchcock’s influence, arguing that it was Hitchcock who urged Bergman to restrain her movement and focused the camera and subsequently the audience on the drama of her minuet facial expressions. With her body either out of frame of covered by unflattering outfits, Hitchcock neutralized Bergman’s capacity for the expression of overt sexuality. This fascination with Bergman’s face might have begun with Spellbound, but in Hitchcock’s next film with Bergman, Notorious, the director took the idea of the close-up to the extreme, including approximately 191 close-ups and extreme close-ups in a 101-minute film. Like Notorious, in Spellbound the close-ups ultimately undermine the strength of the female character, neutralizing the power that she posses within the plot of the film and instead relegating her to role of a emotionally involved, but ultimately passive player.

"The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University conducts a broad interdisciplinary investigation of gender and sexuality as keys to understanding human experience."

"The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center at Penn, one of the oldest and most active programs of its kind in the country, supports Penn lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, staff, alumni, and faculty and increases the general Penn community’s understanding and acceptance of its sexual and gender minority members. Established in 1982, the Center provides a variety of services throughout the year for and concerning Penn's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community."

"Straayer (cinema studies, NYU) approaches feminist film theory from a queer (primarily lesbian) perspective, examining complex relationships between viewer and film while arguing for a rethinking of rigid sexual dichotomies. After studying mainstream, independent, and pornographic films, particularly those of Annie Sprinkle, Straayer posits multiple nonheterosexual, nonpatriarchal subjectivities for the way we view film, working toward a sexuality/gender continuum. Although the prose relies on deconstructionist terminology, determined readers will find Straayer's thesis compelling. A useful companion to Judith Butler's Gender Trouble (LJ 2/1/89) and Bad Object-Choices' How Do I Look? (LJ 2/1/92), this belongs in all film, gender, and queer studies collections." (Library Journal, 01/01/97, Vol. 122 Issue 1, p102-102)