The film Bonnie and Clyde is based off one of the most notorious criminal duos during the Great Depression. There is a lot of distinct ideological features within the film that gives the viewer an idea of what it was like to live during that time period as well as some of the values held by those who lived through it.
Bonnie and Clyde took place during what was called the "public enemy era" in which committing crime was valued due to the hardships of living during that time. The film is able to depict this while exploring the consequences of this violent lifestyle. The duo starts off just doing petty crimes, but eventually expand their crew and start robbing big banks and killing off law enforcement or anyone else who gets in their way. Their
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They are either living a boring and uneventful life or they are poor and face many hardships. The protagonist Bonnie is a clear representation of the first depiction. Before she gets involved with Clyde she was apparently a waitress and lived in a house by herself. She didn't seem to find anything interesting about this life which Clyde was able to immediately see. In the scene where Clyde talks her into joining up with him it is easy to decipher how uninterested she was with her previous life by the look on her face. This is shown even more when she gets into the habit of committing crime and seems to go through a personality change in the process. Clyde himself had a somewhat boring life as well. While he was robbing people he didn't see much of a purpose in it until he formed the Barrow Gang. So basically Bonnie and Clyde's life of crime started from the lack of value and excitement in their previous lives which is a reflection of how people lived during that time. An example of the second way in which people's lives are depicted is the scene where Bonnie and Clyde meet two farmers whose property has been taken away from them by the bank. They then go to the bank itself which also appears to have been shut down because of lack of funds. Another is example in a later scene when Bonnie and Clyde are injured that go to a group of people on the side of the road who seem to be living without a home