The Story of Bonnie and Clyde

The movie “Bonnie and Clyde” is a Netflix mini-series movie, which follows the timeline of real life criminal events committed by Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Bonnie and Clyde were notorious criminals for strings of crimes such as robbery, theft, and murders committed over a span of two years. The crimes Bonnie and Clyde committed described a variety of criminological theories including social learning theory, strain theory, and rational choice theory.

During the great depression "Shanty Towns" appears across the United States when unemployed people were evicted from their homes. The Depression worsened by the 1930s causing many americans to look to the government for help. When the government could not help anyone, president Herbert Hoover was blamed for the hard times. Hoover was also blamed for the "Shanty Towns" that popped up across the United States.

The Great Depression was a very influential era in American history, affecting many future generations. One of the most prevalent impacts it had on society was the extreme poverty that swept across the nation, affecting both people in cities and in the country. The main cause for this poverty was the mass loss of jobs among the middle class. Millions lost their jobs and consequently their homes. Families lived out of tents and cars in shanty towns or Hoovervilles. In these camps, many people didn’t have their basic human needs met, children and adults alike starved. They lived in clothes that were caked in dirt and tattered, too small for growing children and too cold for the frail elderly. Government relief programs attempted to help but offered little support to the now impoverished families of the millions that lost everything.

Herbert Hoover, the president in office when the Great Depression hit the country, did very little to ameliorate the devastating situation. Hoover underestimated the seriousness of the crisis, misdiagnosed the causes of the problems, and clung to his beliefs in individual achievement and self-help. His corrective measures, aimed at inflation and the federal budget, were thus damaging themselves. Furthermore, he hesitated to mobilize government resources to aid Americans and instead appealed to private groups to lend a hand (Encarta). Thus Hoover’s administration did little to mitigate the impact of the Depression.

After the Hoover years, however, a man portrayed as a father figure became some of the nation’s citizens’ only hope, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The middle-class, sometimes seen as hit the hardest by the Depression, pleaded with the Roosevelt administration for any help, but remained very proud in doing so. Many begged to remain anonymous. Also, like many other classes, the members of the middle-class didn’t want charity or handouts; they just wanted employment, or possibly a loan (pp. 53-4). No one took pride in having to write these letters. Many had to swallow their pride just to get pen to paper. “It is very humiliating for me to have to write to you” one Depression victim wrote (pp. 62). Middle-class citizens, like the rural citizens, wanted nothing less than the blacks to take their employment (pp. 94). The rural citizens also turned to the Roosevelt administration as a beacon of hope. The cherished the values of independence and hard work, so they asked only for employment or a loan (pp. 69). Their ideal solution to this economic terror was employment, as a result. They weren’t satisfied with the outcome of the relief though. They believed the relief was just creating ‘loafers’ out of the unemployed who choose not to work (pp. 125). They felt that Roosevelt should “give work to the needy ones, and not to the ones that have everything” (pp. 138). The rural citizens felt slightly forgotten, but not as forgotten as some

All the unemployment caused many to live in poverty. This poverty caused many to make makeshift houses. Some even made neighborhood. One of the worst cases of these were known as Hoovervilles. One of the most famous images of one of these hoovervilles was

The Depression changed social structure in America forever. “The real story of the 1930’s is how individual families endured and survived, whether battling the despair of hunger and unemployment in the city of the fear of unending drought and forced migration in the dust bowl of the Great plains.” (Press, Petra pg 6)

During the Great Depression most citizens went through hardship.Many citizens became homeless and were called hobos. Hobos are homeless vagrants who wandered in search of work. They were mainly the farmers that lost their land and people whose banks shut down. During this time over two million people rode the rails because it was one of the main ways to travel long distance. The homeless built shanty towns and called them Hoovervilles. They were called Hoovervilles because their President

In 1929, the United States stock market crashed, causing the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, many Americans were starving, homeless, and struggling with unemployment issues. By the mid-1930s, unemployment had reached twenty-five percent in the United States, forcing many Americans to live and sleep in shanty towns commonly referred to as “Hoovervilles.”. Based on the letters to FDR, we can assume that many American families still faced unemployment and eviction issues. Within a letter wrote to FDR by an individual know only by the initials of C.L.F., they state, “The realtors are putting the people out when they

In Cinderella Man, James Braddock and his family demonstrate that the Great Depression was a tough time of unemployment and bankruptcy. On October Twenty Ninth, Nineteen Twenty Nine, the stock market crashed, leaving millions of the United States with little, to no money left in their pockets. Not only that, but the employment rate went up to twenty five percent, making it difficult for poverty-stricken people to find well needed jobs. It was challenging for anyone to provide for their family or put food on the table everyday. Many families ended up in “hoovervilles,” which were shantytowns that accommodated the homeless. Most hoovervilles were particularly dangerous. In relation, James Braddock in Cinderella Man, loses his children once the Great Depression hits, because he can not afford to keep them fed and cared for. James and his family has to move to a poor neighborhood because he could no longer afford his house. To try and provide for his family and find income, James Braddock works at the docks where only a few men get picked each day to do strenuous work for low amounts of money. He pursues the job, even with a

“The fact that the story is set 35 years ago doesn't mean a thing. It had to be set sometime. But it was made now and it's about us.” – Roger Ebert 1

The 1920s seemed to promise a future of a new and wonderful way of life for America and its citizens . Modern science, evolving cultural norms, industrialization, and even jazz music heralded exciting opportunities and a future that only pointed up toward a better life. However, cracks in the facade started to show, and beginning with the stock market crash of 1929 the wealth of the country, and with it the hopes and expectations of its people, began to slip away. The Great Depression left a quarter of the population unemployed and much of the rest destitute and uncertain of what the future held. Wealth vanished, people took their money out of banks, and plans were put on hold. The most significant way in which the Great Depression affected Americans’ everyday lives was through poverty because it tore relationships apart and damaged the spirit of society while unexpectedly bringing families together in unity.

     With the continually worsening conditions, and the stock market crash on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the United States was thrown into the biggest economical disaster of our history. Everyone, excluding the rich upper class, became poor and most unemployed. The majority of the American populace found themselves living in ‘shantytowns’ or ‘Hoovervilles’ as they later became to be known, which consisted of many cramped shacks constructed from whatever was available. This meant old burnt-out cars, cardboard boxes, random pieces of lumber, and anything else that people could find. Times truly were tough. It was a daily

The Bonnie and Clyde film does promote the life of an armed robber or law breaker in many ways, through the costumes, makeup, props, music and the film production. making bonnie and Clyde seem like Robin Hood during the great depression in the film. committing violent crime sprees across the country. Going after banks that are taking away the homes of many that can’t afford it.

In this analysis of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), I will examine the greater impact of jump cuts to emphasize how they intensify emotion as well as manipulate the timing of the story. Jump cuts were used in this movie to help showcase the anxiety and danger that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow experienced throughout their career. Because Bonnie and Clyde is known for scenes of criminal violence, which can be agitating and chaotic, jump cuts helped to amplify the uncertainty of these scenes more effectively than any other technique would have been able to.