New Hollywood Movies: Bonnie And Clyde And Easy Rider

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The New Hollywood era took place during the late 1960s and it represented change from musicals and movies that focused on history to a focus on realism. Realism was best shown through location shooting, filming with portable cameras, off set. It helped to better capture realistic scenes. These new movies were meant to capture the attention of the youth and thus focused on sexual freedom, and anti-establishment political themes. With the end of the production code, movies were allowed to contain violence, sex, and other similar acts that had been previously outlawed. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969) are two prominent, gangster style, western movies during the New Hollywood era and most certainly captured the youth audience that…show more content…
In one of the first robberies that we see, Clyde kills a police officer because as Buck puts it, “it was either you [Clyde] or him [the police officer].” Clyde also blames his killing of the police officer on C.W. because he mistakenly parked their getaway car and then struggles to pull out of the parking spot that he had been waiting in. Once, while on the run they encounter a Texas ranger who tries to subdue them. He spits in Bonnie’s face and in response Clyde and Buck tackle, beat, and send to the middle of a lake tied up in boat the ranger. Their justification for this was that the Texas ranger violated Bonnie and they felt he deserved to be punished in the manner he was. The most violent scene takes place in the final minutes of the film when Bonnie and Clyde are shot to death. The shooting lasts for an exceptional amount time and and surplus of bullets is sprayed upon Bonnie and Clyde. Even once they were dead, bullets continued to be fired. This was justified for those who killed them and perceived as justified by those who heard about it because Bonnie and Clyde were considered high class criminals who needed to be stopped. In Free Rider, while in jail, Wyatt and Billy are told by George Hanson that he can get them out of jail as long as they had not killed a white man. This shows that violence and persecution directed towards African Americans was still allowed. Later, Wyatt, Billy, and George are also against. One night while sleeping they were surprised and attacked; George was killed. This was perceived as justified by conforming Americans because it was said that they feared the freedom that the three of of them represented. Wyatt and Billy are later killed for the same reason in a drive by shooting. The drivers wanted to scare them and accidentally killed Billy and a a result, killed Wyatt too. There is reasoning for
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