“To Bring Home the Quality of Violence”
After Bonnie and Clyde opened in August 1967, controversy raged in the media over its visceral scenes of violence. Director Arthur Penn (1922–2010) later related the film’s explicit brutality to the Vietnam War. “In 1967, the quality of our long-distance violence was affecting everybody and especially the youth of the country,” he stated. “It seemed to me that it was responsible to bring home the quality of violence.” Superimposing President Johnson (1908–1973) and his wife onto a publicity still from the film, this poster satirically associated them with that violence and the film’s gangsterism.
After <em>Bonnie and Clyde</em> opened in August 1967, controversy raged in the media over its visceral scenes of violence. Director Arthur Penn (1922–2010) later related the film’s explicit brutality to the Vietnam War. “In 1967, the quality of our long-distance violence was affecting everybody and especially the youth of the country,” he stated. “It seemed to me that it was responsible to bring home the quality of violence.” Superimposing President Johnson (1908–1973) and his wife onto a publicity still from the film, this poster satirically associated them with that violence and the film’s gangsterism.