Ok we see Bonnie and Clyde in bed. They start to make out and Bonnie starts to go down on Clyde as she is about to give him oral sex maybe and then we see her disappointed and later she says that "Atlease I dont lie"
What exactly happened there? Is this that she noticed that Clyde's penis is not erect or any other thing because She reacted after going down on Clyde's pants and why she said that "Atlease I dont lie"
I think in 1966/67 when the film was made and released, having a fully clothed woman "go down" on a fully clothed man was maybe the best they could do in terms of explicitness. There are rumours that Clyde was impotent - some say as a result of being repeatedly raped in prison - but in Go Down Together (no pun intended) which I think is the BIBLE of all things Clyde/Bonnie related, the argument is put that there is actually no evidence of this.
The movie, which, although it is a wonderful piece of work, played fast and loose with the truth, seems to take the impotence angle as beyond question and depicts Clyde thus all the way through.
It's just another fascinating layer of a fascinating tale - Bonnie couldn't have children, she wore her a wedding band from a youthful, short-lived marriage all her life (including when she died) and Clyde may or may not have been impotent. It all serves to give their relationship a very enigmatic sheen.
I think I disagree that the movie depicts Clyde as impotent "all the way through" the movie. I recently watched the TCM broadcast, and there's a scene toward the end of the movie where Bonnie and Clyde are in a field, probably with a picnic lunch. Bonnie appears to be adjusting her clothes as Clyde asks, "how was I?" Bonnie replies, "you were just fine" or something similar, and Clyde sits up and says, "yeah, I guess I was pretty good, at that." I inferred from the scene that they had just had sex for the first time, though other inferences are possible.
shareThey did finally consumate the relationship at the end of the movie. The filmmakers added in Clyde's initial impotence to show that the relationship of the Bonnie and Clyde characters was not only based on sexual attraction.
Bonnie relishes the escape and excitement that Clyde provides her. When he tells Bonnie that any man would sleep with her, but only he sees how special she is, Bonnie is swept off her feet. Clyde is able to sleep with Bonnie after she writes the poem, an act of love and devotion. In the poem, Bonnie paints Clyde as a sympathetic person who is continually mistreated by the police and who has no choice but to rob. Clyde loves Bonnie because she sees him this way and because she helps other people see him this way.
So the Bonnie/Clyde relationship is based primarily on the couple's ability to alleviate each other's boredom and on the fact that they see somthing in each other that no one else sees. Which is really sweet and really vain, as love tends to be.
Infinity8-
Really beautifully said.
I haven't read a full biography of the two, but from various things I have read, I always thought Clyde was in fact gay, and the relationship between the two wasn't a sexual one so much as an infatuation and the fact that they fed each other's fantasies.
I know the trivia for this film says the role of Clyde was originally written as "bisexual" and that Penn (the director) baulked at that because he felt it would make the character just too unsympathetic in the audience's eyes. I don't assume that trivia entries are always factual, and I have no idea myself whether it's true or not, but there are moments in the dialogue - such as the one the OP quotes - that certainly seem to fit the idea that Clyde's sexual interests lay elsewhere, and don't really make sense without it.
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
But Clyde also says he doesn't like boys, so he *would* be a liar if the character was supposed to be gay. From all their interactions in the movie I felt like Clyde really wouldn't lie to Bonnie; however, I've also read that Clyde was originally written as bisexual, so maybe some of his dialogue was meant to hint at that but wasn't changed for the final screenplay.
shareNewman and Benton's script originally called for a menage a trois between Clyde, Bonnie and C.W. but Beatty vetoed that since it would have been difficult for the audience to identify with the characters. Beatty called Towne in for a rewrite and making Clyde impotent was substituted. Beatty and Towne were (perhaps still are) friends but Robert Towne was always miffed at Warren for not receiving a co-writing credit.
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