Hand Over Fist Productions, LLC
When first approached, I'd believed this film and I would be ill-matched. Not only had I seen and admired the classic version of Bonnie and Clyde's tale, my movie-based understanding of their journey did not resonate with me on any profound level.
Their true story, however (brought to me by writer-actor Dixie Sedgwick), proved to be quite different: in dark times, two lost souls whose perceptions locked them into disastrously limited choices determine to be loving and -- however mistaken their vision -- heroic.
In days when banks could steal a man's farm and legally machine-gun down laborers for asking a living wage, the line between Good Guys and Bad was far less clear. And, in my book, the dignity, the courage behind the struggle to do one's best (win or lose) is always a story worth the telling.
After researching the lives of Bonnie and Clyde; interviews with the Barrow/Parker families, historians and authors, I was hooked, and knew from the beginning the real story must be told, without the hype or glamour or spin. I wrote a play called "Bonnie Parker" it toured, won an award, was critically acclaimed and ran Off Broadway in 2005.
My desire was not to glamorize or glorify Bonnie and Clyde's tragic lives, but instead examine closely who these people really were and why they made the choices they did. It's truly a fascinating account about two people who take drastic measures to settle a score, knowing in the end, it would cost them their lives. The actual account is radically more complex and there-in lies the revelation.
The Classic film was never meant to be a historical account, it attests more to the zeitgeist of the late 1960's, of violent public rebellion. The classic Bonnie and Clyde is a ground-breaking film in cinema history and is regarded as the first of it's kind in the New Hollywood era. I respect the work and admire the trailblazing path Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty chose to take. I'm determined to do the same thing in my own way.
This short film is a precursor to the feature currently in development.
Bonnie & Clyde - End of the Line takes place in 1933. The challenge of producing a short film that’s a period piece is exactly that: to artfully capture the details of the time, so that the limitations of a micro-budget don’t detract from the power of the story.
I knew, from the beginning, that the location was a make-or-break element of the production. And it quickly became obvious that I wasn’t going to find a period-perfect barn-- looking like it existed in the early 1930’s and not a minute after-- for no cost.
However, due to our generous and visionary financiers, a sympathetic, hardworking location agent and film-friendly movie ranch, we secured the ideal environment: a weathered barn set in a dusty valley, surrounded by scrub brush. It was a visual gem. And the setting itself became a character in the film.
Our director, Elaine Zicree, desired a Rembrandt lighting style to offset the intense drama, and the structure lent itself perfectly to the mood. Cinematographer Massimiliano Trevis and his crew used minimal lighting and skillful Steadicam choreography to create stunning visuals, ranging from the golden glow of a hay-strewn barn, to orange-limned twilight to the blue-black of nighttime, perfectly mirroring the depth of emotion expressed in the powerful scene.
The pieces added up to an impressive result, due to the dedication of a visionary production crew. The details came together, just as I’d dreamed, to believably evoke the period in which our story is told.