Movies

Bonnie and Clyde Ultimate Collector's Edition
Rated PG-13
Warner Brothers

It's almost impossible to list the many movies that owe a debt to Bonnie and Clyde. Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction does. Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers unquestionably does. I would even argue that this stylish bank robber saga, nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 1968, paved the way for violent films like The Departed and No Country for Old Men to steal Academy Awards of their own.

With the gunfire-fueled classic celebrating its 40th anniversary and capturing new attention courtesy of Mark Harris' book, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, Warner Bros. could not have picked a better time to release a Bonnie and Clyde Ultimate Collector's Edition ($40, now available). Happily, that box set — which comes with two DVDs, a photo book and a recreation of the original press kit, all dolled up with glossy packaging and striking images — looks as sharp as one of Faye Dunaway's famously fashionable berets.

Virtually every member of the Bonnie and Clyde gang reemerges for the DVD's hour-long documentary, Revolution! The Making of Bonnie and Clyde: Producer and star Warren Beatty, Dunaway, Gene Hackman, director Arthur Penn, even Morgan Fairchild, who was Dunaway's double. All share candid stories about bringing this controversial take on the notorious Texas bank robbers to the big screen

Among other things, we learn that Beatty and Penn routinely argued, actor Michael J. Pollard consumed way too many hamburgers while filming one scene and co-screenwriter Robert Benton, so certain he would win the Oscar that year, stood up when the award was announced, only to realize the screenplay for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner had triumphed instead. The documentary is easily the highlight of the collection, which also includes a 1994 A&E special on the real Bonnie and Clyde, Beatty's wardrobe tests and a pair of deleted scenes that must be watched with subtitles, as the audio was never recovered.

The film itself looks as spectacular as ever, though the experience would have been enhanced by a commentary track from some of the players who participated in the Revolution! doc. But the biggest surprise about Bonnie and Clyde is how relevant the movie feels more than four decades later. The smattering of bullets that closes the film — or, as Benton describes it, "a masterpiece of a ballet of death" — remains shockingly elegant. And the movie still makes us care about our two heroes, young, misguided lovers brazen enough to steal from the very Depression-era institutions that are ousting America's poor from their homes. In the story, as the famous poem says, it's death for Bonnie and Clyde. But for Bonnie and Clyde the movie — which gets a DVD upgrade at a moment when the U.S. faces another economic downturn — there is still plenty of life.

Best Bonus Point Trivia: Beatty earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination for his turn as Clyde Barrow. But he originally envisioned someone else in the role: Bob Dylan.

Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains
Rated PG
Sony

Jonathan Demme's documentary Jimmy Carter Man From Plains falls somewhere between overlong and compelling as it follows the 39th president promoting his controversial book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, in 2006. The movie views Carter two ways: through the prism of the international media during this firestorm and through the eyes of an admirer allowed to watch Carter do things like bless his food at home, in Georgia, with his wife, Rosalynn.

Most of the film appears to have been done on the fly with a digital video camera. Some of the shot-making is muddy, but Demme is more interested in creating an impressionistic profile than crafting a work of aesthetic beauty. Throughout, he practices reverence without completely succumbing to hagiography — although exasperated supporters of Israel may beg to differ. Some of them, like Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who figures prominently as a vociferous critic of Carter, manage to come off reasonably OK. Demme is, in fact, fair.

The movie's best material is archival. The film has an extensive passage featuring the Camp David peace accords Carter brokered in 1978 between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. It looks like old home movie stuff, but you can still feel its monumentality. The Israeli leader's warm embrace, first of Carter, then of his Egyptian enemy, is touching — until it becomes heartbreaking, since Carter (or anyone else) doesn't seem close to pulling off a similar miracle today.

Extras: Additional scenes, director's commentary, featurette on soundtracking recording session.