Arthur Penn has died

I remember the first time I saw Bonnie and Clyde. It was clearly an adult film, grown up, intelligent and different. I had to think about what I was watching - I had to use my head to hold the narrative together in my mind while the visuals held my attention like nothing I had ever seen before. It was something totally fresh and I knew I'd grown up. I had the same sort of feeling with Midnight Cowboy and Badlands - but Bonnie and Clyde was different. A totally alien world - but I understood it - that's the beauty of film. I've always thought that cinema was the only really great American art form - a brand new culture with no past of it's own creating it's own masterpieces with a new medium. There is just as much genius, wonder and beauty in The Last Picture Show and anything in the Louvre.

Arthur Penn  only directed one other film I liked - Little Big Man, a rambling epic with Faye Dunaway again and Dustin Hoffman - but he really didn't need to prove anything else - Bonnie and Clyde was magnificent.