ABSTRACT
When we see the grimacing and posturing in Eisenstein films, it is hard not to laugh, and still harder not to laugh when one realizes all this was once claimed to be real and true. What we are amused at is the conventions. The Great Train Robbery, the first western, made in 1905, is also ludicrous; perhaps in fifty years Shane will be too. As of now, it is splendidly sinister when Jack Palance rides into town dressed in black; the mud street and lowering sky convince us that that is how it must have been. Or are we being simplistic and naive? How real is Bonnie and Clyde ? Or, again, how unreal is Bonnie and Clyde ? Or are the categories of real and unreal as much red herrings with Bonnie and Clyde as with other works of art?
