Wanda

I’m thankful I did some research into Loden as a one-time director and saw the criterion published reflection directly before actually watching this movie. I’m surprised few have made comparisons to Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel (or most of Wolfe applied to a project like this as a sort of precursor to JD Vance that didn’t patronize the shit out of everyone involved and didn’t suck absolute donkey ass) in context of Loden’s life or the film. It’s unquestionably worth listening to Loden’s critique of Bonnie and Clyde prior to viewing, as unambiguously invaluable an insight as ex-husband Elia Kazan’s notes on the film that provide a great deal of psychological expose into Loden’s directorial point-of-view. Read and watch for yourself; you can dissect and contextualize it to pieces. There’s so much going on here. I’m coming back to this to write a more thorough review and go over it again.