Jeff Nichols’ film Mud will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 9th. Mud, which was well-reviewed in the pages of CraveOnline, is a well-put-together film that is part crime saga, part coming-of-age tale, and part outdoorsy riverboat adventure which may yet prove to be one of the best films of 2013.
In the film, Matthew McConaughey plays the mysterious title character, who convinces a pair of local boys to scrounge food and supplies for him while he hides out on a small island down river. The boys don’t know his crime, but they go along with his requests because he seems safe enough, and he is in need. We eventually learn that Mud is on the lam after committing a violent act, and has been hiding out near his would-be sweetheart (Reese Witherspoon) in the hopes of rekindling their romance.
Many scenes of the film are dominated by the romance that Mud is trying to create for himself. He (and the audience) sees his crime as a romantic gesture, and hopes for a poetic happily-ever-after.
The notion of the romantic fugitive is an ancient one, and it’s undeniably titillating for most audiences. Romance is all well and good, but it’s made all the more intense by an us-against-the-world attitude, leading to a loving isolation where your love is the only thing that is real. And what better way to show that your love is too pure for this world, than to live in a doomed, fiery crime spree? Where everyone is out to get you, and all the two of you need to do is continue to love, and defy everything by committing crimes?
In that spirit, here are nine notable fugitive romances from the movies. Some are killers, some are thieves, and all of them are intensely in love.
Fugitive Love Stories
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9. True Romance (dir. Tony Scott, 1993)
In what is probably Tony Scott's best film (working from a Quentin Tarantino screenplay), Christian Slater plays a pop-culture-obsessed, Elvis-worshiping hipster named Clarence who falls in love with a rockabilly hooker named Alabama played by Patricia Arquette. The two of them, in a bout of violent romantic resolve, steal a pile of cocaine, setting off an angry chain reaction within the local mob. More notable than the theft, however, is their intense, highly sexualized romance. These two, in that Tarantino way involving Elvis and kung-fu movies, were made for each other.
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8) Gun Crazy (dir. Joseph H. Lewis, 1950)
Peggy Cummins and John Dall play a married couple who both just happen to be experts with guns, but who refuse to shoot anything other than trickshot targets at their local carnival. That is until times become desperate, and the wife convinces her husband to use his gun skill for bank heists. Dark, cheap, and wonderful, Gun Crazy is one of those inimitable noir films that you'll never forget.
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7) the Living End (dir. Gregg Araki, 1992)
Gregg Araki's flip, nihilistic queer crime adventure pairs a gay hustler named Luke (Mike Dytri) with a film critic named Jon (Craig Gilmore) as they set out on the road, armed with the self-destructive slogan of “**** the world,” and healthy libidos. Their ultimate goal is to attack Washington DC, and raise awareness of HIV, which they have both contracted. The film is definitely sleazy, but you can't look away from the darkness.
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6) Wisdom (dir. Emilio Estevez, 1986)
Emilio Estevez wrote, directed, and stars in this Brat Pack road movie about Generation X's tough times in the mid 1980s. Estevez and Demi Moore play a pair of young lovers whose lives are stymied by bad economics and a faltering job market, and who make a political and moral statement by turning to a life of theft. They rob banks, and give the money to farmers. It's hard not to love Robin Hood types, especially when they're this cute.
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5) The Honeymoon Killers (dir. Leonard Kastle, 1969)
Based on a true story, Leonard Kastle's trashy low budget noir follows a suave Latino con man Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco) who teams up with his embittered fat girlfriend Martha Beck (the great Shirley Stoler) in a money-and-murder scheme that has him marrying rich women, and the two of them killing the women on their honeymoon. Ray and Martha's romance is tempestuous and baffling, and the film plays like a violent John Waters film. It's also a cult film everyone would benefit from seeing.
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4) Rope (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)
Inspired by the famous murders by Leopold and Loeb in 1924, Rope is about a pair of college roommates (played by Farley Granger and John Dall) who strangle a friend less out of spite and more as an intellectual exercise. While Hitchcock's attempt to make the film look like one unedited take was fascinating, the most notable thing is the clear romance between the two men. It's not explicit, but the two seem to be lovers, and snipe at each other as such. They look like they've known each other a long, long time.
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3) Natural Born Killers (dir. Oliver Stone, 1994)
In Oliver Stone's ultra-violent freakout, Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play Mickey and Mallory Knox, a pair of outright murderous psychopaths who cut a wide swath of blood and mayhem wherever they go. The violence is seen as a boon to their popularity, but also the central indicator of their romance. Born of abuse and violence at home, the pair has interpreted the violence inside of themselves as romantic intensity. No one can get through Natural Born Killers without being marked.
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2) Lolita (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1962)
Although not bank thieves or murderers, Humbert Humbert (James Mason) and his 12-year-old stepdaughter Dolores “Lolita” Haze (Sue Lyon) are most certainly getting away with something criminal. Based on one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and directed by one of cinema's great masters, Lolita is a pseudo-comedic musing on pedophilia, a satire of the weird intensity of most love stories, and a down-home road picture that just happens to involve criminal sexual acts.
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1) Bonnie and Clyde (dir. Arthur Penn, 1967)
The best-known and most often referred-to fugitive couple of all time, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow enacted a real-life modern-day crime saga for the ages. In Arthur Penn's classic film version of their story, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway up the sex and the romance to a degree that makes the two seem like the world's healthiest couple, young rogues who live in a world that is too perfect to survive. Their death scene is one of the greatest in cinema history.
