What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If, last night, you were having trouble getting to sleep around two in the morning, you could have turned over to HBO and watched the 2015 British gangster film, Legend.
Tom Hardy is Reggie Kray. Arrogant, handsome, charming, and dangerous to know, Reggie is a club owner who is also an up-and-coming gangster in 1960s London. Scotland Yard has him under surveillance. The East End both fears and respects him. American gangsters want to do business with him.
Tom Hardy is also Ronny Kray! Ronny is the ugly twin, the one who lives in a trailer and has just been released from a psychiatric institution. Ronny is openly gay at a time when that was still illegal in the UK. Driven by jealousy of Reggie and a desire to prove himself superior to everyone who has ever judged or looked down on him, Ronny is determined to make sure that he and his brother become the top gangsters in London.
Together …. they solve crimes!
No, actually, they do the exact opposite. They commit a lot of crimes. Ronny is willing to shoot anyone in the head. Reggie tries to be a bit more respectable. He even attempts to run a legitimate nightclub. Reggie understand that sometimes, the threat of violence is more effective than violence itself. Reggie and Ronny are about as close as siblings can be, even if they do spend a lot of time beating each other up.
Frances Shea (Emily Browning) is the sister of Reggie’s driver, Frankie (Colin Morgan). She’s sixteen when she meets and falls in love with Reggie Kray. Reggie loves her too and he even marries her. (Of course, he has to do a stint in prison first.) Reggie swears to Frances that he’s going to go straight and that they’re going to have a normal life. Deep down, Frances know that will never happen so, while her husband and brother-in-law conquer London, she copes with pills. Lots and lots of pills.
For an American viewer like myself, British gangster films are always fun to watch because they’re just as violent as American gangster films but, at the same time, everyone’s always dressed impeccably and stopping in the middle of all the mayhem to have a cup of tea. Legend is based on a true story, which turns out to be both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. On the one hand, it’s fascinating to see the film’s recreation of London in the early 60s. On the other hand, the film never convinces us that we should really care about the Krays. This isn’t a case where, like the Corleones, the Krays are tragic figures who can’t escape their destiny. Tom Hardy does a great job playing Reggie and he’s an adequate Ronny but you can never quite escape the feeling that the two brothers are just — to use one of their own preferred insults — two wankers who aren’t really worth all the trouble. This is a film that you watch and you ask yourself, “Why should we care?” Beyond the novelty of the Krays being twins, the film really can’t provide an answer.
Still, I happen to be fascinated by the early 60s so I enjoyed the film as a historical recreation. Legend isn’t a bad film. It’s just somewhat underwhelming.
For those who recognize the name, it’s probably because they’ve either read a book or seen a film that portrayed him as being the tyrannical captain of the HMS Bounty. In 1787, William Bligh and the Bounty set off on a mission to Tahiti. When, after ten months at sea, the Bounty arrived in Tahiti, the crew immediately fell in love with the relaxed pleasures of island life. When Bligh ordered them to leave Tahiti and continue with their mission, his own second-in-command led a mutiny. Bligh and the few men who remained loyal to him were set adrift in a lifeboat while Christian and the mutineers eventually ended up settling on Pitcairn Island. Against impossible odds, Bligh managed to make it back to civilization, where he faced both a court-martial and a future of being portrayed as a villain.
Though most historians agree that Bligh was a knowledgeable and talented (if strict) captain and that the mutiny had more to do with Christian’s desire to remain in Tahiti than Bligh’s treatment of the crew, most adaptations of what happened on the Bounty have laid the blame for the mutiny squarely at Bligh’s feet. Personally, I think it has to do with the names of the people involved. William Bligh just sounds evil, in much the same way that the name Fletcher Christian immediately brings to mind images of heroism. In 1935’s Mutiny On The Bounty, Charles Laughton portrayed Bligh as being a viscous sadist. In 1962’s Mutiny in the Bounty, Trevor Howard portrayed Bligh as being an overly ambitious martinet, though ultimately Howard was overshadowed by Marlon Brando, who gave a bizarrely mannered performance in the role Christian.
In fact, it would seem that there’s only one film that’s willing to give William Bligh the benefit of the doubt. That film is 1984’s The Bounty.
The Bounty opens with Bligh (played by Anthony Hopkins) facing a court-martial for losing the Bounty. That the admiral presiding over Bligh’s court-martial is played by Laurence Olivier is significant for two reasons. Olivier’s stately and distinguished presence lets us know that the mutiny was viewed as being an affront to British society but it also reminds us that Hopkins began his career as Olivier’s protegé. Much as how William Bligh was a star of the British navy, Hopkins was (and is) a star of British stage and screen. One gets the feeling the scene isn’t just about the admiral judging Bligh. It was also about Olivier judging Hopkins as the latter played a role that had already been made famous by two other great British thespians, Charles Laughton and Trevor Howard.
By opening with Bligh on trial, The Bounty allows itself to be told largely through Bligh’s point of view. We watch familiar events play out from a new perspective. Once again, it takes longer than expected for Bligh and the Bounty to reach Tahiti and, once again, Bligh’s by-the-book leadership style alienates a good deal of the crew. However, this time, Bligh is not portrayed as being a villain. Instead, he’s just a rather neurotic man who is trying to do his duty under the most difficult of circumstances. Bligh knows that the crew blames him for everything that goes wrong during the voyage but he also knows that the only way their going to survive the journey is through maintaining order.
In fact, the film suggests that Bligh’s biggest mistake was promoting Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson) to second-in-command. Christian is portrayed as being good friends with Bligh and one gets the feeling that Bligh promoted him largely so he would have someone to talk to.
The film does a good job contrasting the dank claustrophobia of the Bounty with the vibrant beauty of Tahiti. When the crew first lands, Bligh proves his diplomatic skills upon meeting with the native king. However, it quickly becomes apparent that, while Bligh views the stop in Tahiti as just being a part of the mission, the majority of the crew view it as being an escape from the dreariness of their lives in Britain. For the first time in nearly a year, the crew is allowed to enjoy life. When Bligh eventually orders the crew to leave Tahti, many of the men — including Christian — are forced to abandon their native wives.
Unfortunately for Bligh, he doesn’t understand that his crew has no desire to return to the dreariness of their old life, either on the Bounty or in the United Kingdom. Bligh’s solution to the crew’s disgruntlement is to become an even harsher disciplinarian. (Bligh is the type of captain who will order the crew to clean the ship, just to keep them busy.) However, Bligh no longer has Christian backing him. When the inevitable mutiny does occur, Bligh seems to be the only one caught by surprise.
Anthony Hopkins gives a performance that turns Bligh into a character who is, in equal amounts, both sympathetic and frustrating. Bligh means well but he’s so rigid and obsessed with his duty that he can’t even being to comprehend why his crew is so annoyed about having to leave Tahiti. Since Bligh can’t imagine ever loving anything more than sailing, it’s beyond his abilities to understand why his men are so obsessed with returning to Tahiti. Hopkins portrays Bligh as being not evil but instead, rather isolated. He knows everything about sailing but little about emotion or desire. Ironically, the same personality traits that led to him losing the Bounty are also key to his survival afterward. By enforcing discipline and emphasizing self-sacrifice, Bligh keeps both himself and the men who stayed loyal to him alive until their eventual rescue.
Interestingly, Mel Gibson portrayed Christian as being just as neurotic as Bligh. In fact, if Bligh and Christian have anything in common, it would appear to be they’re both obsessed with what the crew thinks of them. Whereas Bligh is obsessed with being respected, Christian wants to be viewed as their savior. When the mutiny finally occurs, Christian gets an almost messianic gleam in his eyes. While Christian is not portrayed as being a villain (and, indeed, The Bounty is unique in not having any cut-and-dried villains and heroes), Gibson’s portrayal is certainly far different from the heroic interpretation offered up by Clark Gable.
(The rest of the cast is full of familiar British character actors, along with a few future stars making early appearances. Both Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson appear as members of the Bounty’s crew. One remains loyal to Bligh while the other goes with Christian. Watch the movie to find out who does what!)
The Bounty is best viewed as being a character study of two men trying to survive under the most trying of conditions. Just as Bligh’s personality made both the mutiny and his survival inevitable, the film suggests that everything that made Christian a successful mutineer will also make it impossible for him to survive for long afterward. Whereas Bligh may have been a poor leader but a good diplomat, Christian proves to be just the opposite and the king of Tahiti makes clear that he has no room on his island for a bunch of mutineers who will soon have the entire British navy looking for them. Whereas Bligh makes it back to Britain, Christian and the mutineers are forced to leave Tahiti a second time and end up settling on the previously uncharted Pitcairn Island. (Of course, no one knows for sure what happened to Christian after the mutineers reached Pitcairn Island. The last surviving mutineer claimed that Christian was murdered by the natives who were already living on the island.)
The Bounty has its flaws. There are some pacing issues that keep the film from working as an adventure film and a few of the actors playing the crew aren’t quite as convincing as you might hope. (If you only saw him in this film, you would never believe that Daniel Day-Lewis is a three-time Oscar winner.) But it’s still an interesting retelling of a familiar story and it’s worth watching for the chance to see one of Anthony Hopkins’s best performances.
Despite the fact that it was nominated for best picture and marked the start of his fantastically successful collaboration with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese’s 2002 film Gangs of New York does not have the best reputation. It always seems to be regarded as one of Scorsese’s lesser films and, often times, both The Aviator and The Departedare described as representing a comeback of sorts from Gangs.
To a certain extent, I have to agree. Gangs of New York is a lesser Scorsese movie but then again, a lesser Scorsese film is still a hundred times better than the greatest films from Brett Ratner or Michael Bay.
The flaws of Gangs of New York are many. The film, which tells the epic story of how an Irish gang led by Leonard DiCaprio battled a nativist gang led by Daniel Day-Lewis in Civil War-era New York City, runs for nearly 3 hours and yet it somehow still feels rushed and incomplete. Cameron Diaz is far too contemporary of an actress to be truly believable as a 19th century pickpocket. For that matter, Leonardo DiCaprio gives one of the worst performances of his career, coming across as being one-note and shrill. If you only knew DiCaprio from his work in Gangs of New York, you would have a hard time believing that he was capable of doing the type of work that he did in Inception or The Wolf of Wall Street.
And yet, Gangs of New York is one of those flawed films that I can’t help but enjoy.
First off, on a purely personal level, how can I not love a film about how terribly the Irish were treated in the 19th Century? Seriously, the Irish were regarded as if they were somehow subhuman. They were attacked for being Catholic. They were viewed as being criminals. An entire freaking political party — the American party — was formed specifically to keep the Irish out. But you know what? We Irish kept coming, we kept fighting for our rights, and now everyone wishes they could be one of us!
Secondly, and this should not a shock when you consider that the film was directed by Martin Scorsese, the film looks absolutely gorgeous! Despite the fact that it’s takes place in a 19th century slum and most of the characters are poor, Gangs of New York is a visual feast. I loved the ornate sets and all the colorful clothes. I loved the attention to detail that was put into everything.
(My favorite visual from the film: Daniel Day-Lewis and his entourage walking down a street while fireworks explode directly over Day-Lewis’s shoulder.)
Third, there’s Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as Bill “The Butcher” Cutting. One reason why DiCaprio’s performance is so noticeably bad is because he’s acting opposite Day-Lewis. Sporting a handle-bar mustache and speaking in an almost satirically exaggerated New York accent, Day-Lewis turns Bill into one cinema’s greatest villains.
Add to that, the great Italian actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice show up for a few minutes, playing Simon Legree in a theatrical production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin! Scorsese should make more films with Radice.
But, perhaps the main reason why I enjoy Gangs of New York is because, as I’ve mentioned so many times in the past, I really am a big history nerd. And Gangs of New York deals with a period in American history that really doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves. While we all know that the Civil War started when the South seceded from the union, what is often forgotten is that the North was not united in their support of Abraham Lincoln and the Union. In fact, the Mayor of New York, Fernando Wood, was such a strong supporter of the Confederacy that he, at one point, suggested that New York City should secede from the union as well. And when Lincoln instituted the draft, NYC — and several other cities in the north — exploded into riots.
Of course, Gangs of New York is not a 100% historically accurate. For one thing, it compresses the time frame of the draft riots and — as films often do — it downplays the culture of Northern racism and instead portrays racists like Bill Cutting as being the exception to the rule. But, even with that in mind, Gangs of New York still serves as a good starting point for those who want to learn more about American history than what they’ve been told in school.
My favorite parts of Gangs of New York dealt not with how the gangs fought each other but instead how the gangs were used as political foot soldiers. One of the major supporting characters in Gangs of New York is William “Boss” Tweed (Jim Broadbent), a real-life politician who was at the center of one of America’s first major political scandals. When we first meet Tweed, he is using Bill Cutting’s gang to fix elections. However, as the film progresses, Tweed comes to realize that the political future of New York rests with the Irish. So, Tweed starts using the Irish gang to fix elections. For those of us who are into political history, the Boss Tweed scenes are a lot of fun.
Gangs of New York has its flaws. It’s the type of project that, if it were made today, it would probably be a series on HBO and it would win all sorts of awards. (Actually, it did kinda. It was called Boardwalk Empire.) It’s not perfect, but I like it.
Through the Shattered Lens 