Page 1 of 2
Bronson continued to make the U.S. festival circuit after opening in the UK earlier this year. Upon its American theatrical release, director Nicolas Winding Refn sat down to discuss his unusual biopic. Charlie Bronson is the alter ego of Michael Peterson, someone he decided to be once he was already in prison. The film features Bronson performing in front of a theater audience and directly addressing the camera as he tells the story of how he got himself locked up in solitary confinement.
Crave Online: How did you come up with the visual representation of Bronson talking to us as an audience?
Nicolas Winding Refn: Because you’re making a movie about a guy in solitary confinement, which is very tricky. Then you can take a route which is all about in a cell, but that wasn’t the wisest thing I felt. I wanted to make it almost like this was a stage performance. A guy would come on stage and he would talk about his life and then you would visualize that. That’s kind of the structure of the film. Then I always wanted to make a Kenneth Anger movie. You could say that Bronson is a combination of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome and Scorpio Rising.
Crave Online: Is there a cinematic convention that in the movie, he is much more sophisticated and articulate than I imagine a convict would be in real life?
Nicolas Winding Refn: Well, he’s quite a clever man. If he had not gone to prison, he would probably be one of the biggest ad executives out of England, because he’s very clever. Basically, the guy was able to create his own mythology. I wasn’t making a biopic of Michael Peterson. I had no interest in making a biopic. I wanted to make a movie about the transformation of becoming Charlie Bronson, which is this larger than life concept, brand out of the UK that represents anti-authority.
Crave Online: Is his level of comfort between prison, outside life and being on stage based on research about him?
Nicolas Winding Refn: No. I did not do any research on him and I never met him. I didn’t meet any of his family members because I didn’t want to make a biopic. I wanted to make my own interpretation of the transformation because that’s what I found interesting. It probably has to do with my own life. I mean, Bronson is probably the closest I’ll ever do to making a biography. But structure-wise, it was divided up in three sections. The first section was him on stage talking about his life, wanting us to see how he wanted his life to be perceived. He’s very articulate, he’s very flamboyant, he’s very open, all those things as you are in your mind as you perceive. Second act, he’s released. 69 days. You actually get to see his difficulties relating to the outside world. He’s like a Hans Christian Anderson figure. He’s like a tin soldier walking around in the world that he doesn’t understand and can’t relate to. He’s too emotional for anything. He meets a girl, he falls in love with her. He doesn’t understand that there’s different agendas or love can be different things. For him, it’s all primal. He’s very primal in that sense. The third act is basically now the audience seeing Charlie from their point of view. The movie shifts into that degree. That’s why in the end he fully transforms himself into the Charlie Bronson brand.
Crave Online: How did you find Tom Hardy for the role? How difficult was it for him to do?
Nicolas Winding Refn: Well, Tom was kind of an interesting choice because first we met and we didn’t like each other. We met in a wine bar in London and he’s an ex-alcoholic and I don’t drink alcohol. It was like it couldn’t have gone worse. I was like, “It’s not going to work.” I’m sure he found me very arrogant and he went off to do some plays and some other stuff. I went off to look for other actors. I think in the end, deep down, the fault was mine because I didn’t really know what I wanted or I didn’t know what I didn’t want because I really hadn’t decided how to imagine the film. I hadn’t written it yet. I just had this idea because for many years, people had been trying to make a movie about him in England. Once I started writing it and had gone around to meet actors, I met with a few Hollywood stars. Jason Statham and Guy Pearce were definitely in the picture. I met with them in various places. They were very nice but I guess they didn’t take it very seriously. I saw all the young actors in England and the casting director kept on saying I should meet with Tom again. I was like, “I’m not meeting with Tom again.” I was being very childish. In the end, there was nobody else so it was kind of was inevitable. Okay, let’s just meet again. We met again about seven months later but by then, I knew what I basically didn’t want, so I was more specific. Tom had done a lot of other stuff in between so meeting again was like oh my God, you’re Charlie Bronson, where have you been?
Crave Online: Couldn’t that conflict work for your relationship as it needs to be in this movie?
Nicolas Winding Refn: I’m sure it helped us when we started working together but it became a great marriage. I immensely enjoyed working with him. It was very tough for him because I had under a million dollars to make the total movie. I had five weeks to shoot the movie so for Tom, he was under a lot of pressure. He had six weeks to prepare, to pump up, and then it was from the go.
Crave Online: Did you shoot it in chronological order?
Nicolas Winding Refn: I shoot all my films in chronological order.
Crave Online: So where do the theatrical sequences fall in chronological order?
Nicolas Winding Refn: We shot that at the end because it’s basically him, Charlie Bronson, seeing the world from his point of view. So I shot the whole movie built up to those stage performances. Then at first I did the stage performances, and then at the end, on the last day, I went in and shot the close-up of him almost narrating his life.
Crave Online: Do you have to pay him any royalties?
Nicolas Winding Refn: No, because it’s the U.K., it’s not allowed. So for him, he doesn’t get anything out of it. His family gets a little bit of a fee and certain things but there are no backends, there are no kickbacks because it’s not allowed. Also I think Charlie should be happy enough that a film is made about him. I mean, the guy thinks it’s the greatest film ever made. He’s never seen it.
Crave Online: Will he? Can he?
Nicolas Winding Refn: No, he will never see it. He’ll never be allowed to watch it. I’ve been told he heard it on the telephone but no, he will never. His mother came to see it at the premiere and she very much liked it so that was very nice. That made me and Tom very happy of course, but otherwise no. And he’s just been shut down completely, meaning that he’s been moved to a new isolation ward and all the people he had contact with that were part of the filmmaking have been cut off so he’s completely isolated now.
Crave Online: Is he calculating or should it be ambiguous?
Nicolas Winding Refn: Well, he’s clarified sane clinically but obviously his perception of life is very different. But that was the whole point of what I found interesting because Charlie Bronson, or Michael Peterson, has never murdered anybody. Then I would never make [the movie]. I have children and I have very strong moral obligations I feel. He’s just more like a conceptual artist. He’s like somebody who uses violence as his act of art and I do believe art is an act of violence so suddenly there was a lot of references to him in my own life so in a way Charlie Bronson’s journey, his transformation, is very much about my own transformation.
