Meet the Artist: Bronson Attempts to Explain the Unexplainable
Filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn explores the violent twists, turns, and cul-de-sacs in the life story of boxer-turned-prisoner-turned-artist Bronson.
"My approach was to use his life as an allegory of what artists go through. In a way it's an autobiography of my own life."
– Bronson director Nicolas Winding Refn
– Bronson director Nicolas Winding Refn
Nicolas Winding Refn is trying to describe the shape-shifting protagonist of Bronson, his new film about the notorious British prison inmate Michael Petersen who adopted the name of Hollywood action star Charles Bronson. But after a few attempts, the director sighs and gives up. "How the hell can you explain him?" asks Refn. "If you try to explain him, you're not taking advantage of his full potential."
A strange and brutal anti-biopic, Bronson elides many of the key events in its hero's life in favor of hyper-theatrical vignettes that encapsulate crucial aspects of his schizoid personality. Serving as emcee to his own story, Bronson (Tom Hardy, in a galvanizing performance) takes us on a journey through his fractured mind, showing us how he went from working-class lad to one of Britain's most violent prisoners.
Refn, who is best known for the Pusher trilogy (and who came to Sundance with Fear X in 2003), was brought on board by producer Rupert Preston, who already had a completed screenplay by Brock Norman Brock. Eventually, the director ended up re-writing much of the script to better reflect Bronson's peculiar mindset. "When I read his autobiography, it was not about getting out of prison, but staying in," explains the director.
Refn only spoke with Bronson once by telephone “and it was only to clarify a few facts about how he got into prison.” Mostly, the director relied on published accounts as well as his own imagination.
The movie was shot in Super 16 over a five-week period. Refn kept revising the screenplay during the filming (his usual method of work), which meant that 40 percent of the footage had to be re-shot. "We would film during the day and I would re-write during the night," he explains. For the scenes in which Bronson addresses an imaginary theatre audience, the director wrote the lines on a Friday night and shot them the following Monday.
To prepare for his starring role, Hardy worked with a personal trainer to transform himself into the hulking, menacing bulldog who became a household name to British tabloid readers. He visited Bronson in prison several times and developed a letter correspondence with him.
The movie couches Hardy's realer-than-real performance in a postmodern narrative that indulges in weird tangents and detours. Most notably, Refn devotes substantial running time to Bronson's transformation into a visual artist while in jail. "My approach was to use his life as an allegory of what artists go through," says the director. "In a way it's an autobiography of my own life."
Refn says his main aesthetic influence for Bronson was the work of Kenneth Anger – Scorpio Rising and to a lesser extent Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. The macho homoeroticism that pulsates through Anger's films is evident in Bronson, especially in the fight scenes (Bronson was a boxer before he went to prison) and in several scenes near the end that feature an abundance of full-frontal nudity.
The director recalls having spent time with Anger several years ago. "I told him I wanted to steal everything I could from him," Refn says. "He turned to me and replied, 'Be my guest.'"
