No, not the american actor, the lunatic prisoner in the UK.
I never heard of him until I read a review in today’s NYT of a movie based on him.
What a nut. What an interesting case. Sounds like it could be a good movie, if one doesn’t mind extreme violence.
From the NYT review:
[quote]Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Bronson” is a highly stylized and embellished film biography of a man known as the most famous prisoner in Britain. Born Michael Peterson in 1952 and raised mostly in the city of Luton, Charles Bronson, renamed after the American movie star, has spent all but a few months of the last 35 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement.
The film, dominated by the bald, snarling and oddly charming presence of Tom Hardy in the title role, is not interested in sociological or psychological explanations. Bronson’s parents are quiet, respectable lower-middle-class types, fond of their son even as he finds himself in all kinds of trouble, and he seems to suffer neither deprivation nor childhood trauma. The propensity to do violence seems wired into him, less a pathology than a kind of talent. He does some stealing, but his real vocation, his art, is fighting. . . .
Sometimes Bronson speaks directly to the camera in front of a black background. At other times he appears in black tie and music-hall makeup in front of a theater full of appreciative patrons. His monologues are punctuated by exquisitely choreographed and art-directed scenes of brutality, shot from low angles and accompanied by soaring arias or throbbing techno beats.
The effect is a bit like Stanley Kubrick’s “Clockwork Orange” reimagined as a one-man stage show and stripped of any political implications. Bronson’s crimes become a kind of performance art, and the film becomes, bizarrely enough, the portrait of a genius misunderstood and marginalized by a bureaucratic and hypocritical social order.
“Bronson” invites you to admire its protagonist as a pure, muscular embodiment of anarchy. And perhaps you will, but you may also be glad that he’s still behind bars.[/quote]
Here’s some of what wikipedia has to say:
[quote]
. .
Bronson has been involved in over a dozen hostage incidents, some of which are described below:
Bronson took hostages and staged a 47-hour rooftop protest at Broadmoor in 1983, causing £750,000 of damage. [11]
In 1994, whilst holding a guard hostage at Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes, he demanded an inflatable doll, a helicopter and a cup of tea as ransom. Two months later, he held deputy governor Adrian Wallace hostage for five hours at Hull prison, injuring him so badly he was off work for five weeks.[2]
In 1998, Bronson took two Iraqi hijackers and another inmate hostage at Belmarsh prison in London. He insisted his hostages address him as “General” and told negotiators he would eat one of his victims quickly unless his demands were met. At one stage, Bronson demanded one of the Iraqis hit him “very hard” over the head with a metal tray. When the hostage refused, Bronson slashed his own shoulder six times with a razor blade. He later told staff: “I’m going to start snapping necks - I’m the number-one hostage taker.” He demanded a plane to take him to Cuba, two Uzi sub-machine guns, 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and a cup of beans. In court, he said he was “as guilty as Adolf Hitler”. He said: “I was on a mission of madness, but now I’m on a mission of peace and all I want to do now is go home and have a pint with my son.” Another seven years were added to his sentence.[2]
In 2007, two members of prison staff at Full Sutton high security prison in the East Riding of Yorkshire were involved in a “control and restraint incident”, in an attempt to prevent another hostage situation, during which Bronson (who now needs spectacles) had his glasses broken. Bronson received £200 compensation for his broken glasses,[7] which he claimed were made of “pre-war gold” and given to him by Lord Longford[/quote]
And here’s a trailer from the movie
ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XzmR6Pmmgw