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| The real Bondurant Brothers. |
We finish yet another season of Robert Burns Centre Film
Theatre Film Club movies. This ‘term’ we
have had an excellent and varied collection of films from different genres and
countries and tonight’s film was certainly no exception. Described as an
American gangster film Lawless (2012) centres on the seemingly
indestructible brothers Jack (Shia LaBeouf), Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Howard
Bondurant (Jason Clarke) who produced and sold illicit alcohol in Franklin
County Virginia, during Prohibition in the United States of America.
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| Howard, Jack and Forrest Bondurant. |
Giving as always an exceptionally interesting introduction
Rachel Findlay informed us that tonight director is the Australian John
Hillcoat whose previous film The Road
(2009) was also shown as part of a Film Club season. Prior to that he had
directed Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, Guy Pearce and John Hurt in the rather
brutal The Proposition (2005) that
was set and filmed in the Australian outback and as in Lawless writer and musician Nick Cave wrote the screenplay and scored
the music. The
book on which Lawless is based is
called "The Wettest County in the
World" and it's by Matt Bondurant, a literature and creative writing
professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Rachel went on to tell us that
she had watched and read a number of interviews with the author one of which I
reproduce for your information which, as our host pointed out served as a
useful background for the film we were about to see.
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| Jack Bondurant. |
"We
were all aware that my grandfather used to run liquor when he was young, but
these were things that were never discussed in Franklin County. Moonshine was a
dangerous business: the distillation process involves fire, high pressure, and
flammable liquids. Improper technique or materials could cause paralysis, blindness,
or worse. Bootlegging, or what they called “blockading” in those days, was also
fraught with danger; a car full of booze on the open road was fair game for
hijackers or law enforcement.
We all
just assumed that Grandpa Jack’s trade was small and general. So when my father
unearthed a series of newspaper articles about a shooting at Maggodee Creek
Bridge in 1930, we were quite shocked. In these articles my grandfather and his
brothers Forrest and Howard, “The Bondurant Boys,” were described as a notorious
group with a dangerous reputation. My grandfather was still alive then, and
when my dad confronted him about the shooting he merely lifted his shirt to
show the bullet hole. That was it. I was living across the country at the time,
and didn’t have a chance to question him further. He died the next year at 91
years old.
Like
many young boys, I was afraid of my grandfather. He was an imposing man, and
people around the county treated him with respect. I spent a lot of time in his
back storage room staring at an old pair of brass knuckles hanging on the wall,
understanding even then that my grandfather lived a very different life than
anything I would know."
Apparently Matt Bondurant carried out
some research after his grandfather died, and discovered that the Bondurant brothers
had served as prosecution witnesses in "The great moonshine conspiracy trial of 1935". He went on to
use the transcripts of the court trial and the grand jury testimony when
writing his novel.
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| A great cameo from Gary Oldman as the big city gangster Floyd Banner. |
Rachel also read out an excerpt from an
article that the director John Hillcoat wrote about why he made the movie,
again I reproduce this for your information:
"I
have always wanted to make a Gangster movie. However like all genres, they need
to be somehow reinvented, made fresh again. The source material came from a
great book originally titled The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant
that takes the most iconic American genres, the Western and the Gangster, and
explores where one (the Western) ends and the other (the Gangster) begins. The
true story of the Bondurant brothers arises out of the Western legends from
their remote woods and portrays the next generation of country outlaws -- the
men and women who gave birth to the big-time urban mobsters like Capone by
servicing the Prohibition cities with their rot gut whisky. The book's family
saga brought the 'hillbilly moonshiner' to life in an authentic, gritty, and
exciting way.
Nick
and I wanted to explore the ideas of the myths of immortality and the
transition from one age to another with the brutality that accompanies such
transitions. About the little guys, those foot soldiers and worker bees, the
dealers at the bottom supplying the gangsters on the rise to the top,
exploiting the thirst of a nation via a new ruthless machine that relentlessly
pursued the American dream in what became crime's first major gold rush, the
largest crime-wave in history.
We
felt there were parallels to draw with our own times socio-economic, political,
and -- with the dustbowl -- even environmental upheaval. To this day, one can
draw parallels to more recent crime waves -- 'war on drugs' -- based upon the
demand of outlawed substances.
We
also wanted to capitalize upon the mythic allure of the backwoods life -- the
raw music, the dry humor, and undiluted grit of the Southern Rebel character
and in our movie draw out its dynamic mix of blues and country music; its mix
of religious sects; the moonshine blockading that invented one of the country's
most popular sports (NASCAR racing)."
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| Federal Deputy Charlie Rakes. |
Like The
Proposition tonight’s fine-looking period piece was really a film that
carried with it the essence of a classic western rather than a gangster movie
asking us to metaphorically cheer the ‘not-so’ baddies and to boo the baddie.
In this case a crooked Federal Deputy Charlie Rakes (Hillcoat regular Guy
Pearce) a slimy dandy destined for purgatory. The only criticism leveled by an
appreciative audience was at times the intelligible dialogue, but otherwise the
season ended with jolly shootout and bags of violence (and that was just the
coffee break!) what more could this discerning gathering which for? Role on
next season.
