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Notorious biopics: Tyson and Bronson

Written by Hannah Osborne
Saturday, 04 April 2009 00:00

“All my life, I wanted to be famous,” explained Michael Peterson, aka Charles Bronson, to his captive onlookers at the start of Nicolas Winding Refn’s new biopic Bronson. And so begins the story of Britain’s most violent prisoner. The depiction of Bronson throughout the film is remarkably poignant and alludes to a figure entirely removed from society (both physically and metaphorically), but who has become an institutional-like landmark of Britain in himself; one whom audiences have occupied themselves with throughout his career as a celebrity prisoner.

Bronson’s filmic persona is inevitably linked to the violence that made him a household name. However, from the onset of the film, we are also shown a delicate and sensitive figure who is portrayed as being uncomfortable and out of place in “normal” society. This incongruity and complete ineptness gives Bronson a childlike quality, epitomized in a scene with his parents, on being released from prison, asking meekly if the bed from his childhood is “still in Luton?”

 Alongside Bronson is the release of Tyson, an intimate biography of the legendary boxer. Unlike Bronson, where one of the most notable aspects of the film is the absence of the protagonist, Mike Tyson narrates his own life, giving a remarkable, if not slightly skewed, depiction of a man whose life has been both surrounded by, and synonymous with, high profile controversy.

In a Q&A session with James Toback, the director, a good friend of Tyson, he explained that there is a no line between what Tyson thinks and what he says; that there is always complete fluidity when reiterating his thoughts. This not only accounted for the brutal honesty that we see on screen – with Tyson explaining at one point, “I would kill them” in an incredibly perfunctory manner, but also for his confused and convoluted monologues. These ramblings expose Tyson’s fragmented nature and give way to a much more apprehensive and insecure character who regularly bewilders himself.

Toback was first introduced to Tyson over 20 years ago, when the later was just 19-years-old. Toback explained that there was a certain affinity between the pair, being drawn together by their addictive natures, and that Tyson was a project used to combat old demons (Toback removed Tyson from rehab to conduct the interviews). With this in mind, Tyson is very much portrayed as the anti-hero. He is a tortured man caught between his two polar personas – one, the brutal fighter, and the other, a softly spoken, insecure figure who kept and loved pigeons as a child.

Of course, it is the softer character who we the audience are inevitably drawn to. We see clarity and self awareness while reflecting on the tragedies in his life, and we are charmed by the moments of tenderness which surprise not only the audience, but Tyson himself. Similarly, Refn’s version of Bronson is, in the foremost, a figure demanding of our sympathies through his desperation. We are struck by the way “Britain’s most notorious criminal” takes to his art classes and cautiously befriends his art teacher. However, these moments are short-lived, with our protagonist unfailingly shifting back to his hardened alter ego in a theatrical and spectacular fashion. And yet we are still on his side. Unfailingly, we will him to scrap the “Charles Bronson” guise, but he won’t. His personal tragedy is his inability to change.

In comparison to other biopics that settle their focus on notorious figures, such as Andrew Dominik’s 2000 film Chopper, Bronson and Tyson both play into key similarities that seem to dominate the genre. Just as Mark Brandon Read, Australia’s favourite criminal, is a bestselling author, Bronson’s art and poetry has won 11 Koestler Awards and is sold internationally. This artistic flair further feeds the intrigue and fascination that surrounds the protagonists - the idea of their lives being documented in a personal and self reflective medium, as well as the biography we watch on screen. In Tyson, the sheer level of intimacy involved seems to change the production into a personal portrait for Tyson to treasure for himself – a simulated exercise in self examination. All these expressive outlets seem much like a form of personal therapy that we, the audience, have been invited to view. It is that feeling of voyeurism that attracts us, the sense of peering into the lives and minds of someone so expansively distanced from society, yet who has become excessively accessible through celebrity status.

With all three films, there is a constant sense of instability; that at any moment, the protagonist will revert to his old ways (or current in the case of Bronson and Chopper). Formidably, in Bronson, we are given the distinct impression that this is unavoidable. In a recent interview, Refn explained that his film was not a biography per se; rather it was the story of how Michael Peterson became Charles Bronson. Reading Bronson’s biography, Refn was interested in his view of prison, how he “always wanted to be there”, embedding further the way Bronson seems dreadfully aware of his inevitable future.

Both Bronson and Tyson examine their subject in a manner that does not attempt to ask the question why, rather, they examine how. Both Tyson and Bronson seem to register remorse, not for themselves, but for how their lives ensued, and the mistakes and flaws of their characters that led to their infamous status. Interestingly, despite both being tragic figures, neither appear at all regretful; rather, there is a deep sense of compliance and, ultimately, acceptance. It is perhaps this element of serenity that makes our protagonists such captivating subjects, and why we as the audience will continue to be fascinated by them and all those alike.