This is the first part of two-part article on John Wayne.  The second part is here

Today is the birthday of John Wayne, a true movie star.

For me growing up, John Wayne in the movies was the reassuring presence of a real man.  Slow to anger, he went from silent to action in a split second.  There was no hesitation in his characters, they were men confident of the finality of violence.  I realise now that this was one of the main attractions of his movies for me, that there was a place of last resort where a man could go, which would allow him to triumph over evil.  John Wayne was the personification of the concept that one man can make a difference.  For me he was the personification of America, of individual freedom and the right of every man to make his own world.

And for many others too.

With John Wayne, more than any other movie star, it is difficult to separate the man from the movie character.  I want to talk about some of the things that I think made him such a wonderful actor.

John Wayne started in movies in the twenties, first as a set labourer, then doing walk-ons.  By the beginning of the thirties he was a name actor, if only a very minor one.  John Ford had taken an interest in him when Wayne did stunts and walk-ons in his movies.  But John Ford blew hot and cold, and John Wayne spent most of the thirties making cheap Poverty Row movies.        

But there were several very interesting attributes to John Wayne that kept him in work in the depression thirties, and later would make him a great star.

Reinventing the Cowboy

Firstly John Wayne was quietly re-inventing the cowboy hero. By the 1920’s a lot of real cowboys had joined the movies, having worked out that there was more money playing a cowboy than being one.  John Wayne was a very observant, intelligent young man and he saw in these men a naturalness and individuality that did not get shown on-screen.  He began to build an onscreen persona, who, though on the side of Good, was less reverential to the law than the rather polished cowboy sheriffs who then dominated the movies. 

He built a natural understated style, at a time when Hollywood still had an inferiority complex, deferring to the classical stage theatre. John Wayne worked extensively on his diction, not to adopt a faux British accent, but to craft and refine a truly American voice. 

He was also superbly professional.  Many actors turned up, did their piece, got paid and left.  John Wayne always knew his lines, knew the story, knew what his character was doing.  He knew movies were a business and brought value to the process of movie-making.  

As Rusty Ryan (with Donna Reed) in They Were Expendable

John Wayne got his first big break with The Big Trail in 1930, where he was the lead alongside Tyrone Power.  Raoul Walsh, directing The Big Trail, swiftly realised that Wayne’s realistic, natural acting style was much more suited for the movies than Power’s rather hammy classical style.  Wayne also impressed Walsh with his grasp of story, character and lines.  John Wayne never needed a re-shoot.  By comparison with the drunken antics of his co-stars John Wayne looked very good indeed. 

However the big break was not to be.  The Big Trail was not a success and John Wayne would have to wait for stardom.  Still, Hollywood began to realise that John Wayne brought real quality to any movie and could even save some that were borderline.  It was a good skill for a working actor to have.

As Tom Doniphon in The Man who shot Liberty Valance

So by the mid-thirties, the actor that we know as John Wayne existed, even if he was not fully formed.   But something else was needed.

To read the seond part of the article, go here

Today is the birthday of Pierce Brosnan, he is 58.  Happy Birthday, Mr Brosnan.

This article is a revised version of a piece I first published two years ago. 

Part 1 deals with Mr Brosnan rise to fame as James Bond and can be found here

Part 3 deals with Mr Brosnan’s masterpieces, the period from 1999 through to 2007, when he made magnificent films like “The Thomas Crown Affair” and “Evelyn” and can be found here

This part also includes references and links to the movies discussed in all three articles.      

Having made the break with conventional expectation…..

Seraphim Falls
Brosnan has talked on the record about how he had failed to get roles because he was considered too handsome, too pretty, how Matador and Julian Noble was his answer to that.

In Seraphim Falls he goes to what is for him an unexplored movie style, the western. The movie opens with a cowboy, heavily bundled in furs, cooking a rabbit in a snowy forest. He looks up and we see a hairy, bearded man and realise its Pierce Brosnan. His face looks as if carries all the sorrows of the world. He stands and looks around at the snowy vastness of the Ruby Mountains of New Mexico. All is peaceful; the only sound is the crackle of the fire. As he starts to kneel to his food, a shot ring out and he falls to the ground.

And it is a pretty shocking opener for a western vengeance movie, a chase though the wilderness of America. Brosnan is being tracked by Carver (Liam Neeson), who is obsessed with killing Gideon (Brosnan). Is Gideon the good guy or the bad guy? Should we want Gideon to live or Carver to catch and kill him?

In a way Seraphim Falls is the measure of Brosnan’s work as an actor. A few years earlier we would have assumed that Brosnan is the hero. But now, after The Tailor of Panama and Matador, we just don’t know. I think that he has always calculated his screen persona to have this effect. I think he revels in finding ways to keep it fresh.

Brosnan plays Gideon as a man burdened by a terrible guilt. Once again, a lot of his interpretation is in the physicality of the character. He walks as though pursued by something he cannot shake off. He is always looking inward and his conversations with others are notable for the degree to which he is detached and simultaneously holding some inner dialogue.

And here the rage, the power, is in him from the beginning, a rage to live. Gideon wants to live and flees from Carver. Brosnan plays him as a wild animal of man, a soldier, a killer, a mountain man. Gideon is resolute, almost silent, his face locked in a grimace of anger, guilt and a confused desire to survive. Brosnan gives him the walk of some homicidal soldier, marching along, part killer, part beast. And yet when he speaks, his voice is educated, measured and knowing, a soft growl. The voice does not belong to the body; it belongs to another man, another time. This is one of the deliberate contradictions that keep us watching Gideon.

Brosnan plays Gideon as a dried husk of a man, tough as leather, driven onward only by his own indomitable will. He stares but does not see, he kills competently, without remorse, he moves on. Yet, in the company of a simple farming family he weeps with such anguish that that we share his pain, yet we still do not know why he cries. In any other actor this would become tiresome, but this is what Brosnan does so well. His performance is calculated and magical; he shows us how the strength of a man can battle with his inner pain and still function. We understand that Gideon is tied to Carver in some fatal way, but we do not know how. He invites us to come see the crisis, the battle of the self, and like every hero’s journey, we are drawn to know the answer.

With respect to Liam Neeson’s measured and powerful performance, this is Brosnan’s movie. There are long stretches where there is only Gideon and the landscape. We stay with the movie because Brosnan progressively reveals the growing desperation of Gideon, the increasingly desperate stare, the cracking voice, the confusion in him as he recedes from humanity and cannot really understand what people are saying.

Without Brosnan, Seraphim Falls could be just a western chase movie. He elevates it, by giving us a character study that enthrals us, as his story unravels.

Butterfly on a Wheel (“Shattered” in its DVD release)
…is a mystery within a mystery. Gerard Butler (the 300) is Neil Randall, a corporate high-flyer and Maria Bello is his wife Abby. They have a wonderful life, a designer home and a beautiful baby daughter, Sophie. Suddenly a violent psychopath appears in their life. The psychopath is Tom Ryan (Brosnan) a mystery man who tells them he has kidnapped their child and will kill her if they do not do as he says. He then proceeds to wreck their lives.

Tom Ryan is the absolute concentration of anger, hatred and cruelty. Holding their child is frightening enough but it swiftly becomes clear that Ryan is only just this side of sane, and Neil and Abby’s fear that they might tip him over the edge, increases the tension ten-fold.

This is a Brosnan master-class. There is no gradual build-up, just an outpouring of anger, hate and control at a colossal level. From the moment he appears on screen, Pierce Brosnan gives a blistering performance of great intensity. Some off this we have seen before, the quickness of an animal, the inhuman stare, the sadistic enjoyment of another human’s plight. Some of it is new, like the unnerving Irish voice, cold, measured but about to slip over the edge into ranting madness. He makes Ryan mercurial, changing mood on the young couple in a split second. Hell, this is scary stuff; you really do not know what is coming next. If Brosnan was evil in the Tailor of Panama and Matador, he was redeemed by the fact that those movies were black comedies. Here he is pure evil, the personification of death, or is he?

Neil and Abby want to know why this man is persecuting them, and for different reasons so do we. Tom Ryan clearly has a motive, but what could it be to drive a man to these extremes of hate? The clue is in the duality that Brosnan plays so well, Ryan is another character under tension from two extreme and opposite forces, and the revelation of these explosive energies is the climax of the movie.

There’s a powerful intuition about Pierce Brosnan’s acting. “Butterfly” is frenetic, high energy, it unfolds at a very fast pace. Brosnan matches it; he is scary because he is fast, physically and mentally quicker than Neil and Abby, outwitting them at every turn. In so many of his movies Pierce Brosnan understands the tempo, the pace and the timing that will make the movie a success. This is one of them.

Married Life
This movie just passed me by, I don’t know how it was marketed, maybe my attention was elsewhere. But I was intrigued by the concept of the movie and glad I caught up with it.

Married Life is set in 1949, and initially centres on a relationship between two friends, two businessmen, stockbrokers I think, in upstate New York. The milieu is the professional middle-class and the requirement back then was for men to dress well for work. So the early scenes are all beautifully cut suits, fedoras and brightly-polished shoes, in bars of polished brass and glossy cherry wood. Pierce Brosnan is one of the few modern movie stars who understand how to wear clothes well, and in that respect alone he is right for the part.

Brosnan is Richard Langley, a handsome, elegant bachelor who is a very successful ladies man. His best friend is Harry Allen (Chris Cross), who is known to be very happily married to a lovely wife. The movie opens with Harry telling Richard that he is having an affair with a young beautiful blonde, Kay Nesbitt (Rachel McAdams) who he loves. Unfortunately, as their lunch ends, Harry chooses to introduce Kay to Richard, who is instantly attracted to her. In that moment, in a very genteel, imperceptibly quiet way, all their relationships start to go to hell.

This is a subtly drawn, intelligent and wryly funny story of a group of friends, whose secrets are exposed and who have to deal with the resulting chaos. It needs actors who understand how to discipline themselves, play their parts like a jazz ensemble, not over-emote. In a stand-out cast, Brosnan is the best, the living heart of the movie. As Richard he has the task of stealing the love of Kay and betraying his friend Harry. But Brosnan refuses to play the role as a conventional cad. His Richard is considerate, softly-spoken and ever so slightly duplicitous. Brosnan’s ability to portray worldly confident men serves him well here, because he simply inhabits that friendly confident grin, the considered aside lightly delivered. Nothing is too visible, too showy, he acts with the lightest of touches.

It is also a cerebral role, with Richard delivering the 50s style narration that holds the movie together. Once again he has a role with two contradictory pulls, though without the intensity of previous roles. Richard is a man and without making a fuss about it the movie delineates the difference between fifties men and modern new age men. Richard is puzzled by his sudden attack of love but rather than spend time analysing it he goes after what he wants, Kay. Brosnan plays Richard as an essentially good man, who will not stop until he has got what he wants. It is the way that Brosnan plays out the set-backs, the embarrassing moments, the final betrayal that gives this film so much of its enjoyment. Watching Brosnan derail Richard’s smoothness, panicky pauses as he tries to say the right thing, the relaxed slouch as he (internally) frantically backpedals is a delight.

The role of Richard suits Brosnan down to the ground, with its style, thoughtful action and quiet good humour. He tackles it with love, verve and quiet dedication. This is an actor at the very top of his game, who knows how to produce an original screen presence and evoke many emotions in the audience, as he leads his character to the story’s culmination. In the final analysis Married Life is a character study, a quietly intelligent movie that asks some very searching questions about being married. Pierce Brosnan gives us a character that is truly worthy of the movie. This is not Bond, not Desmond Doyle, but it is virtuoso acting.

The story up till now…..

So here I am, with my view of Mr Brosnan’s movies. I have been slightly partial and missed out a couple of movies from the last ten years. I have missed out Mamma Mia. I admire Pierce Brosnan for having a punt at it, much as I admire any man who has a go at anything outside his comfort zone. But as a role I do not think it tells us anything about the actor.  I have missed out the most substantive movie of the last two years “The Ghost Writer” but i have such as aversion to Tony Blair, real or imagined, that I cannot bring myself to watch it. 

A personal plea… 

Like many men, I rate the Thomas Crown affair as one of the greatest movies of all time. Also, like many fans of the movie, I have been waiting a long time for Thomas Crown 2. I do not know about all you other men out there but I want that movie. So please Mr Brosnan, make the movie soon!

Anyone who has stayed with me through this long piece will have guessed that I am a fan. But writing this has made me see Pierce Brosnan’s work more clearly and I think it is truly worthy of appreciation.

He is a movie star but more importantly he is a superb actor. He is a great actor because he understands how to give us a character. He does not burst onto the screen and emote for 2 hours. He builds a character, showing him to us bit by bit, building a person and, in the end, we see that character as he does. If some movie stars are one note, Pierce Brosnan is a symphony.

In all of his films he shows an enormous respect for his roles and for the audience. This would not be enough if he did not fill them with life. But he always gives energy to his characters, a truth that makes them very real. But it is his discipline, his hold on the integrity of his characters that make him a superlative actor. He builds characters for us to see and marvel at and that is the one true and best thing that an actor can do.

Thank you very much for your movies Mr Brosnan, they are much appreciated and greatly enjoyed.

Reference Information

Here are movies discussed in the article, in the order in which they appear:

Goldeneye

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Tomorrow Never Dies

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Grey Owl

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

The World is not Enough

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

The Thomas Crown Affair

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

The Tailor of Panama

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Die Another Day

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Evelyn

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

After the Sunset

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Matador

Get it in the UK here and the US here. 

Seraphim Falls

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Butterfly on a Wheel

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Married Life

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Today is the birthday of Pierce Brosnan, he is 58. Happy Birthday, Mr Brosnan.

This article is a revision of a piece I wrote about Mr Brosnan’s movies some two years ago.  The first part, covering his emergence as Bond and is growth as a star actor is here 

Masterpieces and changes
For me Brosnan really hit his stride with The World is Not Enough and I think this emboldened him to become even more creative. His next movie was a risky undertaking and turned out to be a masterpiece.

The Thomas Crown Affair
A re-make of the original Thomas Crown Affair by Pierce Brosnan’s own Irish Dreamtime productions, this is a superb movie that knocks the original into a cocked hat. This version plays out an art-heist that is colourful, exciting and fun. Brosnan plays the head of a Mergers and Acquisitions boutique bank, whose rogue alpha male superiority leads him into pulling heists.

One of the problems with the original was that Steve McQueen did not understand who he was playing. In the romantic and action scenes he was fine, in the scenes where he plays Crown as a businessman he was embarrassingly bad. The truth is actors rarely understand how to play businessmen. They play them well when they play them as greedy, as stupid, as unable to relate to other people. They do know how to play them positively, as gamblers, risk-takers, fighters and winners.

Having worked in Mergers and Acquisitions myself, my assessment is that Brosnan’s Thomas Crown is pitch-perfect. Early on there is a wonderful scene, where Brosnan strides confidently across the floor of his boutique bank, left hand in his pocket. He slips from one conversation to the next and as he nears his office he stretches out his right hand and says to the guy sitting at the next-to-last desk “Give me good numbers Jimmy”. Gesture, timing, tone of voice, posture are all perfect, the complete high-risk banker. Brosnan is just as good in all his other scenes. He clearly understands who this man is and he shows us, the audience, all the little facets of character that make this man the successful Alpha male he is.

Brosnan really inhabits this role. He has often been considered the successor to Cary Grant and here he shows the qualities that got him nominated. He is funny, suave, sophisticated and charming. Playing a rich banker gives him the chance to play wealthy and cultured and he does it with silky ease. He is a classic body-shape and the clothes in the movie (bespoke tailored by Campagna of New York) are perfect on him, he has the sensitivity and sensibility to understand the importance of those tailored suits.

And this movie is a feel-good movie, there is no violence, the real world is somewhere outside, along with Mergers and Acquisitions.  Brosnan dominates the movie, yet the scenes are with Rene Russo as his love interest/adversary are balanced, intimate and beautifully paced. Brosnan is a generous co-star as he shares the screen with Russo. And Brosnan plays off Russo, perfectly in character. There is a pivotal moment where the masterful, successful Thomas Crown has to admit to Russo that she is the first woman to visit his secret Caribbean home. By doing so, he loses a skirmish in their battle of wits and admits, by implication, that their relationship is more than just sex. He plays it with just the right amount of confusion and embarrassment.

And Brosnan plays Crown as a manly man, successful, a solitary risk-taker having the adventure of a lifetime, who is suddenly confused by the appearance of love. This movie was Brosnan acting as a classic Hollywood movie star and he did it to perfection. Audiences loved it.  For me it is a favourite film.

Deliberately messing it up….

The Tailor of Panama
This was the movie that told us that Brosnan was never going to be content to be an action hero. It starts with Andrew Osnard MI6 (Brosnan), being exiled to Panama in disgrace. So I thought it was going to be a kinda Bond spy movie….

Well, everybody gets it wrong sometimes, including me. The Tailor of Panama is a truly black comedy about British and American interference in other countries. And Andrew Osnard is a truly evil man, even by spy standards. Amoral and self-obsessed, he invents a wholly imaginary conspiracy against the Panama Canal, with the intention of rehabilitating himself with his boss and getting back to a plum posting.

To do this he finds vulnerable and foolish people and uses them without mercy. He intimidates, blackmails and threatens these people in order to make them do his bidding. Brosnan holds nothing back in the role, is truly frightening, completely evil. Osnard watches these people like a cat watching a mouse, takes pleasure in their pain and then you can see him calculating how to inflict more. He is intelligent, articulate and with a quickness and a savagery that scares the life out of his victims. Brosnan finds a cruel, sadistic part of himself and has no compunction about unleashing it onscreen. His face does the work here, the smile becomes a sneer, the twinkle in the eye becomes a glare. There is no concession to his earlier hero persona at all, he takes a hammer to it in this movie and clearly has a great time doing it.

Along with a wonderful cast he makes a movie so blackly funny, you have to laugh or you would cry. An unexpected departure for an actor who clearly had something to say.

Die Another Day
Next came Die Another Day, Bond is betrayed, to the North Koreans. Brosnan gives us a Bond who is not only vengeful but paranoid, slightly world-weary and short of patience. There is a new ruthlessness about Bond and Brosnan plays him as a man who wants satisfaction, whose impatience shows in his abruptness and his short fuse. And it’s time for Bond the hedonist, who meets his like in CIA agent Jinx (Halle Berry). As Bond, Brosnan throws himself into sex with Jinx and their sex scene is passionate, athletic and feels very real. This was Brosnan’s darkest Bond, his thinly veiled anger being acted out the set of his shoulders, the light in his eye and the tone of his voice. In many ways this was Brosnan’s Bond at his most real.

When Daniel Craig made Casino Royale, a lot of nonsense was talked about James Bond, by newspaper journalists who had no understanding of Bond or his story. Like many men I have long been a James Bond fan. I loved Casino Royal and thought Daniel Craig was a tough hero. But the real Commander Bond? The archetypal Bond of Fleming’s books?

Brosnan was the better Bond. Sean Connery defined Bond and consequently cannot be beat, but Brosnan comes a close second.

Evelyn
I have to be honest; I did not want to see Evelyn. I had heard that it was sentimental, set in fifties Ireland (a period in English history defined by poverty and parochialism) and about a trial, none of which interested me. But my wife, that gorgeous girl, told me it great and she was surprised, given my appreciation of Brosnan, that I was not interested in it. At the time I was absorbed by Brosnan the action hero, worried that he had descended into soap opera.

I was an idiot. Evelyn is a wonderful movie and I am happy to tell you why.

Evelyn is the true story of Desmond Doyle, an Irish painter and decorator, who, in fifties Ireland, has the misfortune that his wife leaves him. His three young children are taken into care by the Catholic Church, acting at the behest of the Irish government. Desmond loves his children and this working-class man pits himself against the state to reclaim them.

Brosnan is marvellous as Desmond Doyle, he gives a breathtaking performance. His Doyle is a loving father, irresponsible and charming. Brosnan already had that part down pat, the cheeky grin, the quip, the smooth charm. But he goes much deeper into the character, playing Doyle as a frightened, desperate man. Brosnan gives us a man who simply cannot be still, whose courage comes in sudden bursts. He switches emotions so quickly, so that we can see Doyle go from a courageous speech to shrinking with fear, looking around furtively for an escape from the consequences of his own courage. Brosnan hoods his eyes, bites his lip and draws furiously on a cigarette, eloquent in fear and frustration. But when Doyle talks of his love for his children, his voice is calm and clear, full of love and conviction. Brosnan gives Doyle a voice from the heart, a conviction that will move the planet on its axis.

But above all of this, it is the painstaking care and respect that Brosnan shows for Desmond Doyle’s life that makes this such a marvellous performance. If Doyle acts like a fool, Brosnan shows that it is lack of knowledge that makes act that way, that he has a quick mind and an honest heart. He never coarsens Desmond Doyle or insinuates he is less of a man for growing up in poverty. Rather his Doyle is very honest about his life, has an innate pride in himself (for all his fear) and knows that his children are his life.

And Brosnan makes Doyle grow through the movie. His speech becomes calmer, his actions more considered and we thrill to his new-found self-esteem and urge him on in his fight to get his children back. Yet even in the final climactic scene when Desmond Doyle fits with everything he has got, the fear is still there. And I had to ask myself how do I know that? Watching that scene again, I realise that Brosnan had kept Doyle’s frightened quick breathing whilst adding in all the other physical changes that showed Doyle’s growth. Though it is almost imperceptible, you can hear Doyle’s fear as he fights for the breath to reclaim his children. The scene and the acting is simply magnificent.

The more I see Evelyn, the more I see what a wonderful movie it is. It is a Frank Capra movie for our time. Full of struggle, but respectful of ordinary people’s lives, it manages to be fun, uplifting and joyous at the same time. Simply wonderful.

After the Sunset
After the Sunset continued the rounding out of Pierce Brsosnan’s movie persona. Set on a Caribbean holiday island, After the Sunset is a lightweight romp that advertises itself as a heist movie but quickly turns into a comedy. The joke is that Brosnan is a master jewel-thief who is smoking hot at heists, but it soon becomes apparent that he is a bit of loss at anything else. So it was a disappointment for us Thomas Crown fans, but the more I see the movie I realise that it has a lot going for it.

The first of these is that Brosnan plays jewel thief Max Burdett without ego. He happily plays sloppy and stupid and lets Salma Hayek’s fiery Lola play off him for laughs. There is a laugh-out loud scene where Brosnan’s Burdett meets the Island’s crime kingpin, Henri Moore (Don Cheadle) who tells Burdett that he has developed a life philosophy based on the songs of the Mammas and Poppas. The scene cuts to Brosnan driving his car, listening to “Go where you wanna go”, nodding his head like an idiot, with that earnest puzzled look on his face. Perfect.

It also gave Brosnan the opportunity to play out his dry sense of humour to great effect. This works so well in a scene with his nemesis, Agent Lloyd of the FBI (Woody Harrelson);

Lloyd: Just because you’re British you don’t have to hide your feelings.

Burdett: I’m Irish, we tell people how we feel. Now Fuck Off.

Timing and delivery were dry, delivered with relish. Watch it and see.  The battle of wits between Burdett and Agent Lloyd is truly great fun. 

Like Grey Owl, After the Sunset is less than the sum of its parts. But Brosnan gives us a character we can care for. Once again he is the movie.

Matador
Brosnan made Matador after the Eon productions told him that they did not want him for a fifth Bond. If Matador was not Brosnan’s revenge movie for being denied a fifth Bond, I will eat my hat.

Julian Noble is a hit-man with delusions, a “facilitator of fatalities” as he puts it. Sleazy, unwashed, with a vile little moustache and nasty clothes, he has a taste for booze and young girls. Unwholesome does not even begin to cover it. Brosnan revels in the role, deliberately making Noble as offensive as possible. And it is non-stop, just when you think it cannot get any worse, he gets that little bit more provocative, Julian’s tone gets just that bit more self-justificatory and whiny. And Brosnan so obviously loves doing it, he revels in playing a human Gollum.

Julian is burnt-out and starts to suffer panic attacks at the precise moment when he is meant to be killing someone. One night Julian meets Greg Kinnear’s businessman in a bar in Mexico. Brosnan is hypnotic as he befriends the businessman with all the sleazy charm he can muster. Julian is obviously soul-deep lonely and Brosnan plays this as a switchback of bluster and blubbing. He starts by being macho and loud, switching in a second to being plaintive, weak and whiny, then back to bluster. Brosnan has always had the ability to hold two opposites in a character and here he uses that gift to its fullest extent. If there was an ambiguity in some of his previous roles its ambiguity squared here. And Brosnan inhabits this unflattering role to its fullest extent. Matador is quite simply one of his finest performances.

Brosnan acts out Julian’s loneliness. There is an outrageous scene where he walks through the lobby of a plush hotel clad only in a tiny pair of speedos and black ankle boots. The clientele are appalled but any reaction is better than no reaction as far as Julian is concerned. Thomas Crown it is not. And the other side of the coin is the Brosnan charm, which he deploys to the full as he tries to wheedle Greg Kinnear into being his only friend.

This is a car-crash movie, you are fascinated and horrified at the same time, you cannot look away. The worst thing is the Brosnan charm. You can actually see yourself becoming buddies with the monster that is Julian, and then shudder at the thought. And it is not the plot, or the action, it is simply this incredible monster that Brosnan has built. A performance built of courage, insight and great acting talent.

Today is the birthday of Pierce Brosnan, he is 58.  Happy Birthday, Mr Brosnan.

This article is a revised version of a piece I first published two years ago.  Mr Brosnan has been busy in the last two years, most notably making ”The Ghost Writer” , a kind of thriller that flirts with a  fantasy version of the British ex-prime minister Tony Blair.    

Like many men, I am waiting for “The Thomas Crown Affair 2″ , the long-promised followup to his wonderful 1999 caper movie.  Unfortunately the news on this is not good, as the director has left the project and there is apparently, dissension over the script.  Still we can hope.   

Here is the first part of the article, which of course starts with Pierce Brosnan’s rise to fame as James Bond .

Part 2, which deals with some of Mr Brosnan’s greatest m0vies, is here 

Part 3, which deals with his later movies and has links to all the movies referenced, is here

Getting Started

The first time I saw Pierce Brosnan was back in 1995. “Goldeneye” had just been released and everybody wanted to know who the new Bond was. Pierce Brosnan was the guest on a UK TV programme “TGI Friday”. The host introduced him, and immediately played a clip from Goldeneye. The scene was set in a sauna, with Bond indulging in some repartee and rough sex-play with Famke Janssen’s scantily-clad Russian assassin, whose speciality was crushing the life out of her victims with her super-strong thighs. The scene was sloppily salacious and frankly very old Bond, too reminiscent of Roger Moore being beaten up by gimmicky women villains. The clip ended, and the TV host implied that Brosnan had seen Famke Janssen’s breasts in the scene. He laughed and said “Well you know how it is, you’re a boy, you look.” This with a slight shrug, he changed the subject.

It was the reply that intrigued me. Honest, respectful to his co-star, dryly funny, but somehow private. He clearly was not going to go into ego-playtime even when offered the opportunity. This actor made me want to see Goldeneye. But in the 10 years since I am not sure I have found out that much more about Pierce Brosnan. He talks about being transplanted, at the age of 10, from rural Ireland to urban London and being an outsider. Like many men who are outsiders, he is emotionally reticent and, for a movie star, shy about himself. All movie stars say they are shy private people, but I think this is mostly bullshit. I think Pierce Brosnan is the real deal.

And since Goldeneye I have been a Brosnan movie-watcher. I am going to use the occasion of Mr Brosnan’s birthday to talk about his movies. Because if he will not talk about himself, his movies do say a lot about him.

A word about this article. It is long. When I started it I had not thought about the body of work that Pierce Brosnan has produced since 1995. However I wanted to really look at his movies and that meant writing about a lot of them (thirteen to be exact). It was not a difficult task, for even at the outset I could see that he was a versatile actor and that his movies span a number of genres. I hope that you find the article good enough to read to the end and that you enjoy my thoughts on an actor who I think is very interesting and very different.

Goldeneye

Goldeneye was a huge success, and for me it was because Brosnan gave Bond back his arrogance, his certainty, his surety. Brosnan was a fit young actor and he took over the movie, every move fast, sure and confident. The arrogance that Connery had was back, along with a dash of cruelty for its own sake. Brosnan also gave Bond a brio, a joyful lust for smashing things up that made Goldeneye such a thrill-ride. Brosnan moved Bond back to being physical and manly.

There was one other key factor. Brosnan played Bond as ambivalent. The Bond dry humour was now mordant, a far cry from the patrician “I say old boy!” of Roger Moore. It was no longer clear whether the dry humour was funny or just plain cynical. His humour was now as much triumphalism as wit. Brosnan played Bond as slightly bitter but still a loyal assassin with a job to do. Bond was now as implacable as the Terminator, with Brosnan playing him as a man whose superbly-controlled anger will take him past any enemy.

If Connery was the iron-fisted and slick personification of post-war British power and Roger Moore was the British upper-class at war, Brosnan was the spy for the uncertain Nineties. Sworn to duty but too sophisticated to be unaware of the contradictions of his role, he reconciles it all in a manly way, by taking action. Brosnan gives us a glimpse of the inner workings of Bond and after that we could not be complacent, could not relax, because we had to be alert for more surprises from the cynical spy. Goldeneye was a marvellously perceptive and assured performance, especially from a first-time Bond.

Tomorrow Never Dies

Brosnan made Bond his own in Tomorrow Never Dies. Several small things made for a very assured performance. Brosnan made Bond more arrogant, more assured. He did this by making Bond still, a centre of power. He did it by taking away all unnecessary physical action and by making Bond imperturbable in the face of a situation. Once again it was about uncertainty. Roger Moore would raise an eyebrow and make a comment to show he got it, and the comment showed that he had preserved his Brit sang-froid, and was unmoved. Brosnan subtly narrows his eyes to show he’s got it and has a poker-play expression which can change instantly to amusement or outright fury. There was this sense that mayhem could kick off at any second.

Brosnan’s physical presentation of Bond changed. Bond became more deft, balanced, his actions quick and careful. There was a now a kind of master Samurai sense about him, that he could see four moves ahead and was simply anticipating the battle.

And Brosnan shows us how a secret agent loves,…very carefully. His encounter with his lost love Paris Carver (Terri Hatcher) is notable for the tenderness, the soft look, the gentle touch, that are absent from his more casual couplings. And then Brosnan takes Bond to a new place. When Bond comes across Paris’ murdered body, he opens the man up, in a way we have never seen before. It is not just the loss, but the meaninglessness of the death, the finality, the loss of future. This is a small scene but its key to Brosnan’s Bond. Brosnan makes Bond mourn like a real man mourns and it makes the audience feel closer to him.

And of course, this unleashes in Bond the anger necessary to destroy the villain Elliott Carver. Brosnan plays Bond like a man who has an internal switch, which, once activated, he will stop at nothing.

Changing the game….

I believe that the next movie, though a commercial failure, paradoxically showed what a great actor Pierce Brosnan is.

Grey Owl

Moving from mystery to eco-statement, Grey Owl was Richard Attenborough’s bio-pic of the life of an Objibway Indian/Scottish half-breed fur trapper who became one of the first champions of the native environment (in this case the Canadian wilderness) and a huge celebrity in England and Canada. The mystery lay in the fact that Grey Owl was in fact an Englishman who had been adopted into the Ojibway tribe, and is eventually exposed as such.

Brosnan gives us a gruff, mostly humourless man, who is ill at ease in the white world. Once again there is a kind of stillness, a zen in which Brosnan cloaks the character. Brosnan builds a man of utter simplicity, who undertakes each task with total concentration. This is a wise man, who judges the world in his rare utterances. Where Bond had arrogance, Grey Owl has power, and native wisdom. Brosnan does power very well and his Grey Owl is an imposing figure.

Once again it is the small moments in Brosnan’s performance, gem-like scenes where he lets us into the inner character. There is a wonderful moment early on in the film, where Brosnan is acting as a guide for a young woman he does not particularly like (but will eventually fall in love with) and takes her to his adopted Ojibway tribe. The chief starts promoting Grey Owl as a husband, to his evident discomfort. The small tics, the nervous glances that give Brosnan away, are beautifully done.

There is a deliberate rhythm to Brosnan’s Archie Grey Owl. When he is in his place and his power he is fluid, deliberate and spare, with no wasted movement. However, as his secret starts to overwhelm him, his actions begin to stutter, his guilty pauses get longer, sentences that start out calmly explode into anger. Brosnan’s performance grows and grows, and he shows us the immensity of his guilt growing with it. The tension in the man becomes tangible and heart-wrenching as Brosnan increasingly bares the two halves of Grey Owl’s soul. The progression from (supposedly) simple woodsman to troubled eco-celebrity is marked by Brosnan progressively showing the depths of this man’s emotional pain.

This is a masterful performance, Brosnan is the film, because the subtle complexity of his performance outclasses every other aspect of this film.

And back to Bond..

The World is Not Enough
This is a great Bond movie, mythic, manly and with a sense of real danger. This one works so well because it taps into one of Brosnan’s great strengths, the ability to play men who are both powerful and troubled. In The World is Not Enough, Bond is compromised by his failure to save the life of a British industrialist (and friend of M). He is further compromised by M’s use of him, to spy on a woman who may be endangered by Bond’s actions. Once again, Brosnan shows us a man who lives on the edge, showing us the little signs of a man who is getting closer and closer to being a merciless killer, but never overplaying those emotions.

What is so great about this movie is that Brosnan gets the tone perfectly right. This is a very real menace (stolen Russian nukes to be detonated in a major city) and Brosnan’s Bond has never been harder or more deadly. But this is also Bond, and Brosnan is truly funny here, the jokes and quips are perfectly timed, delivered in that slightly menacing tone. The sight and situation gags are done perfectly and Brosnan is as slick as hell in doing them. Here Brosnan gives us the Bond he had always promised us, the mature, cosmopolitan sensualist, a man in great physical shape, who happens to be a killer.

Masterpieces and changes
For me Brosnan really hit his stride with The World is Not Enough and I think this emboldened him to become even more creative. His next movie was a risky undertaking and turned out to be a masterpiece

Legio Patria Nostra; The Legion is our Fatherland

Official Legion Motto

Today, the 30th of April, the French Foreign Legion celebrates Camerone Day at its compound in Aubagne, Southern France.  The Legion celebrates its victories and its glories.  It honours its history and its dead.

This is Part 3 of the Camerone Day article and describes the event itself

Part 1 of this article, which briefly outlines the history of the Legion up to the Battle of Camerone, can be found here

Part 2, which retells the events of the battle of Camerone, can be found here

Camerone Day Parade

On this day, a ritual recitation of the battle is read out by an officer at a ceremonial parade.  The artificial hand of Capitaine Danjou is carried solemnly to the Monument to the Dead, where it presides over the ceremony.

The wooden hand of Capitaine Jean Danjou

In the afternoon, parades are structured around meticulously prepared displays of military skill.  Officers and men mix freely with retired veterans and legionnaire families.  The Legion museum is opened to the visitors.

The senior officers of the Legion make coffee for the lower ranks and enlisted men.  They do this in memory of the legionnaires of Camerone, literally making “the coffee the legionnaires of Camerone never had”.   Toasts are made, wine and beer are drunk.

In the old days Camerone Day was the one day on which legionnaires could do whatever they liked, drinking, brawling, public disorder.  Tradition dictated that any legionnaire was pardoned for whatever he might do, short of striking an officer.  In these more politically correct times that liberty has been taken away, though minor infractions are still looked on with a blind eye.   

Legionnaire sappers wearing their traditional leather aprons

 

“They are just more expendable”

The Legion has changed, fought many more wars and become even more renowned since Camerone.  The Legion is now France’s Special Forces, go-anywhere army.  However, some things do not change.  One commentator, when asked what was so special about the Legion said “They are just more expendable”. 

The Legion today

In truth the Legion has always been treated shabbily by successive French governments.  The Legion is given impossible tasks, which they accomplish without complaint and with matchless courage.  They have often been abandoned or betrayed by France, for whatever political expedience has been paramount at the time.

France is not a country which we associated the virtues of bravery and honour.  But the Legion are a magnificent exception, who embody courage, bravery and honour.  Here is my salute to the Legion and its men on their great day.

Books

There are no good movies about the French Foreign Legion but the law of balance has ensured that there are some superb books.  Here are my preferences:

Douglas Porch

The French Foreign Legion

I am indebted to Douglas Porch for much of what I know about the Legion.  His book is a wonderful history of the legion, up to the end of its time in Algeria.  Porch is an intelligent, perceptive writer, with a quietly consistent love of the Legion and its history that makes for irresistible reading. 

Get it in England here or in the US here

Simon Murray

Legionnaire

Widely considered to be the best memoir of life in the modern legion, it has more depth and self-awareness than the other memoirs that are in print.  Simon Murray can best be described as a rather well-off British adolescent who, for reasons he did not really understand, enlisted in the French Foreign Legion.  It made a man of him and a special one at that.  Once you start this book you cannot put it down.

Get it in England here or in the US here

John Robert Young

The French Foreign Legion; the inside story of the world-famous fighting force

I consider myself incredibly lucky to own a copy of this book, which I have had for a long time.    Though it is now out of print I urge you to try to get a copy.  John Robert Young is a famous English photo-journalist who lived with the Legion for over a year, photographing and writing about their life.  I am indebted to this book for my description of Camerone Day.

The photographs are beautiful, works of art, and I defy any real man to look at them without getting a lump in the throat.  The book was printed in Italy and the quality of the book and the photographs is superb.  If you want to feel and see what life in the Legion is like, this is the best and finest book. 
Get it in England here

Photographs

John Robert Young has a website, where it is possible to buy prints of his magnificent Legion photographs.  I have promised myself one.

You can get them here

“Marche ou creve”; March or Die

Unofficial Legion Motto

Today is Camerone Day

Camerone Day is the most important day in the calendar of the French Foreign Legion, their holy day. 

This is Part 2 of the Camerone Day article, and retells the events of the battle

Part 1 of this article, which briefly outlines the history of the Legion up to Camerone, can be found here

Part 3 is about Camerone Day itself and what happens on the day, can be found here

The battle of Hacienda Cameron

On April 30^th 1863, a Legion reconnaissance force of 65 men and officers were on patrol near the village of Cameron.  The legionnaires were led by Capitaine Jean Danjou, a hero of the legion’s Crimean war.  Danjou had lost his left hand in battle and had a wooden hand in its stead.

On foot, Danjou’s force suddenly encountered 1,200 Mexican cavalry, busy setting an ambush for the main French army.  Forming a square, Danjou unleashed a fusillade of rifle fire that completely shattered the Mexican charge.  Danjou moved his command to the Hacienda Cameron, a large ranch some two hundred yards away.  Here, with matchless courage, the legionnaires fought the huge Mexican force.

Capitaine Jean Danjou

“We have munitions, we will fight”

By 11.00 am the legionnaires had fought for three hours, without water and with only the ammunition they carried.  Their mules carrying water and ammunition had been run off by the Mexican’s at first contact.  When offered the chance to surrender, Danjou simply replied “We have munitions, we will fight”.  The legionnaires swore an oath to fight to the death.

A simpler reply

The legion’s situation soon a turn for the worst.  The Mexicans were joined by 600 infantrymen.  This gave them the ability to storm the compound.  By this time Danjou, who have been leading bravely, was dead.  As the fighting intensified, the Mexicans offered the legionnaires a second opportunity to surrender.  The second reply was shorter “Merde!”     

The legion fought on.  Incendiaries and the intense rifle fire set fire to the Hacienda.  Still the legion fought on, standing in the smoke and flames.  In the words of Corporal Louis Maine  “Hope no longer existed, still, no one thought of surrender”. 

The Mexicans stormed the compound; the five surviving legionnaires each fired their single last bullet and then bayonet charged the astonished Mexicans.  The last officer, Second Lieutenant Maudet, died instantly with 19 bullets in him, along with Catteau, a legionnaire who tried to act as a human shield for Maudet.  Wenzel, Constantin and Maine, the surviving Legionnaires, were about to be bayoneted when a Mexican officer halted their killing.

The Legion's last stand at Hacienda Cameron

“Will you surrender?”

The officer begged them to surrender.  The three legionnaires agreed to do so, as long they could keep their weapons and that Wenzel be treated for his wounds.  With this agreed, they were taken to the Mexican commander, a Colonel Milan.  When he saw them he exclaimed “Is this all that is left?”  “These are not men, these are demons!”.

Eternal Glory

The incredible story of the battle became the enduring myth of the Legion.  Danjou and the brave men who would never surrender.  Camerone has resonated throughout the Legion’s history as the moment when the Legion was truly born.

The Legion’s Alamo

To understand the importance of Camerone, one has to understand that Camerone is the Legion’s Alamo, brave men fighting against impossible odds, refusing to surrender.  There are other parallels.  Like the battle of the Alamo, Camerone so shocked the Mexican forces that they lost a major battle to the French soon after. 

Part 3, is about Camerone Day itself and what happens on the day, can be found here

Legio Patria Nostra;  The Legion is our Fatherland

Official motto of the French Foreign Legion

Today is Camerone Day, the day on which the French Foreign Legion celebrates its history.

This is Part 1, which briefly tells of the formation of the French Foreign Legion

Part 2, which retells the events of the battle of Camerone, can be found here

Part 3, is about Camerone Day itself and what happens on the day, can be found here

The French Foreign Legion on parade

Camerone Day is the most important day in the calendar of the French Foreign Legion, their holy day.  It is a day that celebrates courage, honour and fidelity.  It is the French Foreign Legion’s Alamo.  Today, as on every April the 30^th, the Legion will celebrate Camerone Day in their compound at Aubagne in the South of France.

The French Foreign Legion is one of the most famous fighting forces the world has ever known.  Camerone, the battle of Hacienda Cameron, formed the legion, and made them unique as a fighting force.  Every legionnaire knows the story of Camerone.  For the Legion, Camerone lives in their hearts. 

In honour of this day, here is a brief retelling of how it came about.

A brief summary of the origins of the French Foreign Legion

Strangely enough the French Foreign Legion was an outcome of the French Revolution.  The revolution sent shockwaves throughout Europe for decades after the event.  The other countries of Europe were monarchies, dictatorships one and all.  The revolution attracted many thousands of other nationalities to France, in search of the elusive freedom. 

Elusive freedom

However if France were free, life was not.  Over time, France’s problem became what do with these men.  Penniless, often not speaking French, mostly without useful skills or money, the foreigners were a real problem.  Banding together in camps and bands, gravitating towards crime, they became a threat to civil communities.  Something had to be done.     

The Legion D’Etranger

France had a tradition of enlisting foreigners into its army.  It always needed men to fill out levies to fight the constant wars that erupted in its colonies.  In 1831 the new revolutionary government passed a bill to form a new army, of foreign nationals.

So the Legion was formed as a regiment of foreigners led by French officers. From this inauspicious start would come one of the greatest fighting forces the world has ever known. 

The Legion was very different then.  This was a desperate regiment, for desperate men.  For many it was the choice between death by starvation or joining the Legion.  Many of these men were fugitives, defeated revolutionaries, criminals, illegal immigrants from France’s African empire.  It is from this time that the legion’s policy of allowing any man to enlist without asking him about his past, came into being.     

Mexico  1863

By this time the Legion had fought in several of France’s wars.  Spain, where France had involved itself the Spanish civil war, and what was then French Africa, later to become Algeria.  They had also fought in the Crimean war.  Though their victories had been mixed with some considerable failures, they were sufficiently seasoned to be sent to support France’s counter-revolutionary force in Mexico.  Here, France’s domination was threatened by a native revolt.  

Legionnaire uniform in the 1860's

The legion took two important things to Mexico.  An iron hardness and courage born of the brutal, gruelling discipline they had learnt in Africa.  And an unbreakable bond between the men, born of the conviction that all legionnaires were outcasts whose only home was the Legion.

They were about to get the third piece of their identity, the one that would make them one of the greatest fighting forces the world has ever known. 

Part 2, which retells the events of the battle of Camerone, can be found here

Robert Heinlein

Today is the birthday of Robert Anson Heinlein.  As many readers will know Robert Heinlein was a science fiction writer whose heyday was in the fifties and sixties.  Like many Science Fiction writers of that time he wrote about a future where space travel and aliens were, if not commonplace, at least part of the known world(s).  Unlike those other writers, who have mostly faded into obscurity, Robert Heinlein is still read today and his ideas still have a currency that lends them to be debated.  In this respect he is almost unique.  I would like to share a few observations about why that is.  If it seems a little odd to be celebrating a science fiction writer on a web-magazine about men and style, then I have to say that Robert Heinlein had some very important things to say about men.  

I have read Robert Heinlein all my adult life and he shares a comparable place in my literary gallery with Ernest Hemingway.  Indeed there are some real similarities between them.  There is much to write about Robert Heinlein and it cannot all be contained in one article.  For now I will concentrate on Heinlein’s men.  I hope to write more in due course. 

Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein brought an intellectual maturity to SF and a willingness to make his stories explore complex and important ideas.  His stories inhabit a consistent future history, where starships, ray-guns and technology have taken men to new worlds.  However Robert Heinlein had a rare ability to use the SF form to write provocative novels about subjects as diverse as race, politics, the function of the military and the place of rituals in modern society.  In his later novels he turned to metaphysics and the hard questions of why are we here?, what happens after we die?  However his real genius was to write adventures that men could relate to, be excited by and enjoy.

Man Alone

Heinlein’s men are heroes, though they do not start out that way.  In Double Star, a failed actor becomes a double for a politician under threat of assassination, and inadvertently becomes the bridge between humans and an ancient and sophisticated Martian culture.  In Starship Troopers, Juan Rico is a spoilt rich boy who finds his manhood as an infantryman in a war against a genocidal race of alien bug creatures. 

 Robert Heinlein believed passionately in self-reliance, the need for an individual to avoid conformity and follow his own ideas and visions.  He coupled this with a intelligent and worldly understanding of modern western society, characterising it as technically dependent and with a need for conformity.  His ability to write elegant lucid stories with a mature adult sensibility brings these two contradictory worlds together in colourful and provocative adventures.

 We read his stories because they ask the question “How does a man live in a world he has not made?”  It is the same question we ask ourselves.

 I think that one of the reasons we read him is that he never cheats us.  His future societies may have starships and rayguns but they are realistic, they suffer the same problems that every complex society has, bad laws, stupid people, natural upheavals.  The effects of these societies feel real to the protagonists, and they feel real to us.  Heinlein’s men have to understand their society and decide what their moral principles are.  Which we all have to do. 

 For Robert Heinlein never gives his heroes a free ride.  They have to form themselves mentally and morally, usually while getting caught up in a plot to enslave all human colonists on Mars (Red Planet), freeing a future America from a religious dictatorship (Revolt in 2100) or trying to stop an invasion of alien mind parasites (The Puppet Masters).  With Heinlein it’s always running and putting your jacket on at the same time.  I believe this is one reason why he is still so readable.  The stories have a breakneck excitement, complex ideas are explored in prose of Hemingwayan terseness and every mistake the hero makes could cost him his life.  The hero’s resources are his skills, his moral principles and his self-reliance.  It could as easily be us as the hero.

Real men and real communities

Heinlein’s view was that government was a necessary evil.  The societies he approves of, (the ones he imagines in his books) are American in spirit, filled with free thinking individuals, intelligent decision makers and a desire for progress that is joyous and unafraid.  In “The Moon is a harsh mistress” he came the closest anyone has every come to describing a working libertarian community.  His luna is a penal colony, filled with convicts and ex-convicts, all transported by the governments of Earth.  Their fight for independence from a tyrannical Earth, is funny, inspiring, heartwarming and exciting.  Nearly fifty years after its publication The Moon is a harsh mistress remains an inspiration for libertarians. 

Here is the great contradiction in Robert Heinlein’s writing.  He is utopian enough to want good government but knows the price of it.  He writes perceptively of the need for good communities, for shared moral principles and good manners, for hierarchies of abilities and the need to recognise the importance of critical knowledge and skills.              

However shared values are among the things that deny his heroes their freedom.  In Stranger in a strange land, his best-selling tale of an Earthling raised by Martians and taught great powers, Robert Heinlein asks the question how do you build a society when each man has the power to stand outside of it, or destroy it.   

 For Heinlein politics is a necessary evil but definitely evil.  He values liberty over government, is scathing about politicians (he was a political activist before becoming a writer).  He saves the worst of his venom for repressive societies that destroy the human spirit, communism being the foremost amongst them.  Time of course has proven him right but in the sixties novels like Starship troopers, The Puppet Masters and Revolt in 2100 were a crusade against socialist conformity.

 Heinlein sees humanity’s best hope as free people tolerating (at best) a weak government, a kind of federated universe.  Even here he knows that freedom will be constrained.  In Glory Road, The Moon is a harsh mistress and Farnham’s Freehold, Heinlein makes it plain that freedom is on the frontier, where civilisation and its rules have not yet encroached on life.  No-one has written more perceptively about the innate contradictions between men and their community.  Real men assert themselves for justice and the community resists this.  Heinlein knew this and makes heroic stories out of this.     

Men and magic

But we do not read Heinlein for his socio-political shading, gripping though that is.  We read him for his men.  Juan Rico and his journey from spoilt kid to courageous and honourable fighting man, the actor Lorenzo Smythe,an unlucky man who gets a second chance late in life and has the courage to take it,  “Oscar” Gordon, the man who does not fit in, who answers a newspaper ad starting “Are you a coward?”, who gets the chance to slay dragons.

Men and magic and adventure

These novels are men’s adventures, from a tradition that goes back thousands of years.  Robert Heinlein may be a master of political thought, hard science and military history but it is the adventure that is the thing.  One man against the world.  His heroes are modern Francis Drakes, D’artagnans, and dragon slayers. 

 The simple truth is that Robert Heinlein’s books are a joy to read.

 Robert Heinlein says it better than I can.  I have the following excerpt from Glory Road pinned up in my office:

 “I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom.  I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me ,  “The games afoot!” I wanted to float down the Mississippi  on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.

 I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake.  I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon.  I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid.  I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be – instead of the tawdry, lousy fouled-up mess it is.   

Robert Heinlein’s men are risk-takers, lovers and fighters.  Great men have that sense of wonder.

 What did I learn from Robert Heinlein?  Adventurers have the best lives. 

Thank you Robert Heinlein.

“I am the epitome of Twentieth Century cosmopolitanism, but I should have an explorer in the time of Magellan”

  Errol Flynn.

Today is the birthday of Errol Flynn, one of the most handsome and manly men ever to make movies. 

Errol Flynn’s start in movies 

Errol Flynn burst onto the screen in Captain Blood, Michael Curtiz’ wonderful swashbuckler.  He almost came out of nowhere, but not quite.  After a bumpy life in which he had bought and run a tea plantation (and gone broke), run a copper mine (also went broke), he pitched up in England as an actor.  At the age of 25 he made a movie called Murder in Monte Carlo, for Warner Brothers.   This got him to Hollywood, where he had the huge good fortune to come to the attention of Jack Warner, the movie mogul and, of course, the head of Warner studios.  Jack Warner was one of the smartest men who ever lived and he saw Flynn’s virility, masculine beauty, athleticism and charisma and made this unknown the star of his movie. 

 Well, the Sea hawk was a huge success and Errol Flynn became the huge star we remember.

Errol Flynn as Captain Peter Blood

 There is no other actor like him.  Charming, sophisticated, witty and handsome, he filled the screen.  Women adored him.  But for all that, he was a man’s man and men admired him too.  Movie critic Pauline Kael once said of Cary Grant that to simply see him on screen makes us feel happy.  Errol Flynn had a similar quality.  When he appears on screen we feel our spirits lift and we know that nothing deter us, we can fight on to victory.    

For Flynn’s movie characters were what every man wants to be, venturesome, courageous, honourable, light-hearted and romantic.  The reason that he played though characters so well is that, as a man he was all of those things.  But there was something more, something special.  Errol Flynn was smart, witty, quick and knowing.  His persona was that of the worldly man who had bumped around, had his ups and downs.  What was different about him?

 He always loved life. 

 He was never cynical.  How important this is.  He has the manly quality par excellence, he imbues other men with confidence and joie de vivre.  By example he shows us that, whatever happens to us, life is a fight and a joy and a glorious journey, so keep smiling. 

Errol Flynn as Robin Hood

Flynn’s movies

 You can see it in his movies.  As Geoffrey Thorpe (a thinly disguised Sir Francis Drake) in the Sea Hawk, he is patriotic and calls on the patriotism of others, to fight tyranny.  We know in our hearts that his patriotic fervour is real.  Real men are patriots. 

 In Dawn Patrol we believe in his Captain Courtney pilot and officer, who is an honourable man, because it is transparently clear that Errol Flynn believed in honour.

 And then there is The Adventure of Robin Hood.  I was very lucky in how I saw this movie, because, for all my affection for Errol Flynn’s movies I had never seen “Adventures”. 

It was a cold winter and the occasion was a showing (at London’s National Film Theatre) of a fully restored print of The Adventures of Robin Hood. 

House lights go down and the screen lights up, Erich Korngold’s wonderful score plays and the credits scroll.  The first scene is the confrontation between Much the Miller’s son (Herbert Mundin) and the evil Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone).  Suddenly Robin Hood rides into shot and Errol Flynn’s presence fills the screen.  To a man the audience clapped!  Some of them stood and clapped!  It was a spontaneous recognition of the sheer charisma and good feeling that Errol Flynn brought the screen.  It was a wonderful moment that had a huge impact on me and I have never forgotten it.   

Ambushing Guy of Gisbourne, from The adventures of Robin Hood

Flynn’s manliness

Errol Flynn calls out to the adventurer in all men.  The English actor David Niven was his good friend and by all accounts Errol Flynn was a loyal and generous friend.  However he was still Errol Flynn, headstrong, impatient of authority, liable to get a friend into scrapes.  Niven’s autobiographies, especially Bring On the Empty Horses, is full of wonderful Flynn  stories.  My favourite has to be the grapefruit story.  Flynn was signed up to play the lead in “The charge of the Light Brigade”.  It was a big budget movie and hugely important to Warner Brothers.  However they were worried by Flynn’s drinking.  So the studio ordered him not to drink and told him they were going to enforce a “dry” set.  So Flynn set about circumventing what, to him, was a wholly unfair restriction.  He got a large syringe and methodically injected a crate of grapefruit with vodka.  He then took these with him to the set….

 The studio heads rang the studio and asked if Flynn were drinking.  No, came the reply, and he is eating healthily, lots of fruit!

 Now that is a man!

 This is a short article but I must pay tribute to Errol Flynn as a serious actor.  His athleticism and sheer style led many people to overlook his qualities as an actor.  But one of my favourite roles is Errol Flynn as Mike Gilbert, a good man lost to drink, in The Sun Also Rises.  Here he honestly, carefully and respectfully lays bare the self-loathing and helplessness of the alcoholic.  It is a difficult performance to watch, much less to like, but it is magnificent.      

Errol Flynn was a real man.  He was not perfect and he knew it, he talked honestly about his mistakes and flaws.  However he always tried to live up to the virtues that ment so much to him.  Politically correct people often sneer at these values, the underlying argument being that manly men are a sham and that these values like courage, honour and patriotism are worthless and unreal.  The great glory of Errol Flynn is that he was a fallible man, lived out his failings in public and was unrepentant about living for adventure, and for values that real men stand for.       

Errol Flynn sailing

God bless you Mr Flynn, for a life of courage, laughter and adventure.

Further Information

Errol Flynn’s daughter Rory, runs his offocial website here.  It gives a real sense of who Errol Flynn was and the homepage introduction says it all, succinctly and sincerely

10 Flynn Movies

Here are my ten favourite Flynn movies:

 The Adventures of Robin Hood

One of the finest movies ever made and one of Errol Flynn’s best performances.  He was gentle, manly, debonair and fearless as Robin.  Add to this Michael Curtiz inspired direction, Erich Korngold’s music and the great Basil Rathbone and you have a masterpiece.     

Get it in the UK here and in the US here

 The SeaHawk

My second favourite Flynn movie.  His English privateer Geoffrey Thorpe is a masterpiece of passion and patriotism and there is the most magnificent swordfight at the movie’s end.  Also, an indirect and urgent plea for the US to join England in the war against the Nazis.

Get it in the UK here and in the US here

 Elizabeth and Essex

Flynn’s performance, slated at the time, is now considered to be a piece of craftsmanship acting.  By turning off his worldliness and making Essex a victim of his own passions, Flynn gives us a man doomed for all the wrong reasons.

Get it in the UK here and in the US here

 Dawn Patrol

First world war air combat, a brave, honourable and chivalrous pilot in a war made ruthless by new technologies.

Get it in the US here

Kim

As Mahbub Ali, the rascally trader with an eye for girls, Flynn is great.  Mahbub Ali is of course an intrepid spy for the British in India.  Interestingly, Flynn underplays his part here and becomes the quiet heart of the movie.  

Get it in the US here

 Dodge City

Just huge fun.  Cowboys, clichés and adventure, Flynn plays this with one eyebrow permanently arched and some great lines.  

Get it in the UK here and in the US here

 Captain Blood

The evolution of Peter Blood, from disgraced doctor to buccaneer.  Flynn’s blood is honourable, whilst knowing full well the perils that honour may bring.  A man with a sword against his enemies, an adventurer’s dream.

Get it in the UK here and in the US here

Adventures of Don Juan

Flynn was older now and the pace of this movie is sometimes suspect, but his ability to play heroic men of conviction is undiminished.    

Get it in the UK here and in the US here

 The charge of the Light brigade

Flynn as the man of duty and honour, whose worldly nature and sharp mind tell him that charging the guns is suicide but whose commitment to honour allows him no other choice.  Simply beautifully played.

Get it in the UK here and in the US here

 The Sun also Rises

A magnificent performance here, as rich drunk American Mike Gilbert, and the sort of part that Flynn always wanted to play.  Hemingway’s novel called for a good man fallen into desparate alcoholism, and Flynn gives a pitch-perfect performance.  Hemingway and Flynn were both manly men and their meeting in this movie was absolutely right.

Get it in the UK here and in the US here

Today is the birthday of Pierce Brosnan, he is 56. Happy Birthday, Mr Brosnan.

The first time I saw Pierce Brosnan was back in 1995. “Goldeneye” had just been released and everybody wanted to know who the new Bond was. Pierce Brosnan was the guest on a UK TV programme “TGI Friday”. The host introduced him, and immediately played a clip from Goldeneye. The scene was set in a sauna, with Bond indulging in some repartee and rough sex-play with Famke Janssen’s scantily-clad Russian assassin, whose speciality was crushing the life out of her victims with her super-strong thighs. The scene was sloppily salacious and frankly very old Bond, too reminiscent of Roger Moore being beaten up by gimmicky women villains. The clip ended, and the TV host implied that Brosnan had seen Famke Janssen’s breasts in the scene. He laughed and said “Well you know how it is, you’re a boy, you look.” This with a slight shrug, he changed the subject.

It was the reply that intrigued me. Honest, respectful to his co-star, dryly funny, but somehow private. He clearly was not going to go into ego-playtime even when offered the opportunity. This actor made me want to see Goldeneye. But in the 10 years since I am not sure I have found out that much more about Pierce Brosnan. He talks about being transplanted, at the age of 10, from rural Ireland to urban London and being an outsider. Like many men who are outsiders, he is emotionally reticent and, for a movie star, shy about himself. All movie stars say they are shy private people, but I think this is mostly bullshit. I think Pierce Brosnan is the real deal.

And since Goldeneye I have been a Brosnan movie-watcher. I am going to use the occasion of Mr Brosnan’s birthday to talk about his movies. Because if he will not talk about himself, his movies do say a lot about him.

A word about this article. It is long. When I started it I had not thought about the body of work that Pierce Brosnan has produced since 1995. However I wanted to really look at his movies and that meant writing about a lot of them (thirteen to be exact). It was not a difficult task, for even at the outset I could see that he was a versatile actor and that his movies span a number of genres. I hope that you find the article good enough to read to the end and that you enjoy my thoughts on an actor who I think is very interesting and very different.

Goldeneye

Goldeneye was a huge success, and for me it was because Brosnan gave Bond back his arrogance, his certainty, his surety. Brosnan was a fit young actor and he took over the movie, every move fast, sure and confident. The arrogance that Connery had was back, along with a dash of cruelty for its own sake. Brosnan also gave Bond a brio, a joyful lust for smashing things up that made Goldeneye such a thrill-ride. Brosnan moved Bond back to being physical and manly.

Bond, a tank and lots of destruction....

There was one other key factor. Brosnan played Bond as ambivalent. The Bond dry humour was now mordant, a far cry from the patrician “I say old boy!” of Roger Moore. It was no longer clear whether the dry humour was funny or just plain cynical. His humour was now as much triumphalism as wit. Brosnan played Bond as slightly bitter but still a loyal assassin with a job to do. Bond was now as implacable as the Terminator, with Brosnan playing him as a man whose superbly-controlled anger will take him past any enemy.

Bond with Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen)

If Connery was the iron-fisted and slick personification of post-war British power and Roger Moore was the British upper-class at war, Brosnan was the spy for the uncertain Nineties. Sworn to duty but too sophisticated to be unaware of the contradictions of his role, he reconciles it all in a manly way, by taking action. Brosnan gives us a glimpse of the inner workings of Bond and after that we could not be complacent, could not relax, because we had to be alert for more surprises from the cynical spy. Goldeneye was a marvellously perceptive and assured performance, especially from a first-time Bond.

Tomorrow Never Dies

Brosnan made Bond his own in Tomorrow Never Dies. Several small things made for a very assured performance. Brosnan made Bond more arrogant, more assured. He did this by making Bond still, a centre of power. He did it by taking away all unnecessary physical action and by making Bond imperturbable in the face of a situation. Once again it was about uncertainty. Roger Moore would raise an eyebrow and make a comment to show he got it, and the comment showed that he had preserved his Brit sang-froid, and was unmoved. Brosnan subtly narrows his eyes to show he’s got it and has a poker-play expression which can change instantly to amusement or outright fury. There was this sense that mayhem could kick off at any second.

Brosnan’s physical presentation of Bond changed. Bond became more deft, balanced, his actions quick and careful. There was a now a kind of master Samurai sense about him, that he could see four moves ahead and was simply anticipating the battle.

And Brosnan shows us how a secret agent loves,…very carefully. His encounter with his lost love Paris Carver (Terri Hatcher) is notable for the tenderness, the soft look, the gentle touch, that are absent from his more casual couplings. And then Brosnan takes Bond to a new place. When Bond comes across Paris’ murdered body, he opens the man up, in a way we have never seen before. It is not just the loss, but the meaninglessness of the death, the finality, the loss of future. This is a small scene but its key to Brosnan’s Bond. Brosnan makes Bond mourn like a real man mourns and it makes the audience feel closer to him.

Paris Carver (Terri Hatcher) and Bond

And of course, this unleashes in Bond the anger necessary to destroy the villain Elliott Carver. Brosnan plays Bond like a man who has an internal switch, which, once activated, he will stop at nothing.

Changing the game….

I believe that the next movie, though a commercial failure, paradoxically showed what a great actor Pierce Brosnan is.

Grey Owl

Moving from mystery to eco-statement, Grey Owl was Richard Attenborough’s bio-pic of the life of an Objibway Indian/Scottish half-breed fur trapper who became one of the first champions of the native environment (in this case the Canadian wilderness) and a huge celebrity in England and Canada. The mystery lay in the fact that Grey Owl was in fact an Englishman who had been adopted into the Ojibway tribe, and is eventually exposed as such.

Brosnan gives us a gruff, mostly humourless man, who is ill at ease in the white world. Once again there is a kind of stillness, a zen in which Brosnan cloaks the character. Brosnan builds a man of utter simplicity, who undertakes each task with total concentration. This is a wise man, who judges the world in his rare utterances. Where Bond had arrogance, Grey Owl has power, and native wisdom. Brosnan does power very well and his Grey Owl is an imposing figure.

Once again it is the small moments in Brosnan’s performance, gem-like scenes where he lets us into the inner character. There is a wonderful moment early on in the film, where Brosnan is acting as a guide for a young woman he does not particularly like (but will eventually fall in love with) and takes her to his adopted Ojibway tribe. The chief starts promoting Grey Owl as a husband, to his evident discomfort. The small tics, the nervous glances that give Brosnan away, are beautifully done.

Archie Grey Owl and Anahereo at their wedding

There is a deliberate rhythm to Brosnan’s Archie Grey Owl. When he is in his place and his power he is fluid, deliberate and spare, with no wasted movement. However, as his secret starts to overwhelm him, his actions begin to stutter, his guilty pauses get longer, sentences that start out calmly explode into anger. Brosnan’s performance grows and grows, and he shows us the immensity of his guilt growing with it. The tension in the man becomes tangible and heart-wrenching as Brosnan increasingly bares the two halves of Grey Owl’s soul. The progression from (supposedly) simple woodsman to troubled eco-celebrity is marked by Brosnan progressively showing the depths of this man’s emotional pain.

This is a masterful performance, Brosnan is the film, because the subtle complexity of his performance outclasses every other aspect of this film.

And back to Bond..

The World is Not Enough
This is a great Bond movie, mythic, manly and with a sense of real danger. This one works so well because it taps into one of Brosnan’s great strengths, the ability to play men who are both powerful and troubled. In The World is Not Enough, Bond is compromised by his failure to save the life of a British industrialist (and friend of M). He is further compromised by M’s use of him, to spy on a woman who may be endangered by Bond’s actions. Once again, Brosnan shows us a man who lives on the edge, showing us the little signs of a man who is getting closer and closer to being a merciless killer, but never overplaying those emotions.

A tougher, more deadly Bond

What is so great about this movie is that Brosnan gets the tone perfectly right. This is a very real menace (stolen Russian nukes to be detonated in a major city) and Brosnan’s Bond has never been harder or more deadly. But this is also Bond, and Brosnan is truly funny here, the jokes and quips are perfectly timed, delivered in that slightly menacing tone. The sight and situation gags are done perfectly and Brosnan is as slick as hell in doing them. Here Brosnan gives us the Bond he had always promised us, the mature, cosmopolitan sensualist, a man in great physical shape, who happens to be a killer.

Masterpieces and changes
For me Brosnan really hit his stride with The World is Not Enough and I think this emboldened him to become even more creative. His next movie was a risky undertaking and turned out to be a masterpiece.

The Thomas Crown Affair
A re-make of the original Thomas Crown Affair by Pierce Brosnan’s own Irish Dreamtime productions, this is a superb movie that knocks the original into a cocked hat. This version plays out an art-heist that is colourful, exciting and fun. Brosnan plays the head of a Mergers and Acquisitions boutique bank, whose rogue alpha male superiority leads him into pulling heists.

One of the problems with the original was that Steve McQueen did not understand who he was playing. In the romantic and action scenes he was fine, in the scenes where he plays Crown as a businessman he was embarrassingly bad. The truth is actors rarely understand how to play businessmen. They play them well when they play them as greedy, as stupid, as unable to relate to other people. They do know how to play them positively, as gamblers, risk-takers, fighters and winners.

Having worked in Mergers and Acquisitions myself, my assessment is that Brosnan’s Thomas Crown is pitch-perfect. Early on there is a wonderful scene, where Brosnan strides confidently across the floor of his boutique bank, left hand in his pocket. He slips from one conversation to the next and as he nears his office he stretches out his right hand and says to the guy sitting at the next-to-last desk “Give me good numbers Jimmy”. Gesture, timing, tone of voice, posture are all perfect, the complete high-risk banker. Brosnan is just as good in all his other scenes. He clearly understands who this man is and he shows us, the audience, all the little facets of character that make this man the successful Alpha male he is.

Thomas Crown and Catherine Banning (Rene Russo)

Brosnan really inhabits this role. He has often been considered the successor to Cary Grant and here he shows the qualities that got him nominated. He is funny, suave, sophisticated and charming. Playing a rich banker gives him the chance to play wealthy and cultured and he does it with silky ease. He is a classic body-shape and the clothes in the movie (bespoke tailored by Campagna of New York) are perfect on him, he has the sensitivity and sensibility to understand the importance of those tailored suits.

And this movie is a feel-good movie, there is no violence, the real world is somewhere outside, along with Mergers and Acquisitions.  Brosnan dominates the movie, yet the scenes are with Rene Russo as his love interest/adversary are balanced, intimate and beautifully paced. Brosnan is a generous co-star as he shares the screen with Russo. And Brosnan plays off Russo, perfectly in character. There is a pivotal moment where the masterful, successful Thomas Crown has to admit to Russo that she is the first woman to visit his secret Caribbean home. By doing so, he loses a skirmish in their battle of wits and admits, by implication, that their relationship is more than just sex. He plays it with just the right amount of confusion and embarrassment.

The Thomas Crown Affair was notable for the passion of its love scenes

And Brosnan plays Crown as a manly man, successful, a solitary risk-taker having the adventure of a lifetime, who is suddenly confused by the appearance of love. This movie was Brosnan acting as a classic Hollywood movie star and he did it to perfection. Audiences loved it.  For me it is a favourite film.

Deliberately messing it up….

The Tailor of Panama
This was the movie that told us that Brosnan was never going to be content to be an action hero. It starts with Andrew Osnard MI6 (Brosnan), being exiled to Panama in disgrace. So I thought it was going to be a kinda Bond spy movie….

Well, everybody gets it wrong sometimes, including me. The Tailor of Panama is a truly black comedy about British and American interference in other countries. And Andrew Osnard is a truly evil man, even by spy standards. Amoral and self-obsessed, he invents a wholly imaginary conspiracy against the Panama Canal, with the intention of rehabilitating himself with his boss and getting back to a plum posting.

Osnard intimidates Harry the Tailor (Geoffrey Rush)

To do this he finds vulnerable and foolish people and uses them without mercy. He intimidates, blackmails and threatens these people in order to make them do his bidding. Brosnan holds nothing back in the role, is truly frightening, completely evil. Osnard watches these people like a cat watching a mouse, takes pleasure in their pain and then you can see him calculating how to inflict more. He is intelligent, articulate and with a quickness and a savagery that scares the life out of his victims. Brosnan finds a cruel, sadistic part of himself and has no compunction about unleashing it onscreen. His face does the work here, the smile becomes a sneer, the twinkle in the eye becomes a glare. There is no concession to his earlier hero persona at all, he takes a hammer to it in this movie and clearly has a great time doing it.

Osnard seducing Harry's wife (Jamie Lee Curtis)

Along with a wonderful cast he makes a movie so blackly funny, you have to laugh or you would cry. An unexpected departure for an actor who clearly had something to say.

Die Another Day
Next came Die Another Day, Bond is betrayed, to the North Koreans. Brosnan gives us a Bond who is not only vengeful but paranoid, slightly world-weary and short of patience. There is a new ruthlessness about Bond and Brosnan plays him as a man who wants satisfaction, whose impatience shows in his abruptness and his short fuse. And it’s time for Bond the hedonist, who meets his like in CIA agent Jinx (Halle Berry). As Bond, Brosnan throws himself into sex with Jinx and their sex scene is passionate, athletic and feels very real. This was Brosnan’s darkest Bond, his thinly veiled anger being acted out the set of his shoulders, the light in his eye and the tone of his voice. In many ways this was Brosnan’s Bond at his most real.

The duel from Die Another Day

When Daniel Craig made Casino Royale, a lot of nonsense was talked about James Bond, by newspaper journalists who had no understanding of Bond or his story. Like many men I have long been a James Bond fan. I loved Casino Royal and thought Daniel Craig was a tough hero. But the real Commander Bond? The archetypal Bond of Fleming’s books?

Brosnan was the better Bond. Sean Connery defined Bond and consequently cannot be beat, but Brosnan comes a close second.

Evelyn
I have to be honest; I did not want to see Evelyn. I had heard that it was sentimental, set in fifties Ireland (a period in English history defined by poverty and parochialism) and about a trial, none of which interested me. But my wife, that gorgeous girl, told me it great and she was surprised, given my appreciation of Brosnan, that I was not interested in it. At the time I was absorbed by Brosnan the action hero, worried that he had descended into soap opera.

I was an idiot. Evelyn is a wonderful movie and I am happy to tell you why.

Evelyn is the true story of Desmond Doyle, an Irish painter and decorator, who, in fifties Ireland, has the misfortune that his wife leaves him. His three young children are taken into care by the Catholic Church, acting at the behest of the Irish government. Desmond loves his children and this working-class man pits himself against the state to reclaim them.

Brosnan is marvellous as Desmond Doyle, he gives a breathtaking performance. His Doyle is a loving father, irresponsible and charming. Brosnan already had that part down pat, the cheeky grin, the quip, the smooth charm. But he goes much deeper into the character, playing Doyle as a frightened, desperate man. Brosnan gives us a man who simply cannot be still, whose courage comes in sudden bursts. He switches emotions so quickly, so that we can see Doyle go from a courageous speech to shrinking with fear, looking around furtively for an escape from the consequences of his own courage. Brosnan hoods his eyes, bites his lip and draws furiously on a cigarette, eloquent in fear and frustration. But when Doyle talks of his love for his children, his voice is calm and clear, full of love and conviction. Brosnan gives Doyle a voice from the heart, a conviction that will move the planet on its axis.

Desmond Doyle singing for tips

But above all of this, it is the painstaking care and respect that Brosnan shows for Desmond Doyle’s life that makes this such a marvellous performance. If Doyle acts like a fool, Brosnan shows that it is lack of knowledge that makes act that way, that he has a quick mind and an honest heart. He never coarsens Desmond Doyle or insinuates he is less of a man for growing up in poverty. Rather his Doyle is very honest about his life, has an innate pride in himself (for all his fear) and knows that his children are his life.

And Brosnan makes Doyle grow through the movie. His speech becomes calmer, his actions more considered and we thrill to his new-found self-esteem and urge him on in his fight to get his children back. Yet even in the final climactic scene when Desmond Doyle fits with everything he has got, the fear is still there. And I had to ask myself how do I know that? Watching that scene again, I realise that Brosnan had kept Doyle’s frightened quick breathing whilst adding in all the other physical changes that showed Doyle’s growth. Though it is almost imperceptible, you can hear Doyle’s fear as he fights for the breath to reclaim his children. The scene and the acting is simply magnificent.

The more I see Evelyn, the more I see what a wonderful movie it is. It is a Frank Capra movie for our time. Full of struggle, but respectful of ordinary people’s lives, it manages to be fun, uplifting and joyous at the same time. Simply wonderful.

After the Sunset
After the Sunset continued the rounding out of Pierce Brsosnan’s movie persona. Set on a Caribbean holiday island, After the Sunset is a lightweight romp that advertises itself as a heist movie but quickly turns into a comedy. The joke is that Brosnan is a master jewel-thief who is smoking hot at heists, but it soon becomes apparent that he is a bit of loss at anything else. So it was a disappointment for us Thomas Crown fans, but the more I see the movie I realise that it has a lot going for it.

The first of these is that Brosnan plays jewel thief Max Burdett without ego. He happily plays sloppy and stupid and lets Salma Hayek’s fiery Lola play off him for laughs. There is a laugh-out loud scene where Brosnan’s Burdett meets the Island’s crime kingpin, Henri Moore (Don Cheadle) who tells Burdett that he has developed a life philosophy based on the songs of the Mammas and Poppas. The scene cuts to Brosnan driving his car, listening to “Go where you wanna go”, nodding his head like an idiot, with that earnest puzzled look on his face. Perfect.

Burdett and Agent Lloyd in trouble.

It also gave Brosnan the opportunity to play out his dry sense of humour to great effect. This works so well in a scene with his nemesis, Agent Lloyd of the FBI (Woody Harrelson);

Lloyd: Just because you’re British you don’t have to hide your feelings.

Burdett: I’m Irish, we tell people how we feel. Now Fuck Off.

Timing and delivery were dry, delivered with relish. Watch it and see.  The battle of wits between Burdett and Agent Lloyd is truly great fun. 

Like Grey Owl, After the Sunset is less than the sum of its parts. But Brosnan gives us a character we can care for. Once again he is the movie.

Matador
Brosnan made Matador after the Eon productions told him that they did not want him for a fifth Bond. If Matador was not Brosnan’s revenge movie for being denied a fifth Bond, I will eat my hat.

Julian Noble is a hit-man with delusions, a “facilitator of fatalities” as he puts it. Sleazy, unwashed, with a vile little moustache and nasty clothes, he has a taste for booze and young girls. Unwholesome does not even begin to cover it. Brosnan revels in the role, deliberately making Noble as offensive as possible. And it is non-stop, just when you think it cannot get any worse, he gets that little bit more provocative, Julian’s tone gets just that bit more self-justificatory and whiny. And Brosnan so obviously loves doing it, he revels in playing a human Gollum.

Julian Noble, sleazy hitman.

Julian is burnt-out and starts to suffer panic attacks at the precise moment when he is meant to be killing someone. One night Julian meets Greg Kinnear’s businessman in a bar in Mexico. Brosnan is hypnotic as he befriends the businessman with all the sleazy charm he can muster. Julian is obviously soul-deep lonely and Brosnan plays this as a switchback of bluster and blubbing. He starts by being macho and loud, switching in a second to being plaintive, weak and whiny, then back to bluster. Brosnan has always had the ability to hold two opposites in a character and here he uses that gift to its fullest extent. If there was an ambiguity in some of his previous roles its ambiguity squared here. And Brosnan inhabits this unflattering role to its fullest extent. Matador is quite simply one of his finest performances.

a maelstrom of buddy-buddy embarassment

Brosnan acts out Julian’s loneliness. There is an outrageous scene where he walks through the lobby of a plush hotel clad only in a tiny pair of speedos and black ankle boots. The clientele are appalled but any reaction is better than no reaction as far as Julian is concerned. Thomas Crown it is not. And the other side of the coin is the Brosnan charm, which he deploys to the full as he tries to wheedle Greg Kinnear into being his only friend.

This is a car-crash movie, you are fascinated and horrified at the same time, you cannot look away. The worst thing is the Brosnan charm. You can actually see yourself becoming buddies with the monster that is Julian, and then shudder at the thought. And it is not the plot, or the action, it is simply this incredible monster that Brosnan has built. A performance built of courage, insight and great acting talent.

Having made the break with conventional expectation…..

Seraphim Falls
Brosnan has talked on the record about how he had failed to get roles because he was considered too handsome, too pretty, how Matador and Julian Noble was his answer to that.

In Seraphim Falls he goes to what is for him an unexplored movie style, the western. The movie opens with a cowboy, heavily bundled in furs, cooking a rabbit in a snowy forest. He looks up and we see a hairy, bearded man and realise its Pierce Brosnan. His face looks as if carries all the sorrows of the world. He stands and looks around at the snowy vastness of the Ruby Mountains of New Mexico. All is peaceful; the only sound is the crackle of the fire. As he starts to kneel to his food, a shot ring out and he falls to the ground.

And it is a pretty shocking opener for a western vengeance movie, a chase though the wilderness of America. Brosnan is being tracked by Carver (Liam Neeson), who is obsessed with killing Gideon (Brosnan). Is Gideon the good guy or the bad guy? Should we want Gideon to live or Carver to catch and kill him?

Gideon and Carver (Liam Neeson)

In a way Seraphim Falls is the measure of Brosnan’s work as an actor. A few years earlier we would have assumed that Brosnan is the hero. But now, after The Tailor of Panama and Matador, we just don’t know. I think that he has always calculated his screen persona to have this effect. I think he revels in finding ways to keep it fresh.

Brosnan plays Gideon as a man burdened by a terrible guilt. Once again, a lot of his interpretation is in the physicality of the character. He walks as though pursued by something he cannot shake off. He is always looking inward and his conversations with others are notable for the degree to which he is detached and simultaneously holding some inner dialogue.

Gideon

And here the rage, the power, is in him from the beginning, a rage to live. Gideon wants to live and flees from Carver. Brosnan plays him as a wild animal of man, a soldier, a killer, a mountain man. Gideon is resolute, almost silent, his face locked in a grimace of anger, guilt and a confused desire to survive. Brosnan gives him the walk of some homicidal soldier, marching along, part killer, part beast. And yet when he speaks, his voice is educated, measured and knowing, a soft growl. The voice does not belong to the body; it belongs to another man, another time. This is one of the deliberate contradictions that keep us watching Gideon.

Brosnan plays Gideon as a dried husk of a man, tough as leather, driven onward only by his own indomitable will. He stares but does not see, he kills competently, without remorse, he moves on. Yet, in the company of a simple farming family he weeps with such anguish that that we share his pain, yet we still do not know why he cries. In any other actor this would become tiresome, but this is what Brosnan does so well. His performance is calculated and magical; he shows us how the strength of a man can battle with his inner pain and still function. We understand that Gideon is tied to Carver in some fatal way, but we do not know how. He invites us to come see the crisis, the battle of the self, and like every hero’s journey, we are drawn to know the answer.

With respect to Liam Neeson’s measured and powerful performance, this is Brosnan’s movie. There are long stretches where there is only Gideon and the landscape. We stay with the movie because Brosnan progressively reveals the growing desperation of Gideon, the increasingly desperate stare, the cracking voice, the confusion in him as he recedes from humanity and cannot really understand what people are saying.

Without Brosnan, Seraphim Falls could be just a western chase movie. He elevates it, by giving us a character study that enthrals us, as his story unravels.

Butterfly on a Wheel (“Shattered” in its DVD release)
…is a mystery within a mystery. Gerard Butler (the 300) is Neil Randall, a corporate high-flyer and Maria Bello is his wife Abby. They have a wonderful life, a designer home and a beautiful baby daughter, Sophie. Suddenly a violent psychopath appears in their life. The psychopath is Tom Ryan (Brosnan) a mystery man who tells them he has kidnapped their child and will kill her if they do not do as he says. He then proceeds to wreck their lives.

Tom Ryan is the absolute concentration of anger, hatred and cruelty. Holding their child is frightening enough but it swiftly becomes clear that Ryan is only just this side of sane, and Neil and Abby’s fear that they might tip him over the edge, increases the tension ten-fold.

Tom Ryan taunts his victims

This is a Brosnan master-class. There is no gradual build-up, just an outpouring of anger, hate and control at a colossal level. From the moment he appears on screen, Pierce Brosnan gives a blistering performance of great intensity. Some off this we have seen before, the quickness of an animal, the inhuman stare, the sadistic enjoyment of another human’s plight. Some of it is new, like the unnerving Irish voice, cold, measured but about to slip over the edge into ranting madness. He makes Ryan mercurial, changing mood on the young couple in a split second. Hell, this is scary stuff; you really do not know what is coming next. If Brosnan was evil in the Tailor of Panama and Matador, he was redeemed by the fact that those movies were black comedies. Here he is pure evil, the personification of death, or is he?

Neil and Abby want to know why this man is persecuting them, and for different reasons so do we. Tom Ryan clearly has a motive, but what could it be to drive a man to these extremes of hate? The clue is in the duality that Brosnan plays so well, Ryan is another character under tension from two extreme and opposite forces, and the revelation of these explosive energies is the climax of the movie.

There’s a powerful intuition about Pierce Brosnan’s acting. “Butterfly” is frenetic, high energy, it unfolds at a very fast pace. Brosnan matches it; he is scary because he is fast, physically and mentally quicker than Neil and Abby, outwitting them at every turn. In so many of his movies Pierce Brosnan understands the tempo, the pace and the timing that will make the movie a success. This is one of them.

Married Life
This movie just passed me by, I don’t know how it was marketed, maybe my attention was elsewhere. But I was intrigued by the concept of the movie and glad I caught up with it.

Married Life is set in 1949, and initially centres on a relationship between two friends, two businessmen, stockbrokers I think, in upstate New York. The milieu is the professional middle-class and the requirement back then was for men to dress well for work. So the early scenes are all beautifully cut suits, fedoras and brightly-polished shoes, in bars of polished brass and glossy cherry wood. Pierce Brosnan is one of the few modern movie stars who understand how to wear clothes well, and in that respect alone he is right for the part.

Brosnan is Richard Langley, a handsome, elegant bachelor who is a very successful ladies man. His best friend is Harry Allen (Chris Cross), who is known to be very happily married to a lovely wife. The movie opens with Harry telling Richard that he is having an affair with a young beautiful blonde, Kay Nesbitt (Rachel McAdams) who he loves. Unfortunately, as their lunch ends, Harry chooses to introduce Kay to Richard, who is instantly attracted to her. In that moment, in a very genteel, imperceptibly quiet way, all their relationships start to go to hell.

Richard Langley, man about town.

This is a subtly drawn, intelligent and wryly funny story of a group of friends, whose secrets are exposed and who have to deal with the resulting chaos. It needs actors who understand how to discipline themselves, play their parts like a jazz ensemble, not over-emote. In a stand-out cast, Brosnan is the best, the living heart of the movie. As Richard he has the task of stealing the love of Kay and betraying his friend Harry. But Brosnan refuses to play the role as a conventional cad. His Richard is considerate, softly-spoken and ever so slightly duplicitous. Brosnan’s ability to portray worldly confident men serves him well here, because he simply inhabits that friendly confident grin, the considered aside lightly delivered. Nothing is too visible, too showy, he acts with the lightest of touches.

It is also a cerebral role, with Richard delivering the 50s style narration that holds the movie together. Once again he has a role with two contradictory pulls, though without the intensity of previous roles. Richard is a man and without making a fuss about it the movie delineates the difference between fifties men and modern new age men. Richard is puzzled by his sudden attack of love but rather than spend time analysing it he goes after what he wants, Kay. Brosnan plays Richard as an essentially good man, who will not stop until he has got what he wants. It is the way that Brosnan plays out the set-backs, the embarrassing moments, the final betrayal that gives this film so much of its enjoyment. Watching Brosnan derail Richard’s smoothness, panicky pauses as he tries to say the right thing, the relaxed slouch as he (internally) frantically backpedals is a delight.

Richard Langley and Kay Nesbitt (Rachel McAdams)

The role of Richard suits Brosnan down to the ground, with its style, thoughtful action and quiet good humour. He tackles it with love, verve and quiet dedication. This is an actor at the very top of his game, who knows how to produce an original screen presence and evoke many emotions in the audience, as he leads his character to the story’s culmination. In the final analysis Married Life is a character study, a quietly intelligent movie that asks some very searching questions about being married. Pierce Brosnan gives us a character that is truly worthy of the movie. This is not Bond, not Desmond Doyle, but it is virtuoso acting.

The story up till now…..

So here I am, with my view of Mr Brosnan’s movies. I have been slightly partial and missed out a couple of movies from the last ten years. I have missed out Mamma Mia. I admire Pierce Brosnan for having a punt at it, much as I admire any man who has a go at anything outside his comfort zone. But as a role I do not think it tells us anything about the actor.

A personal plea…

Like many men, I rate the Thomas Crown affair as one of the greatest movies of all time. Also, like many fans of the movie, I have been waiting a long time for Thomas Crown 2. I do not know about all you other men out there but I want that movie. So please Mr Brosnan, make the movie soon!

Anyone who has stayed with me through this long piece will have guessed that I am a fan. But writing this has made me see Pierce Brosnan’s work more clearly and I think it is truly worthy of appreciation.

He is a movie star but more importantly he is a superb actor. He is a great actor because he understands how to give us a character. He does not burst onto the screen and emote for 2 hours. He builds a character, showing him to us bit by bit, building a person and, in the end, we see that character as he does. If some movie stars are one note, Pierce Brosnan is a symphony.

In all of his films he shows an enormous respect for his roles and for the audience. This would not be enough if he did not fill them with life. But he always gives energy to his characters, a truth that makes them very real. But it is his discipline, his hold on the integrity of his characters that make him a superlative actor. He builds characters for us to see and marvel at and that is the one true and best thing that an actor can do.

Thank you very much for your movies Mr Brosnan, they are much appreciated and greatly enjoyed.

Reference Information

Here are movies discussed in the article, in the order in which they appear:

Goldeneye

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Tomorrow Never Dies

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Grey Owl

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

The World is not Enough

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

The Thomas Crown Affair

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

The Tailor of Panama

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Die Another Day

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Evelyn

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

After the Sunset

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Matador

Get it in the UK here and the US here. 

Seraphim Falls

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Butterfly on a Wheel

Get it in the UK here and the US here.

Married Life

Get it in the UK here and the US here.