The new British film Bronson is about a man named Charles Bronson, but it's not a biopic about the star of Death Wish; it's about a 56-year-old former bareknuckle boxer and convicted armed robber (born Michael Gordon Peterson, before he is said to have been renamed by a boxing promoter) who has spent some thirty-four years in prison, thirty of which he's spent in solitary confinement. (Since 1974, he's spent a total of four months out of prison.) Part of what sets Bronson apart from other celebrity criminals is that his fearsome reputation is based not on any reign of terror he conducted in society at large but on his behavior as a prisoner; his relatively brief stretch of time behind bars and outside solitary confinement was a three-ring circus of violent protests, hostage takings, and physical attacks on guards and fellow prisoners. (In the movie, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, he is played by Tom Hardy, who appeared in Guy Ritchie's recent film RocknRolla)An inside view is provided by Erwin James, who writes in the Guardian, "During my own 20-year prison journey I crossed paths with Bronson on a number of occasions, though we never met face to face. His time was spent mostly in punishment blocks, segregation units, close supervision centres - or in the back of prison vans on the way from one prison to another, always accompanied by at least six prison officers in riot gear. The closest we came to meeting was when I was moved to Long Lartin high-security prison, near Evesham in Worcestershire. Some days before I landed, Bronson had run amok on one of the landings. Naked, blacked-up, wearing only a bandana around his head and wielding a spear, he had single-handedly taken control of most of the wing... The carnage he had caused was in evidence all around. They put me in his old cell; it was surprisingly clean. To be honest, I was glad he had been moved. Doing serious time, trying to make sense of the system, the culture of aggression, and acceptance of failure is hard enough without having to cope with demented and unpredictable neighbours going berserk. A prison officer once said to me, regarding one high-security prison: 'It would be great here if it wasn't for the cons.' He wasn't making a joke."
Bronson is a notorious figure in England, and the BBC reports that the movie has come under protests by prison officials and others as a glorification of a violent menace. "We should not be glorifying this type of behaviour," say Colin Moses, national chairman of the Prison Officers' Association. "This man has spent the best part of his life behind bars for causing harm to people. He has caused trauma to hard-working, law-abiding people who will never work again. Bronson is not a victim, he is the perpetrator." As it happens, the movie is due to be released on March 13, which means that its ad campaign overlaps with Bronson's next appearance before the parole board, on March 11. No doubt the timing will do him a hell of a favor.