Is There a Modern-Day Equivalent to Charles Bronson?
and could there ever be?
No? is the simple answer and let me remind you that this is just my opinion and that my opinions are facts. (joking, calm down)
The circumstances just aren’t right neither is the series of events that make up the Charles Bronson recipe. Immigrant parents, impoverished childhood, working in coal mines, a depression, a war and more.
What could be the more you ask? well, most have probably never thought of the circumstances after his early years that led to the Bronson mythos like the Vietnam war the peace and love hippie movement and social change. Full disclosure but I didn’t think of what happened after Bronson was released from World War II as part of the recipe until today.
I will use 1974 and the premier of Michael Winner’s Death Wish as the birth date of the Charles Bronson that I am speaking of. Yes, there were films before Death Wish that showed us that granite faced, stoic time bomb waiting to go off, but Death Wish was the nexus of all we know and love of Bronson. The ground zero for which an American icon was born.
An American icon born of an Italian producer and an English director prompting some critics to say that Death Wish portrayed an unrealistic and foreign view of New York City and an exaggerated view of the crime that plagued the city in the 70’s. Than how does one explain films such as Taxi Driver, Mean Streets or The Warriors? or the rise of hip hop culture that originated on the mean, violent streets of the Bronx? Could it be that these critics were fortunate enough to live in another version of New York?
The hippie generation was winding down; they were still around but people were losing interest in peace and love. Crime was on the rise, Vietnam War had just ended, and the era of apathy was being born, an era that raged on straight through till the 90’s especially in film and music, remember “Punk Rock” was crawling out of the NYC gutters at this time creating a musical revolution that would go through many transformations for the next two decades. I don’t think the word love was heard in music again until the 90’s and empathy wasn’t even a discussion until about 2016 (I’m exaggerating of course). As Blue Oyster Cult would state in their 1976 song of the same title “This ain’t The Summer of Love” and that was reflected throughout society.
What about those of us born around 1974 who got into the films of Charles Bronson? Perhaps us children of the 80’s were still living in the shadow of the Vietnam war and all that generational trauma of our parent’s era, or we were just young men who liked violence all I know is that in my opinion the recipe that creates a Charles Bronson does not seem likely today. People still live in poverty; wars are still fought but people are just built different. Our children are taught empathy over retaliation. There is a no tolerance approach to violence all around, My Mom once demanded I hand her my retainer device that I wore in my mouth, marched down the street and in her words “kick his ass” in response to a bully who sent me home crying. The need for a Charles Bronson type is no longer there, and that’s ok.
Was this a lot? I feel like it was a lot, I tend to look far too deeply into things that should probably be not thought of and simply enjoyed. At the end of the day that is the answer. We enjoy Charles Bronson and his films. Are there other tough actors who make films about vengeance out there today? sure, but there will probably never be another perfect storm to create the likes of a Charles Bronson again.