Day 12:01 am

  • Boardwalk Empire, a wish to step away and the weight of denouements…

    Boardwalk Empire-Steve Buscemi-HBO-Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity-3 croppedWell, talking of 1920s prohibition era stores (see a brush, scrub and suave up)…

    Not so long ago I watched the final series of Boardwalk Empire.

    In some ways the earlier series could be seen to be a somewhat extended prelude to the main character Nucky Thompson’s full entry into a particular way of life…

    The fifth and final series is a thoroughly entertaining, gripping, beautifully shot piece of work but what has stayed with me is the subtle but heavy, almost inescapable and palpable sense of a man who has had enough, who wants to walk away from the life he has built.

    Boardwalk Empire-Steve Buscemi-HBO-Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity-2

    He seems tired and it has all quietly eaten away into him.

    …in some ways, that balances the visual beauty of how this miscreant world is presented – the glamour (and I use that in both the more common place sense of attractive allure and also the connected but archaic sense of enchantment way) has a price and will have its way.

    I think that’s one of the things I consider often when thinking of gangster/crime film, fiction and stories – yes, there is an excitement, glamour and escapism attached to them but the underlying stories from which they spring involve real lives and shall we say not quite up to par behaviour.

    Boardwalk Empire-Steve Buscemi-HBO-Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity-4

    The byline for the fifth series is “No One Goes Lightly” but I tend to think of it as being nearer to “No Life Lived Like This Is Walked Away From Easily”.

    Visit Nucky’s tales home in the ether here. Peruse the series here.

     

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