Bronson is fascinating to me because he didn't become a huge star until his late '40s. He's one of the most unconventional looking leading men ever (some would even argue he was ugly) and the defining characteristic of most of his best roles is their silences.
He didn't have to talk much. You could just look at Bronson and tell he was formidable. This man had a body most men in their 20's would envy. He didn't have to act tough, he just was tough.
There's also no self conscious irony in his films and his performances. There are no air quotes, and I appreciate that.
He is the center in one of my favorite movies of all time -- Once Upon a Time in the West. His character, who has no official name, but is referred to as Harmonica, is a man with a huge secret. That secret is revealed at the end of the picture to devastating effect. But Bronson doesn't have a big emotional scene. The revelation is played across his blank, stoic face.
What was probably at the time dismissed as a lack of range or talent now looks like bonafide gravitas. Few action stars have a real presence anymore but Bronson did. He didn't have to do much but stand tall and you had all the information you needed.
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| Once Upon a Time in the West |
In fact, in Italy, where he made several profitable hit films, he had the nickname "Il Bruto", which translates to the Ugly One. And yet, it was Bronson's no frills demeanor that distinguished him.
In the terrific 1972 thriller The Mechanic he plays a methodical hitman who has his own code of honor that he does not compromise.
The opening 10 minutes or so of that film has no dialogue, the audience is just patiently watching Bronson set up a target. A sequence like this would never happen today or at the every least would be edited within an inch of its life. But director Michael Winner (who later directed Bronson in one of his most iconic hits, Death Wish) had the audacity to trust that audiences would find Bronson's mysterious character intriguing. He made a smart gamble.
Mr. Majestyk (1974), which is based on an Elmore Leonard book I believe and is a favorite of Quentin Tarantino's, is a little lighter than The Mechanic but a terrific example of Bronson at the height of his powers. He plays an earnest watermelon farmer who gets harassed by local yokels because he hires Hispanic day laborers to help pick his melons. He is just a decent man trying to do his job but he gets roped into a whole criminal plot.
Bronson plays this kind of conflict very well. He's that guy in the bar that the drunk person tries to pick a fight with. He'll give you one warning -- that you're making a big mistake -- but once the moron persists, he's going to lay them down, usually with one punch.
Speaking of punches, another great Bronson picture is Hard Times (1975), a Depression-era fable about a scheming pick-up fight promoter (James Coburn) and his hard-knuckled partner (a ridiculously ripped Bronson).
His look is so suited for the 1930s that the film sometimes feels like a a great lost film of that era which somehow happens to be in color. The fight scenes in the movie are brutal even by today's standards and Bronson is totally plausible in the role of an aging boxer with fists of fury.
Winner spoke about the element of "fury" being integral to Bronson's persona when the actor died at age 81 back in 2003. "The key to Bronson is the repressed fury, the constant feeling that if you don't watch the screen every minute, you'll miss an eruption," Winner told the Los Angeles Times. "But coupled with the intense masculine dynamism, there's also a great tenderness to Bronson."
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