I had put off watching Peaky Blinders for years because of the ads on my facebook timeline. Some enterprising pugs were trying to sell what they call Peaky Blinders caps, oblivious to the history behind the flat caps or the infamous Birmingham gang for that matter. So, I took this as one of those fad television shows not worth looking at.
Blinder simply refers to being a dapper dresser, and "peaky" may have referred to the peaks of their flat caps, but these caps were never called "peaky blinders." They were called a great many other things but are most commonly referred to as "news boy caps," as they were widely used by news boys during this era. Before that they were called scally caps, bunnets, paddy caps, and cheese cutters, depending on what part of the British empire you lived in. This style of cap can be traced all the way back to the 14th century, but became very popular during the interwar years, which Peaky Blinders is set in.
With that out of the way, we can discuss the series itself, which smartly makes no reference to the caps themselves, although Steven Knight wisely set the show after disposable razor blades were invented, not before as was the case with the original gang, which terrorized the streets of Birmingham in the late 19th century.
The Shelby brothers are war heroes who return home from the Great War to find there isn't much available to them in Small Heath, so they make the best of it by becoming bookies who fix horse races with the help of their gypsy relatives and friends. Their sister has literally gotten herself into bed with a young socialist, which the police are more worried about than they are the local gangs. Nothing worse than an agitator trying to stir up trouble among the local workers.
The Blinders stumble across a sizable shipment of arms marked for North Africa which Churchill desperately wants back, lest it fall into the hands of the IRA. He enlists the help of a notorious chief inspector, who had squashed rebellions in Belfast, to find out who the culprits are and secure the lost arsenal. Tommy, being the smartest of the Shelbys, uses the arsenal as leverage to get favors from the government. This set up a riveting confrontation between two merciless men in Tommy and Chief Inspector Campbell, convincingly played by Cillian Murphy and Sam Neill, with Grace, an undercover agent, caught between them.
Knight gives himself a lot of latitude to integrate his series with the events reshaping the world after the Great War, making his fictional Shelby clan much more politically active than were the families that led these early urban gangs. There are also a lot of parallels to the present age, particularly in Season 5, which is what gives the show its immediacy and huge popularity that has garnered attention from such unexpected quarters as East LA. Snoop Dogg has graciously lent his voice to one of the many covers of Nick Cave's Red Right Hand, which serves as the theme song.
Peaky Blinders has become so popular among musicians that many have lent their music and voices to the impressive soundtrack, including Leonard Cohen and David Bowie before they passed away in 2016. Cillian has a sweet story where he gave his cap from the first season to David shortly before he died as a gift of admiration and kindness.
One of my favorites, PJ Harvey, has become a perennial favorite in the series, with no less than a dozen of her songs popping up over the last five seasons. She normally would never think of letting her songs be used in soundtracks. She also does her own version of Red Right Hand.
In fact, the music makes the show to a large degree as the scenes are often syncopated to the rhythms. The first two seasons play out in a highly stylized representation of Small Heath, Birmingham, as if it were a theatrical backdrop. We watch the Shelbys rise from small-time bookies to major players in the roaring 20s. Knight does use some music from the era in his elaborate ballroom scenes, as the Shelbys confront the Sabinis in Season Two, but Knight is more comfortable with gloomy contemporary tracks that better capture the mood of the show. He is obviously a huge Nick Cave fan.
Purists don't like all these blurred lines between history and fantasy. The Guardian has been particularly rough on the show, which is why I suppose the journalist in season 5 met such a gruesome end. However, I think you need to take the historic allusions with a pinch of salt and just go with the flow, as Knight has created an immensely entertaining series that even in its later seasons still packs a sizable punch. Grace hovers over Tommy in the latest episodes, an effective way to bring back a favorite character. One of the reasons it has been rebooted for another season even after Knight seemed satisfied with five.
It reminds me a bit of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, in that they suffered when they tried to extend the arc of the series beyond the bounds of their core characters and theme. At this point, it becomes more a soap opera, which you keep trying to push along despite the inertia that has set in. The writers are obviously more comfortable when keeping the script to the more intimate setting of Small Heath. Seeing the Shelbys in all these lavish digs and Tommy as an MP requires much more work to make seem plausible, and it is easy to lose sight of what drives these characters. Hence, we get into way too much soul searching set to moody scores when it is action that we want to see. Sex too, which this show hasn't shied away from, especially in Season Three, perhaps the most audacious season of them all with Tommy getting wrapped up with a Russian princess and a very unholy priest.
Perhaps the most compelling character is Arthur, played by Paul Anderson, who literally seethes with untamed energy, which his lovely Quaker wife Linda tries to rein in. My wife immediately fell in love with his smoldering passion and sensitivity, even if he is without doubt the most violent of the brood, especially in the first two seasons. While Linda tries to harness this energy for good, Tommy tries to keep his older brother focused on the tasks at hand. This dynamic plays out best in Season Four, as the Shelbys have to band together to fight off an Italian-American gangster played by Adrian Brody.
Women are not forgotten in his series. Helen McCrory infuses Aunt Polly, the Queen of the Gypsies, with an indomitable will that only a great thespian like herself can pull off. You watch an amazing transformation in the character of Lizzie Stark as she rises from two-bit prostitute to the strong-willed wife of Thomas Shelby, while reconciling herself with the ghost of Grace. Natasha O'Keefe makes every step of the process believable. One of the more amusing scenes is when the women band together to stage a strike of their own in the spirit of Jesse Eden, who later figures heavily into the series.
It almost makes me want to buy a flat cap and stick some razor blades in the little fold above the peak and call myself a Peaky Blinder. It's fun to watch, but in the end these were notoriously dirty gangs who lent themselves an air of dignity by dressing to the nines to show what good sports they were. The fatal flaw to the series is that we are meant to have empathy for these characters because the so-called "good guys" were even worse. It's the kind of cynicism we have unfortunately come to accept today, as witnessed by the great appeal of populist political parties in Europe and America. The rogue you know is better than the rogue you don't know.
Comments
Post a Comment