Prohibition Era Moonshining: The Real History of Lawless (2012 Film)

[00:00:00]Would you like to come for rob me sometime? I know who you are. Oh, yeah. Who's that?

[00:00:08]One of them Bond Ramp boys. My daddy says you boys are the worst thing ever to hit Franklin.

[00:00:16]You tell your daddy I said hi. These were the new Americans. Seems you've been involved in certain illegal activities.

[00:00:23]This is really about the bond of these brothers. I'm the one who's going to make your life real difficult from now on if you don't tow the line. Country boy, we don't lay down for nobody.

[00:00:34]You any idea what a Thompson submachine gun does to a mortal?

[00:00:38]It's dynamic. It's shocking. And the love story is really moving. It's the flower amidst this kind of chaos. Work.

[00:00:46]It is not the violence that sets a man apart.

[00:00:50]It is the distance that he is prepared to go.

[00:00:55]Everything's bubbling underneath. And at any moment, the whole thing's about to blow.

[00:01:03]This is their story. This is what happened.

[00:01:09]You know, this is a true story.

[00:01:11]Prohibition era gangster story.

[00:01:17]For me, it began with discovering some newspaper articles that described an incident in December of 1930 at a bridge over a creek called Magade Creek in Franklin County where some officers actually shot my grandfather and his brother Forest um when they were trying to transport some liquor across the county.

[00:01:37][Music] [Applause] Since colonial period, there's a long-standing tradition of gentleman farmers and poor farmers making their own liquor. And Franklin County was sort of an ideal location for moonshine.

[00:01:54]Wherever you could hide, that's where you would find a lot of liquor. And in West Virginia, you could hide quite easily. You know, at the time, all they had was their skill. and their skills, at least for this family, uh, was making liquor [Music] in Franklin County. If you wanted to make any kind of extra money, uh, there were few possibilities. The more you talk to the people that were involved in bootlegging, they were all good people.

[00:02:23]They were just trying to get by. With a couple bags of sugar, you could make a product that you could sell. The problem came with prohibition and the fact that liquor was suddenly made illegal wasn't going to stop them. If anything, they just found an opportunity to actually make a lot of money out of it. When prohibition comes into effect, it had a kind of unusual impact because suddenly there was more demand for the liquor they were producing. Prices went up, so money became better and and more people started making it. And uh it was sort of high times for Franklin County. this area became the new gold rush and a lot of people moved into West Virginia on top of uh the bonder [Music] people weren't allowed to make alcohol or drink publicly etc. So this whole idea of an underground society I think really kind of took off and clearly you know the black market and the underground still exists to this day.

[00:03:32]Prohibition created the biggest crime wave in history at that time. There was such an appetite there that the street thugs in the big cities moved up a notch like Capone and literally overnight they became powerful mobsters in terms of the control of who was going to distribute and sell the liquor.

[00:03:53]This family, the Bonderants, were spearheading this rebellion in the 30s, and the coolest thing you could be is to be a bootleg driver. The bootleggger was a superhero of the time. A lot of it was going on in a very off-hand friendly sort of way. There's the white lightning, sheriff. You know, the sheriff's deputy was somebody that you gave him an extra case of liquor. You know, it didn't seem so much like bribes, but as a way of just kind of, you know, greasing the tracks as they say, can I help you, son? But when the Commonwealth attorney organized the thing and had the money all funneling up to him is when things changed and it became a system, a government operation basically extorting money from all these individual people. And that's when the brothers said, "We're not going to go along with it. We're not going to do it." All right, for now we got a chance to make a good stack of money here while the getting is good. But for things to run smooth, you got to grease the tracks. I'm a bonderant and we don't lay down for nobody.

[00:04:51]We'll continue to operate free and clear as always. Me, I'll never pay no money.

[00:04:57]No Mason Wardell or the next damn blood sucker come after him. I never have. I never will.

[00:05:04]It's a classic sort of American story of the uh the little guy refusing to give in, you know, uh refusing to go along with which is sort of the story of of Appalachia.

[00:05:14]The three brothers are really representative of the small town that they live in in that they stick by each other. They have a great sense of respect for each other and they and they protect each other. Really, at the heart of this movie, it's about a family trying to overcome these many problems that they're dealing with all at once.

[00:05:30]It's about a family falling apart. It's a survivor's tale about these three brothers who had so much against them. I think their strength came from their relationships with each other.

[00:05:43]As long as you were my brother, you will never let this happen again. Do you understand? I don't think you do, Jack.

[00:05:58]It is not the violence that sets men apart. All right. It is the distance that he is prepared to go.

[00:06:08]These brothers became almost like legends in Franklin County. They were like immortal because they kept surviving so many brutal encounters.

[00:06:18]Forest particularly seems unstoppable.

[00:06:20]There's sort of a mythology about him, I suppose. I mean, he got shot a number of times. He got into numerous fights. You know, situations where normal people would either bow out or die.

[00:06:32]To me, one of the most interesting aspects of their story was that the brothers started believing their own immortality. There's a feeling around these parts that Correspond is different than other folks.

[00:06:47]Different.

[00:06:48]Indestructible.

[00:06:52]Do you mean immortal?

[00:06:54][Laughter] You You Hicks are a sideshow into yourselves.

[00:07:08]Jack Bonderon is my father and Jack Bonderon Jr.

[00:07:14]He was kind of a rascal type. He never really held a full-time job for a long period of time. And of course, he did do a lot of moonshining.

[00:07:24]Partner, I don't know if that's the stupidest thing I ever seen or you're some kind of damn genius. So the youngest brother in the story is Jack and that is my grandfather.

[00:07:32]At the time he's 18 years old. He's a young man. He wasn't a particularly talkative person. He had that kind of stoicism that runs in my family and also in Franklin County. He's young. He's impressionable. He's so much wants to be like the larger than life characters, the Kagnes of the world. I know fell across county line. Take your whole lunch for $5 on a gallon. And yet actually Jack's got a broader vision.

[00:07:55]He's got a business sense that they don't have. You got no damn vision.

[00:07:59]Hired. He's going straight. Get out of here. He's got ambition to go beyond the confines of this little backwood family.

[00:08:06]I'm done. Wait. Take a stretch. Grab box. Call gummy Walsh. You tell them to bring 200 gallons of lease. So he gets them into blockading, which is moving the liquor across the county line, selling to other people, you know, expanding the operation. I sold it for $5 on a barrel. That's twice that you get right here.

[00:08:27]That's $2,000 minus my commission. The whole thing is bubbling underneath and is threatening to erupt at any moment.

[00:08:35]And then at the same time, there's two really beautiful love stories. It creates this kind of tension. I'm Maggie Bowford.

[00:08:44]What really drew me to the character was the love story between Maggie and Forest. I like that it was two damaged people that have one shot at happiness and the other person. I I thought that was really moving.

[00:09:10]I just like robbing me sometimes. You must be jingle brain if you think I'm going to get in the car with the likes of you. Shia's love story with Mia is very classic and old school. You sure got a funny way according Jack Bon Ran.

[00:09:26]That is what you're doing, right?

[00:09:28]Cordon, it's so beautiful and so lyrically oldfashioned. Yeah.

[00:09:34]And action. I'm Maggie Boofer. One of the things that's really special about this film are the performances. Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Shia, Mia Wasakowska, Gary Oldman. It's a cast that was quite spectacular just reading their names on the page, let alone seeing how that's transformed on screen.

[00:09:53]Tom Hardy plays Forest Bond and it's so brilliant that Tom is playing the role because he is the most exciting actor I have seen in a long time. Hi Forest. He is just extraordinary and brings a weight and integrity and a power to the screen that is incredibly compelling.

[00:10:10]And I have to go up against this guy.

[00:10:12]The first scene that we have together is me feeling like I'm running rings around this guy and not being intimidated by him. And it was very difficult because he is like a mountain.

[00:10:22]Pete, who the hell is this son of a Me? I'm the one who's going to make your life real difficult from now on if you don't tow the line. Country boy, won't you ever touch me again? I take characters as they come that that interest me that having a diversity of different ranges and colors that and characteristics that are interesting and trying to find paradoxes and dichotoies of of man, you know. So, how can somebody be so violent yet at the same time be such a little boy and so um intrinsically innocent and naive and have such a heart but yet do something so incredibly horrible where their fulcrum is in the middle. you so that by the end of the film you know this person and you care about that person when I get involved with the film the most important thing is who am I working with and knowing that my scenes were going to be with Tom Hardy was a huge plus well Jessica Chastain another extraordinary actor plays Maggie who is a girl from Chicago who for whatever reason had to get out of town I saw you with the bond in place she sort of brings a beautiful feminine energy to this to this group of sort of dirty brothers. He's just going to watch me forever. This completely catches Forest offguard. She She undoes him.

[00:11:44]Um.

[00:11:46]Oh, wait. What you doing? You ain't never going to believe what I just said.

[00:11:52]Floor. Vehner shoot the tires out a damn ATU car right smack in the middle of town with a damn Tommy gun. Ver. Oh, look here. In the middle of all that, I was thinking about you. got you one of his showcases, cricket. Oh, thanks Jack.

[00:12:05]Shia Labirth plays Jack Bondant, the younger of the three and clearly the young buck with all the stars in his eyes and the excitement about leading a life that isn't hindered by parental pressure or authorative structure. Who is that? She's one of them crazies from that church burn.

[00:12:24]Her daddy over there, he's going to be the preacher. This film is really a coming of age tale. Jack looks up to his two really tough brothers and he wants to be like them but he can't.

[00:12:35]Out there Jack Forest ain't got no aspirations. He still sleeps on a mattress floor who's somebody who's afraid of violence and afraid of standing up for himself. It's a story of becoming a man.

[00:12:50]Jack is sort of he's like the lion from the Wizard of Oz but in reverse. He has a whole lot of heart and that's the hindrance. You first meet him, he's full of empathy. And that empathy is hindering his criminal career. You're not going to shoot me. Oh yeah? Look at you. Boohoo.

[00:13:16]Now hold on, Berth. Before you start talking about your soul, Vandy, all sort of stuff to make sure you understand something. I play Bertha. She's a young Menanite. Um, and she's grown up very sheltered and protected. She's a really independent spirit and I thought her story was really cool and I kind of admired the journey that she went on.

[00:13:32]You can sit there on that gate. You can shake your head talking about daddy this, daddy that to your blue face or you can climb down off that gate. You can live a little bit. You can get inside my car. I can take Hold on, bro.

[00:13:41]This is the best part. There's a cousin feel just up. Yeah, you still got the price tag on you, Co.

[00:13:47]I have a crush on Mia. I had a crush on Mia before. I have a crush on Mia now. I had a crush all the way through doing this film. When she landed, it was heavy and hard immediately. I was all over Mia, actually. I thought Mia was scared of me at first. So, hats off to her cuz I was full-blown insane when she landed.

[00:14:04]She's a very strong person to be able to get past all that.

[00:14:11]Meet Floyd Banner. Gary Man plays Floyd Banner. And we wanted Floyd Banner to be this kind of symbolic kind of city gangster. Ain't no honor in the business anymore.

[00:14:24]shoot him. Gary, he has that power and you just feel like he's part of that world and he is just phenomenal.

[00:14:38]It's impressive.

[00:14:41][Applause] I'll gave you $4, but keep it to yourself. Gary Oldman is one of the greatest actors to ever do this. He's the guy I would like to be in real life and it's that in the story. So, you know, a lot of the things that were happening in real life completely mirrored what we were filming.

[00:15:04]I was told I'd find you here.

[00:15:07]Look, here you are. I play Charlie Reikkes, who is a city cop brought down from Chicago who has a real disdain for country folk. And action.

[00:15:22]My brother's going to kill you. So, he wears perfume. He's dressed the way that he is. Don't touch me. But at the same time, he's incredibly violent and incredibly corrupt. And I think the local police and the mayor and the various people that have involved them suddenly realize that he's actually more troubled than the bootleggers of the town.

[00:15:42]Guy Pierce is a consuate professional.

[00:15:44]Needs to know every single little thing about everything about his character and why he's doing this and why he's doing that. in the grabbing is what gets this blood here. Ultimately, the biggest challenge for me is being convincing is just playing somebody who feels real and honest even in the extremity of their personality and particularly if somebody is extreme.

[00:16:03]I like his haircut. It's a pretty spooky haircut I had going on. Hey, Mark.

[00:16:11]You're looking for me, son?

[00:16:15]John's very creative and encouraging.

[00:16:17]He's got a great sense of humor. just delightful to be around. I have to say he loves extremities. He loves crazy, strange things. And so you come up with things that you normally wouldn't. I think that's why I'm drawn to working with him. And I think that's why people enjoy his films. Oh yeah, much pleasure.

[00:16:32]Let's have a have a look at that. John trusts his actors and I always feel like I'm part of a collaboration in an ensemble, which to me is very important.

[00:16:42]We do it like it's written is sh listen.

[00:16:45]The one thing you can come away from John's films with is that they're all very visceral, tangible. He works with the truth of a documentarian. He's a truth seer. And you know, there's not many guys who who really work like that anymore. I love those great American genre films. I grew up watching them.

[00:17:00]And what was interesting when I came across this book is I thought, well, hang on, is this a western or a gangster film? Okay. And I realized, well, this was a hybrid where one ended and the other began. And cut. Okay, great.

[00:17:19]As we were looking for a writer to adapt the book, John Hill brought up Nick Cave. And one of the things that was exciting to us right away was taking a rock and roll guy, a guy who makes music about liberation, about defying authority, about breaking out. And that was so much the right spirit to to write about bootlegging. You never going to believe what I just seen. This particular story was the right kind of movie for me. and John to me. It's something that's extremely exciting to be in the process where we were rehearsing with the actors and see the words come alive with these great actors.

[00:17:54]I was I was in the film actually. I was played a dead gangster at the start of the film. There's a gangster that's all shot up in a car and that's me. When you start a movie with Nick Cave, you're going to know you're going to have a script that has dialogue that nobody else could ever write back and you're going to have amazing music. The idea really was to take a bunch of contemporary songs and perform them in a style that was similar to the style of that period.

[00:18:20][Music] The reason for that really was that we thought that there were themes within the film that were contemporary themes, especially prohibition and the continuing war on drugs.

[00:18:36]Nick and Warren Ellis, who is his musical partner, created a great mixture of the kind of iconic voices of country with their musical sensibility.

[00:18:59]light while I go up my mind.

[00:19:03]Don't you know it's going to make me go blind?

[00:19:06][Music] Lord have mercy.

[00:19:12]A great one for us was to also get the incredible voice of Emmy Lou Harris.

[00:19:21][Music] I gott Harris only has to open her mouth and she breaks your heart, you know. So, we used an eclectic mix of songs that you wouldn't expect and these great country voices. Even Willie Nelson sang something in the end. Midnight run down a cold dark road on a flatbed.

[00:19:58]People tend to focus on the city gangsters, but we wanted to look at the foot soldiers, the people in the hills who were actually making the illegal liquor.

[00:20:06][Music] I actually think it's about family more than anything else. A family falling apart trying to keep all the loose ends together. It's them against the rest of the world.

[00:20:22][Music] Well, there might be trouble cuz everybody's got a gun. One of the things that I think makes the movie so singular is its combination of hard men doing violent things and the softness that they have in terms of the love story.

[00:20:38]It's the most beautiful love story that I've seen in a long time.

[00:20:43]The combination of the ensemble is electric and very exciting. Everybody distinctly put their ego down. Said, "Okay, you know, how can we join forces to create something which is clearly fabulous.

[00:20:59][Applause] The outlaw was the rock star. They were the people who were fighting for the people." It's a fascinating time in American history and it's all based on a true story which makes it even more remarkable. Heat.

[00:21:17][Music] [Applause] Heat.