Exploring Atlantic City's rich history

MANILA, Philippines - Mention “Atlantic City” to someone, and images of dazzling neon lights, casino tables and slot machines, all-you-can-eat buffets, an oceanfront boardwalk, and shows headlined by big entertainers (among them Filipino artists) will probably come to mind.

The Atlantic City of the 1920s, however, was a vastly different place. Rife with organized crime and corruption at every level, the “World’s Playground,” as it was known then, was in a period of transition.

Once a quaint coastal community, it had blossomed into the pleasure city of the East, and with the influx of tourists and their dollars, businesses catering to their every vice naturally followed HBO’s critically-acclaimed and Golden Globe nominated series, Boardwalk Empire (which premieres on HBO Asia tonight at 9), explores the rich history of Atlantic City’s rise to prominence, under the watchful eye of its treasurer and de facto boss, Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (played by Steve Buscemi).    

Much like the city he governs, Nucky straddles two worlds: Gladhanding the virtuous members of the Women’s Temperance League one minute while organizing the collection of protection money in the back rooms of speakeasies the next Nucky is not your prototypical mob boss, just as Boardwalk Empire isn’t your typical gangster series. Creator and head writer Terence Winter (The Sopranos) and director and producer Martin Scorsese purposely cast against type, choosing the slight, lean Buscemi known for playing squirrelly geniuses and loquacious lackeys, for a role more commonly associated with stout, imposing macho men. It works surprisingly well.

Steve Buscemi is the city’s treasurer and de facto boss, Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson

What Nucky lacks in physical dominance, he more than makes up for in psychological menace, cutting down would-be detractors with impunity. He’s not above knocking a few skulls together when necessary, but for a proto-mobster, he’s remarkably squeamish about violence, generally using it as a last resort, and dismayed when those close to him don’t follow his example.

He’s also a compassionate man, taking genuine interest in the welfare of relative strangers.

Margaret Schroeder (Kelly Macdonald), the unfortunate wife of an abusive, compulsive gambler and drinker, experiences Nucky’s generosity first hand. Not everything Nucky does is purely self-interested, though even the best of intentions can sometimes have unforeseen consequences.

It’s this reluctance to assume the gangster role completely that his shell-shocked protégé, just back from World War I, Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt) notably comments on: “You can’t be half a gangster anymore.”

Boardwalk Empire focuses on this crossroads not only in the life of Nucky Thompson, but in the fate of the city at large: To continue on as before, maintaining the façade of gentility and respectability while engaging in a little light-hearted racketeering on the side; or to fully embrace the ruthlessness and violence that would define gangsters of a later era.

Steve Buscemi with co-star Paz de la Huerta

By the end of the premiere, one wonders if Nucky is even left with a choice.

The series teases the viewer with a few tantalizing glimpses into the development of what Winter calls “baby gangsters” — infamous men like Lucky Luciano and Al Capone who are little more than boys in the series spend as much time being dressed down by their superiors as they do engaging in any real villainy, which makes for some unexpectedly comic moments

Nowhere is the difference between the up-and-coming gangsters and the old guard more eloquently demonstrated than in that classic gangster genre staple: The dinner scene. Lucky’s superior, the dapper Andrew Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg), and Nucky exchange pleasantries and compliment each other’s tastes in food and music while an impatient Luciano seethes in the corner, anxious to get to the business at hand.

Director Martin Scorsese on the set of Boardwalk Empire

When he inevitably commits a social gaffe, the bosses, appalled by his gauche manner, act like adults banishing an unruly tween to the kids’ table at Christmas, apologizing to each other for his temper tantrum.

“You young fellas,” Nucky quips, “No appreciation for the art of conversation.”    

The realization that Nucky just rebuked the future father of New York’s Five Families is just one example of the delicious dramatic irony that Boardwalk Empire occasionally dishes out.   

All in all, Boardwalk Empire is a refreshing take on the traditional mob genre. It’s clear the production staff did its research: Atlantic City’s famous boardwalk, the costumes, the music — everything evocative of the atmosphere of the 1920s is recreated in painstaking detail. There is sex, a good amount of it, and the obligatory shootouts and bloody assassinations are visceral, but not exploitative.

Michael Pitt as Jimmy Darmody

In the premiere, Macdonald’s character is savagely beaten by her husband on more than one occasion, but as she points out, “It’s more about the after-effects. The real violence, you don’t actually see. It’s all shadows on a wall, and seeing it through the children’s eyes. You can imagine something much better than seeing it on screen.”    

Boardwalk Empire is at its most poignant when it focuses on these after-effects, not just of domestic violence, but also what happens when anyone crosses that invisible line that represents doing what they know is right and doing what it takes to survive and thrive in this exciting but brutal world.

The comparisons to Winter’s earlier work in The Sopranos, not to mention Scorsese’s oeuvre of genre-defining films are perhaps inescapable; but on balance, the series does its predecessors justice.