Tagged: Cillian Murphy

The Wind That Shakes the Barley: Cillian Murphy’s Olive Irish Tweed Jacket

Cillian Murphy in The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)

Vitals

Cillian Murphy as Damien O’Donovan, Irish Republican Army soldier

County Cork, Ireland, 1920 through 1921

Film: The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Release Date: June 23, 2006
Director: Ken Loach
Costume Designer: Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Last year on March 17, I commemorated St. Patrick’s Day by watching The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a fictional chronicle of two brothers from County Cork during the Irish conflicts of the early 1920s. Cork native Cillian Murphy stars as Damien O’Donovan, who joins a local Irish Republican Army flying column led by his brother Teddy (Pádraic Delaney).

The brothers fight alongside each other during the Irish War of Independence, but the circumstances of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and Irish Free State deepen the divide between the increasingly radical Damien and more pragmatic Teddy as the two find themselves on opposing sides of the subsequent Irish Civil War. Continue reading

Anthropoid: Cillian Murphy’s Brown Striped Suit and Raincoat as Jozef Gabčík

Cillian Murphy in Anthropoid (2016)

Vitals

Cillian Murphy as Jozef Gabčík, Czechoslovak Army soldier and SOE agent

Prague, Spring 1942

Film: Anthropoid
Release Date: September 9, 2016
Director: Sean Ellis
Costume Designer: Josef Cechota

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This week in 1942, one of the most evil officials of the Third Reich (and that’s saying something!) finally succumbed to injuries received after he was ambushed by two Czechoslovak Army soldiers operating on behalf of the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

The SOE had collaborated with Czechoslovak intelligence to plan “Operation Anthropoid”—the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi security chief who helped organize Kristallnacht and was considered a principal architect of the Holocaust. As Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Heydrich’s brutality earned him nicknames like the “Butcher of Prague”, making him a strategic target for the exiled Czechoslovak government. From among nearly 2,000 Czechoslovak Army personnel now exiled to England, Czechoslovak intelligence chief František Moravec selected two dozen—including paratroopers Jozef Gabčík, Jan Kubiš, and Karel Svoboda—to be trained by the SOE in Scotland for the dangerous mission to remove Heydrich. Continue reading

Oppenheimer: Cillian Murphy’s Charcoal-Blue 1950s Suit

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer (2023).
Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon.

Vitals

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist and “father of the atomic bomb”

Washington, D.C., Spring 1954

Film: Oppenheimer
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Director: Christopher Nolan
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Among its seven Oscar wins including Best Picture (as seen by Al Pacino’s eyes), last year’s blockbuster Oppenheimer received the Academy Award for Best Actor for Cillian Murphy’s spectacular performance as the eponymous J. Robert Oppenheimer, born 120 years ago today on April 22, 1904.

The latter portions of Oppenheimer‘s chronography are set across his security clearance hearings throughout the spring 1954. Between April 12th and May 6th, the United States Atomic Energy Commission investigated 24 allegations questioning Oppie’s allegiance, loyalty, and Communist affiliations, as well as his opposition to the hydrogen bomb despite his influential development in nuclear weaponry that resulted in his nickname as the “father of the atomic bomb.” Continue reading

Oppenheimer: Cillian Murphy’s Brown Suits at Los Alamos

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer (2023). Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon.

Vitals

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist and “father of the atomic bomb”

Los Alamos, New Mexico, Spring 1943 through Summer 1945

Film: Oppenheimer
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Director: Christopher Nolan
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Released last summer (on my 34th birthday!), Oppenheimer has been deservedly sweeping accolades this year, including seven BAFTAs, five Golden Globes, and 13 Academy Award nominations ahead of the ceremony this Sunday, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Christopher Nolan, a trio of acting nominations, and Best Costume Design for Ellen Mirojnick.

Adapted by Nolan from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s biography American Prometheus, this epic cinematic portrait of J. Robert Oppenheimer chronicles the prolific physicist’s career from his 1920s studies in Europe through his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II and the ultimate revocation of his security clearance in the 1950s, depicted as the result of Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss’ petty resentment. Continue reading

Peaky Blinders – Tommy’s Charcoal Herringbone Suit and Model T

Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby on Peaky Blinders (Episode 2), stepping out of his Ford Model T in charcoal tweed suit and overcoat.

Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby on Peaky Blinders (Episode 2), stepping out of his Ford Model T in charcoal tweed suit and overcoat.

Vitals

Cillian Murphy as Thomas “Tommy” Shelby, cunning Peaky Blinders gang leader and jaded WWI veteran

Birmingham, England, Fall 1919

Series: Peaky Blinders
Season: 1
Air Dates: September 12, 2013 – October 17, 2013
Directors: Otto Bathurst (Episodes 1.01 – 1.03) & Tom Harper (Episode 1.04 & 1.06)
Creator: Steven Knight
Costume Designer: Stephanie Collie
Tailor: Keith Watson

Background

The fourth season of BBC Two’s brutally entertaining Peaky Blinders premiered last month in the U.K. and should arrive on Netflix just in time for Christmas for American fans eager to see Birmingham’s favorite crime family boozing and bleeding its way through the 1920s.

Car Week thus begins with a flashback to the show’s first season as Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and his brothers roll up to a rendezvous with the Lee family in their flivver, a beautiful black Ford Model T that coordinates with Tommy’s dark three-piece suit and overcoat. Continue reading

Tommy Shelby’s Blue Wedding Suit

Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby in the third season premiere of Peaky Blinders

Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby in the third season premiere of Peaky Blinders.

Vitals

Cillian Murphy as Thomas “Tommy” Shelby, cunning Peaky Blinders gang leader and jaded WWI veteran

Birmingham, England, February 1924

Series: Peaky Blinders
Episode: Episode 3.01
Air Date: May 5, 2016
Director: Tim Mielants
Creator: Steven Knight
Costume Designer: Alexandra Caulfield

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today’s Week of Weddings post focuses on the sadly short-lived union of Tommy Shelby and Grace Burgess that kicked off the third season of Peaky Blinders.

This is the second Peaky Blinders wedding to be featured on BAMF Style after the first season nuptials of John Shelby and Esme Lee. While that first wedding was considerably spontaneous (at least for the groom), this union had been in the fire since Tommy and Grace first laid eyes on each other across the Garrison in 1919. Five years and one dead Irish investigator later, the two are finally tying the knot.

Grace’s family is comprised of several members of the “King’s Irish” cavalrymen that nearly abandoned the Peaky Blinders on the battlefield a decade earlier, so Tommy is forced to lay down some relatively unorthodox rules for a wedding:

No cocaine. No sport. No telling fortunes. No racing. No fucking sucking petrol out of their fucking cars… But the main thing is, you bunch of fuckers, despite the provocation from the cavalry, no fighting!

As Michael Hogan from The Telegraph reported: “Sex, drugs and ragtime: welcome to a fairytale wedding, Shelby-style.” Continue reading

Peaky Blinders – Tommy’s Gray Striped Flannel Suit

Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby on the third episode of Peaky Blinders.

Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby on the third episode of Peaky Blinders.

Vitals

Cillian Murphy as Thomas “Tommy” Shelby, cunning Peaky Blinders gang leader and jaded WWI veteran

Gloucestershire, England, Fall 1919

Series: Peaky Blinders
Episodes: Episodes 1.03 – 1.05
Air Dates: September 26, 2013 – October 10, 2013
Directors: Otto Bathurst (Episode 1.03) & Tom Harper (Episode 1.04 & 1.05)
Creator: Steven Knight
Costume Designer: Stephanie Collie
Tailor: Keith Watson

Background

While many will be celebrating their Irish heritage this week (whether it exists or not), fans of Peaky Blinders may be interested to know that tomorrow marks the beginning of the Cheltenham Festival, the prestigious annual four-day meeting in the National Hunt racing calendar that finds many of the best British and Irish-trained horses racing against the backdrop of the excited crowd’s “Cheltenham roar”. Continue reading

Peaky Blinders – Tommy’s Gray Striped Herringbone Suit

Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby on Peaky Blinders.

Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby on Peaky Blinders.

Vitals

Cillian Murphy as Thomas “Tommy” Shelby, cunning Peaky Blinders gang leader and jaded WWI veteran

Birmingham, England, Fall 1919

Series: Peaky Blinders
Episodes: Episodes 1.01 – 1.05
Air Dates: September 12, 2013 – October 10, 2013
Directors: Otto Bathurst (Episodes 1.01 – 1.03) & Tom Harper (Episode 1.04 & 1.05)
Creator: Steven Knight
Costume Designer: Stephanie Collie
Tailor: Keith Watson

Background

BBC Two’s Peaky Blinders is often compared to Boardwalk Empire or The Wire, an unfair comparison as the show stands up excellently on its own and the creator – Steven Knight – has even admitted that he’s never seen either show. One could argue that Peaky Blinders would certainly appeal to watchers of both shows, taking the urban grit of The Wire and the post-WWI family gangsterdom of Boardwalk Empire and launching them both across the pond to settle in Birmingham, England. Continue reading