This is on my list to see for sure.
Eddie Izzard as Long John Silver in re-imagined Treasure Island.
Izzard told TV Guide magazine,
“We certainly have softened and romanticised them (pirates)… It’s probably the Disney effect.
“The truth is, pirates were drunken, murderous bastards who didn’t give a f**k about anyone but themselves and would not hesitate to rip you up.
“They were well organised, like mafia gangs. In fact, our approach here is much less classic Treasure Island and much more Goodfellas.”
Yes, indeed. It was a very brutal world, far more rough than the cartoon Disney pirate images. Psychopathic captains and vicious, greedy crews who went rogue were decidedly not lovable types.
But, and I must mention this on the eve of International Worker’s Day, many a maritime worker in the 17th and 18th centuries became ruthless in response to gross and unfair exploitation of their labor by tyrannical captains and the expanding powers of merchants and governments seeking to profit from deep sea trade.