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Boardwalk Empire (HBO) story and History/any thoughts?

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WilliamHyllside
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Favourite HF book: The Egyptian by Mika Waltari
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Boardwalk Empire (HBO) story and History/any thoughts?

Post by WilliamHyllside » Wed April 13th, 2016, 12:22 am

Hi everyone,

Recently, a friend of mine told me about that show as I was always annoying him with my passion for history, writing and historical fiction blablabla haha...! So I started watching it and went through the 5 seasons at a good pace. Enjoyed it! The music and general atmosphere contributed a lot to that feeling.

I guess much of the quality may be due to Martin Scorcese's involvment as Pilot's Director and Executive Producer. I haven't read the original work yet, so I was wondering for those who have read the original and watched the adaptation, have you found a huge difference?

While watching the show, I was also wondering how faithful it was to History, as far as events, characters and everyday life stuff are concerned. Well, for characters such as Al Capone, it seems fiction has been built quite a lot around the historical character. What intrigued me above all were those small things, like the music and the music devices, clothes, language used, etc. Do you think it was made 1920s-ish or really specific in each season for that particular depicted year?

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lauragill
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Re: Boardwalk Empire (HBO) story and History/any thoughts?

Post by lauragill » Tue April 26th, 2016, 2:34 am

The original book is a work of non-fiction about the RL Nucky Johnson. The Boardwalk Empire series kept a lot of the real Nucky's details such as his penchant for wearing a carnation in his buttonhole and his first marriage, but changed a lot of the rest. Nucky Thompson on the show is more of a mover and shaker than the real Nucky Johnson ever was. And the ending, well, the real Nucky went to prison, later married a showgirl, and died in the late 60s, I think.

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