The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

Hidden in Plain Sight

or

The Poe-Eyed Detective ("It Will Work Out")

 

There is something ingenious, if not precious, about the conceit: a murder mystery featuring the creator of the modern detective story.*

 

Sure, every depressive knows Edgar Allen Poe as the writer of morbid, anguished poetry with repeated lines at the ends of stanzas. But, with his publication of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" in 1841, he began a new genre of mystery story, based, not only on the dark corners of the human psyche, but it's very opposite, the power of reasoning and deduction—or what he called "ratiocination." With the success of his Dupin stories, came the inspiration for Doyle of Sherlock Holmes (he never shied from admitting it or his other sources) and, from there, the progeny of the countless numbers of problem-solving busybodies that have expanded and pushed the envelope of the Dewey Decimal System for decades.

Homage must be paid.

The Pale Blue Eye (love the title...) begins with an image, a surrealistic scene veiled in fog, of a man handing by the neck from a tree. But, something's off. His feet are on the ground, rather than being suspended above it. The explanation for that image will take the entire movie to explain, but already you're hooked, and that image is a wonderful metaphor for a mystery. Something deadly has happened, but why, and by whom, needs to be sussed out. Only one person knows and that is the one who did the deed.

It's 1830. Retired constable Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) lives a solitary life in his rustic, but well-libraried cabin, another in a long line of isolated men, known for "getting a confession with just a stare." His wife died many years ago, and his only daughter, whom he mourns, has disappeared—a mystery that still haunts him. One day he is greeted by Captain *ahem* Hitchcock (Simon McBurney) from nearby West Point Academy. One of their cadets has been found dead—he'd been hung, apparently, but the most grisly aspect of the deed is that his heart has been carved out of his chest.

Landor has some restrictions put on him by the Academy Superintendent, Thayer (Timothy Spall):he is to report to him and Hitchcock daily on his progress; he works for them as an employee as long as they approve of his work; interviews with cadets must be done with Hitchcock's supervision; he can't drink on the job. There is a tavern in the town, however, which he visits after hours. He runs afoul of the Academy's physician, Dr. Marquis (Toby Jones), when he proves himself unsatisfied with the doctor's autopsy—but Landor's thorough work does win him enough grudging respect that he is invited to the doctor's home, where he meets his somewhat-hysterical wife (Gillian Anderson, always great, even when she's not doing the autopsies) and his children, cadet Artemus (Harry Lawtey) and his lovely daughter Lea (Lucy Boynton).

The cadet interviews do not go well. The young men are less than forthcoming-especially under the baleful eye of Hitchcock. But, there is one young Virginian cadet who attracts Landor's attention, not only because he has an obvious intelligence and grand-if precise manner of speaking. He's also a bit of an outsider at the Academy, a frequent object of scorn among the students...and the instructors.

This is cadet E.A. Poe (Harry Melling), not the finest example of military discipline, frequently seeking permission to be excused from outside drills, citing poor health and spending his time writing poetry. When Landor first meets Poe, he is struck by his eloquence and directness, but more by his opinion that the perpetrator may have chosen a mundane way to kill the victim, but the cutting out of the heart "makes him a poet." Poe's creepiness makes him a "usual suspect" as far as murder mysteries go, but at a later meeting in a tavern, Landor suggests to him that they should work together on the case, as Poe might have opinions—and access—that Landor could use.

Then, there is Landor's mentor, Jean Pepe (Robert Duvall), an elderly recluse, with a vast knowledge of all things ritualistic and arcane. It's always good to see Duvall in anything, and his presence reminds one of the useful—but supplementary— characters that inform and give a certain historical sub-text to many a fictional detective.

The investigation twists and turns like a speckled band—no, the story doesn't involve snakes—but, is enhanced and complicated by young cadet Poe's besotted enchantment with the doctor's daughter Lea Marquis, prone to seizures that might be due to epilepsy—or maybe it's just a family curse.

Oh, this one is a corker, with a resolution that will surprise casual mystery watchers, and inspire appreciative smiles from aficionados with its echoes of Poe's own detective fiction. There might be a bump or two in motivation, a red-herring here and there (aren't there always?), but, by the end, one will be properly sanguine with the mystification they experience.

And the cast is top-notch. Bale isn't grand-standing here with tics and business, but relies on a relaxed body language that he rarely employs, and the relationship between he and Melling's overelegant Poe is a nice study in contrasts in a mutual admiration society of two. Director Cooper keeps things moving swiftly and takes full advantage of cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi's ability to create astounding images of nature and the unnatural. And Howard Shore's score is lovely, another wonderful example of why he should be doing more music for films these days.

It's a very well-done film, that is only undermined by the fact that it will never light—and darken—a theater screen, where it can be truly appreciated, and, although it is nice that Netflix gave it a healthy paycheck to be produced, why it should be relegated to a small screen, is a real mystery.

* When the Mystery Writers of America organization hands out their little trophies, they are dubbed "The Edgars." There are some scholars who begrudge Poe the title. But, they can't do anything about the little statues.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

A Murder of Crows

or

"...Black, Deep Desires"

 

Joel Coen steps away from "The Coen Brothers" partnership to present his own version of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth (or "The Scottish Play" if you expect a sandbag to fall from the rafters). There's nothing to fear here: brother Ethan usually writes their stuff and Joel directs with some intersection of duties between the two. But, here, brother Joel already has a collaborator and the material has been proven time and time again (and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow), despite the superstitions that have hovered like crows over every stage production.

 

There have been so many filmed presentations of "Macbeth" and re-imagined scenarios in which it takes place that one wonders what Coen, taking the text, would do with it. He doesn't try to anachronise the story, moving it to Haiti or setting it in Nazi Germany, but keeps it in 16th century Inverness. Presentation of that historical "Macbeth" recalls the way Orson Welles did it in 1948—stage-bound, Academy ratio, black and white, with an eye towards German Expressionism.

It begins with a shot straight up into the sky, the wind blowing, smoke and clouds combining and birds gyrating into the sky. Nature is on alert and moving because man is up to something unnatural—a battle has just been fought. Meanwhile a lone figure (Kathryn Hunter) scuttles—there is no other word for it—across a dirt path in the fog, muttering to itself and to others. This is Coen's interpretation of Shakespeare's witches, one being, recalling Andy Serkis' Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, but not a CGI creation, but one of theatricality, with twisted limbs like a bird's and a hoarse croak of a voice that feels like nails on a file. The performance is weird without being traditionally spooky and sets you on edge for what is to come.

What is to come is a professional interpretation without too much weirdness. Hunter is a tough act to follow, and she is the highlight in a film that should be full of them. I say that, but it needs to be said with some context. "Macbeth" is a much performed play, both in theater and the cinema (every decade has one film of it, it seems), and, like a symphony—or other piece of music—it can be played in differing manners even if maintaining the ascribed tempo. I might have a "perfect" rendition of the piece (and other listeners another idea of what that might entail) and notice the change of "attack" or emphasis in certain sections. It comes down to interpretation, and "Macbeth" is just as susceptible to those variations.

Like the 1948 Welles version, this one depends on less being more (although Coen cites Carl Theodor Dreyer more than Welles), the backdrops shadowed or cloaked in mist and blocks of perfectly proportioned masonry with less emphasis on grit—as, say, Polanski's version—and the figures walking through them are like mice in a maze. Predestination has created their paths and their choice is to simply follow through or not. It's a curiously unpopulated world, the only crowds being the line of soldiers set to attack Macbeth's castle, hemmed in by the "Birnam wood" of the witches' prophecy, the rest being stark spaces shadowed by the blackest blacks.

Through these spaces, the characters pace, for the most part sheltered from the wild outside that knows no geometry of straight lines, but intrudes—once the Macbeths screw their courage to the sticking place by regicide—not only by physical presences, but by the sound of that nature booming (not just knocking) to be let in, like consciences made tactile.

The acting is great throughout, with Brendan Gleeson, Alex Hassell, Stephen Root (!!), Moses Ingram, and Frances McDormand all breathing new life into the texts, bridging that Elizabethan gap of Shakespearean prose by the sheer force of performance. Denzel Washington does well (as well), bringing a maturity to the role rather than—as in some versions—as a walking personification of overweening ambition. It is only in his interpretation of the "Out, brief candle" speech that leaves a little something to be desired at that critical junction of the play. 

Up until then, Washington's Macbeth is a pragmatist, slightly world-weary and seems beaten down—he has just come from a war, after all. What is most interesting is that both Macbeths in this iteration are older, childless (so no chances of succession), and obviously have seen chances for advancement taken away from them in the past, and that, now, with this hope given thought by a supernatural origin, are almost desperate to take advantage of it, lest it pass from them one last time. Once he is king, and things start to fall apart, one would think there would be more shock, more realization that he might have been duped by the very forces that emboldened him. But, that's not there. Instead, it seems he's returned to the world-weariness at the beginning of the film—which is inconvenient as he still has much to fight. It feels false, and is missing a sense of bitter desperation that will carry him through the inevitable end.

Still, it's a beautiful, often mystical film to watch and listen to. And it's always a welcome break to just take in Shakespeare to relieve oneself of the mundane nature of everyday-speak, and glory in the poetry and precision of his story-telling.