![]() The specific image of a pale blue eye is evoked by the seductive Lea Marquis's (Lucy Boynton) eyes and the“piercing look” of detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale). It concentrates on developing the whodunit, favouring loose Poe-esque tropes over overt clichés (though at one point a raven inevitably appears, croaking ominously).Ĭhristian Bale as Augustus Landor Harry Melling as Cadet Edgar Allen Poe. The Pale Blue Eye's themes indeed crop up repeatedly in Poe's work: occult ritual and cryptograms, the border between sanity and insanity, the image of the beautiful dead woman – which Poe notoriously described as“the most poetical topic in the world”.įor the most part Netflix's film sticks carefully to this brief. Poe's dishonourable time at West Point could lend itself to a more conventional biopic, but this would have missed what writer and director scott cooper is really interested in:“the themes that ultimately influence this young unformed writer to become the writer that he became”. Unwilling to continue his military career, he made sure he was court-martialed by neglecting his duty and disobeying orders then ensured dismissal was the only outcome by pleading not guilty. We know, for example, what really happened when Poe was at West Point in 1830. Others acknowledged in The Pale Blue Eye, such as his fondness for drink, his liking for female company, his tendency to make enemies, are factually accurate but do not quite explain the dark places where his signature writing obsessions came from. ![]() ![]() Read more: depression and language: analysing edgar allan poe's writings to solve the mystery of his death Poe's life lends itself to impressionistic, counterfactual treatment, because many of its details – not least his death in 1849 when he was found wearing another man's suit – remain mysterious. When the police arrive, he is so convinced he can still hear the dead man's extracted heart beating that he is driven to confess. The removed heart recalls his masterful portrait in psychopathy, the tell-tale heart, the story of a man so disturbed by a lodging house mate's pale blue“vulture eye” that he kills him and dismembers his body so he can hide it under the floorboards. ![]() But it is suffused with the spirit of Poe. Of course, this scene is not biographically accurate. His rib cage has been surgically ripped open and the heart removed. Puzzlingly, the young man's feet appear to have been on the ground, with his stiff fingers clutching a fragment of a note. The body is found hanging from a tree by the banks of the Hudson. ![]() The historical noir – set in a beautifully rendered wintry Hudson Highlands, New York – imagines what might have happened if the young Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) had ingratiated himself into the investigation of the apparent suicide of one of his fellow cadets at West Point Military Academy. Auguste Dupin.Netflix's the pale blue eye is an artist origin story with a difference. Not much is known about Hamill’s role, other than that his character is “surprisingly at home in the shadows.” But he’ll be joined in the limited series by four more newly announced cast members: Carla Gugino, a veteran of Flanagan’s Netflix projects, in an undisclosed role Oscar nominee Frank Langella as Roderick Usher, the patriarch of the Usher dynasty Mary McDonnell ( Major Crimes) as Madeline Usher, Roderick’s twin sister and the hidden hand of the Usher dynasty and Carl Lumbly ( Alias) as Poe’s recurring detective C. ( The Fall of the House of Usher was itself a Poe short story first published in the 1800s.) Initially ordered at Netflix in October, The Fall of the House of Usher is described as “an epic tale of greed, horror and tragedy” that will serve as a “modern remix” of several Edgar Allan Poe works. The Flanagan-verse has added a certain Jedi to its ranks: Star Wars vet Mark Hamill has joined Mike Flanagan’s upcoming Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher, the streamer confirmed on Thursday. ![]()
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