Mining for the Truth: Scott Cooper Discusses ‘The Pale Blue Eye’
Scott Cooper recently took the time to speak with Script about the challenges of doing this period piece and the craft of writing.
Writer, editor, literary critic, and poet Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809. It's safe to say he's the forefather of detective fiction. His short story Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) is considered the first detective fiction, with the discerning C. Auguste Dupin as the super-sleuth at the nexus of the story. The popular literary figure would appear again in The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1842) and The Purloined Letter (1844). Poe once said, "There is no beauty without some strangeness." All of his works are tinged with an otherworldliness and eccentricity. He was a tortured soul who spun his malaise into absorbing, mentally stimulating entertainment.
Author Louis Bayard's The Pale Blue Eye, which was published in 2009, is testament to Poe's interest in the expertise of being a detective. Bayard’s euphonic writing style and labyrinthine story make for a fulfilling read. Writer/director Scott Cooper's (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace) adaptation, which will have a limited release in theaters on December 23, 2022, then premiere on Netflix January 6, 2023, stays faithful to the material and renders an unrelenting emotional and physical landscape of horror and disquiet. It stars Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Toby Jones, Gillian Anderson, and Robert Duvall.
Scott recently took the time to speak with us about the challenges of doing this period piece and the craft of writing.
On Going from Acting to Writing
I was an actor with an unremarkable career who was finding himself as a bride's maid in a lot of movies that I wanted to be in. My mentor at the time whom I was working with, Robert Duvall, said, 'You should try writing. That's what I did. I wrote The Apostle for myself.' And, of course, I didn't end up writing something for myself, but I ended up writing a screenplay for Jeff Bridges called Crazy Heart, which turned out to be my first film.
The Challenges of Adapting The Pale Blue Eye Compared to Crazy Heart
There were many challenges. This was a much more sprawling novel than Crazy Heart. It had the added challenge, the pitfall, of placing young Edgar Allan Poe, at the center of a genre that he bequeathed to us, the detective story...detective fiction...horror fiction. Trying to take the themes that course through Poe's work...paranoia, anxiety, death, tragedy, despair....and having them course through this film in a way that takes an unformed Edgar Allan Poe and inspires him to become the writer that we all know and love.
On How He Relates to The Pale Blue Eye
Much like Edgar Allan Poe, I spent my formative years in the state of Virginia. My father taught English literature. I was familiar with Poe's work from a very young age. My father introduced me to the novel that the film is based upon. I thought, 'Wow, this is really kind of clever. I think this would make for a good film.' He just sent it to me to read for pleasure. But I thought, ‘I've never seen a film that turns our expectations of whom we think Poe is on its head.’ It allowed me to tell a whodunit, a father/son love story, but also an Edgar Allan Poe origin story. It was a real challenge but one that I relished.
On Casting Harry Melling
I agree, Harry is revelatory in this film. He might not be a revelation for others because he has quite a big fan base. I first came to notice Harry in the Coen Brothers’ anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, where he plays a limbless performer that Liam Neeson carries around in the American West. I thought Harry had a look that looked like Edgar Allan Poe. He had his countenance. He could handle the language well. He took what I wrote and took it to places that I could only hope and imagine.
On Doing Research
I did quite a bit of research. A lot of research on Poe because Harry portrays Poe much the way he was when he was younger. which was warm, humorous, witty, prone to poetic and romantic musings, fanciful, but very sincere. Someone who was thought to be this wonderful Southern companion, but most people don't know that version of Poe. I read a lot of Poe's works as I was writing dialogue to better understand the poetic cadence that exists in the dialogue. Then just make it feel very period appropriate because we have films that take place around the Revolutionary War, 1776, and we have quite a few Civil War-era pictures. But nothing really that comes to mind for me that's around 1830, which is when this took place.
On What the “Necessary Business” of a Detective Was During the Time the Film was Set
Christian Bales' character actually says it quite pointedly. He says if you're patient enough, a suspect will often interrogate himself. I think great detectives are very watchful, keenly observant, they allow suspects to give tell-tale signs of innocence or guilt. I think Christian plays that beautifully as Augustus Landor. But he's also a legendary constable who's adept at gloveless interrogation so he can interrogate people without having to put his gloves on them but also, should he need to, he knows the dark art of roughing up a suspect as well.
On the Demands of Shooting a Historical Drama
It’s more demanding in terms of trying to recreate an era, trying to set an aesthetic tone for the film, one that's very period specific but incredibly accurate in detail. Finding landscapes that are unspoiled. Making sure that the costumes don't wear the actors but feel really ingrained into the story. Making sure that hairstyles and accent work and dialogue all feel period appropriate. So, the challenges are much greater than telling a contemporary story.
On the Emotional Journeys of the Characters as They Related to the Environment
I think the environment relates very specifically to the emotions the characters are experiencing. I think it's at once unforgiving but also has a haunting beauty. The environment can be mysterious, as are some of the characters. I think it can also feel incredibly gothic. Poe has bequeathed to us the gothic genre. My hope is the aesthetics, environment, the landscape all really help set the tone for what Edgar Allan Poe was writing about.
On Writing an Adaptation Compared to Writing an Original Script
It's interesting. Stanley Kubrick never made a film that was based on original material. He always thought it was best to adapt something that existed that you could read in one sitting. That had a beginning, middle, and end. Does it hold your interest? Does it deliver? Writing an original screenplay, so often you don't have that ability. You invent the characters, which is incredibly difficult. The scenarios and plot and moving the story forward, you hope that it resonates in a very universal way. But when you're writing something that's an original screenplay, it can also be quite personal. I try in ways that are known only to me to make my films quite personal. In ways that don't have to be discussed publicly, whether based on existing material or whether they're adaptations because there's a big difference between a novel and a film. Very often if I'm adapting something, I just take the seed of a book and make it into the film that ultimately results from that.
On Actors Informing Scenes
They didn't particularly inform the way I was shooting it. I and my cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi are very specific in how I want to tell the story using the camera. The actors then acquiesce within the frame. But when you have actors who are as good as Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Robert Duvall, Lucy Boynton, and Timothy Spall...and on and on....they're so experienced that they can take any frame that you give them and bring it to life and express their characters.
On Taking Creative License
I took quite a bit of creative license. Louis Bayard, the author, understood the difference between a book and a film. His book has more characters and is much more sprawling. It very well could have been a limited series, there was so much material. But I wanted to tell this in a two-hour setting and wanted it to be a feature film. So, you have to relinquish some of the other characters and some of the other strands that might give them more depth in a longer telling. But I like that challenge and I much prefer film to TV. I much prefer a two-hour sitting to six or eight.
On Writing the First Draft
It took me two months or so to write the first draft. But I've written about twenty or thirty drafts of the script. Writing is rewriting. You're never finished. I write with certain actors in mind. Then once you cast actors, you tailor more specifically to their strengths.
On Themes He Gravitates Towards
I think the themes of tragedy, loss, regret, injustice course through all of my films. I tend to make deep-rooted American films that highlight the darker corners of the human psyche. For whatever reason, I'm drawn to that, much like I guess Poe was in a sense. When you're drawn to those themes, there's a lot you can mine that makes it human and universal.
On the Poe Museums
Oh, yes, I’m familiar with the one in the Bronx. There's also one in Richmond, VA, where he spent a lot of his life. Of course, he died in Baltimore. He spent a lot of time, though, in New York City. Was at West Point for seven months of his life. My hope is this inspires people to pick up some of Poe's work or to learn more about him because people love true crime fiction. They love crime fiction. They love drama and detective fiction. He bequeathed all of that to us. Without Edgar Allan Poe, we don't have any of that. We don't have Sherlock Holmes.
On Learning Something New About Poe
I learned about his sense of rootlessness, his quest to belong. How he felt like no one ever loved him. He was orphaned at a young age. He had a fraught relationship with John Allan, his benefactor in Richmond. He never felt like he connected with anyone. He was always looking for connection. He found that connection in Augustus Landor in this film. Then we see that connection put to the test.
On How Grueling the Shoot Was
Every day was grueling. It was minus 4, minus 8 degrees below zero. Camera lenses would freeze. The crew rebelled! [laughs] They wanted to rebel, but they didn't quite rebel. It was an incredibly brutal shoot. All of my films for one reason or another seem to be. My wife thinks I must be a masochist because all of my films are so tough to make. Hopefully, it makes for better viewings and transports you to a really unforgiving but beautiful environment.
The Pale Blue Eye is now streaming on Netflix.
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Sonya Alexander started off her career training to be a talent agent. She eventually realized she was meant to be on the creative end and has been writing ever since. As a freelance writer she’s written screenplays, covered film, television, music and video games and done academic writing. She’s also been a script reader for over twenty years. She's a member of the African American Film Critics Association and currently resides in Los Angeles.
