Movie Review: Pale Blue Eye
directed by Scott Cooper

October 1830, Gus Landor, a retired New York constable (Christian Bale) is charged with examining the suicide of a cadet at the West Point Academy. Landor was known to be a keen eye and ace crime-fighter, but the Academy officials have enlisted his help for another reason: discretion. The truth is that the grounds for the cadet’s suicide is shaky and when his body was left unguarded, his heart was removed. So, the grizzled Mr Landor enlists the help of another cadet, the youthful poet Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling), and the game is afoot.

Pale Blue Eye’s director, Scott Cooper, was first an actor and it seems that rather than work in service of the novel or directorial flair, Cooper made the film with the actors first in mind. The filmmaking does (almost) everything to help immerse the actors and to allow performances without intrusion. So no flashy crane shots that go through the roof nor major post-production work. Save a few obvious dangers, the work has all been done practically. The buildings have four walls and a roof, the exteriors are all on location during the icy Pennsylvanian winter and they’ve used real candles that burn and smoke. It’s a rare thrill to see real fire on film these days and rarer still to see films relying so heavily on it for lighting. If all this is to benefit the actors' immersion, it doubles for the viewers’.

And Cooper’s love of actors may be why the cast is as rich as it is. Even the minor roles bear well-known faces (which has the added benefit of concealing who is innocent and who is not). It’s also clear that each of the cast members have been picked for these very faces, whose textures and shapes wear the period’s mutton chops and moustaches well. And of these faces, the great jewels are Harry Melling’s teeth, which we watch intently as they deliver prosaic monologues and make full use of the archaic language. But not everyone has avoided the Hollywood touch, the star power of Christian Bale is too good to pass up so they’ve mussed up his hair and left him haggard but handsome. The most glaring mistake in this collection of wonderful faces is revealed during a dramatic climax, the person's obsessively whitened and straightened teeth glinting obnoxiously as we try to swallow a scene already marred by a noticeable green screen.

Yet forgiving these minor grievances, the film is excellent. The performances are consistently strong, with Melling again being the crown jewel (Bale plays quiet and subtle for the most part). The serving tenets of filmmaking: costumes, sets, hair and makeup, et al. are all works to watch and enjoy. The main cast enjoy cotton cravats, velvet vests and perhaps kid-leather gloves. The cadets' uniforms are woollen and a splendid royal blue, and watching their coats canvas the snowy landscape gives the eye a joy like watching an optical illusion. Perhaps the least noticeable are the cinematography and editing. They are a little sedate with an overreliance on shot reverse-shot for the film’s many conversations. But the close ups are appreciated, and if they were traded for the performances, it was worth it.

Now, the film is an adaptation of Louis Bayard's quietly successful novel of the same name. In terms of adaptation, it does well. It has had the unenviable task of cutting 448 pages down to 128 minutes (screenplays are usually a minute per page). To do so, it has traded the lovely distractions and descriptions of the novel—A cow. Big blowzy lashy. Coming out of a copse of sycamores, licking away a smear of clover—for the aforementioned wonders of visual detailing. Minor plot details have been changed for expediency and the core story still works exceptionally well. That said, the dialogue has suffered some. Cooper doesn’t grasp the old English as tightly as Bayard and has instead opted to cut selectively rather than rewrite extensively, but again the performances pull through.

Few murder mysteries hold up to another viewing, after all the curtain has been pulled away and the magic trick is over. It’s difficult to leave in enough nervous glances, cagey wordings, and inscrutable behaviour to warrant a rewatch without giving the viewer a good idea of who’s done what. Pale Blue Eye manages to do just this and be interesting and thoughtful the second time around. Though some of the useful details have been left in the novel, it manages to be an elegantly plotted murder mystery with memorable twists and without cheap tricks, it does so without obscuring too much, the ideal genre piece to the last letter.

If the film leaves one wanting anything, it is more camaraderie and time spent between the two mains, Landor and Poe. The brooding detective is gruff and cold until he is warmed by the eccentric and lively poet, and the two enjoy the ups-and-downs of a good friendship while ferreting out the killer. Lucky enough, that is just what Bayard's novel provides, so like a good adaptation, both are richer for the existence of the other.

Branden Zavaleta is a content writer working in Perth.