“The Pigeon Tunnel” (coming to Apple TV+ in October) is a look at the extraordinary life of author John le Carré. It examines the very essence of truth, and how memory and manipulation play a part in shaping our worlds. I sat with director Errol Morris to talk about truth.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“The Pigeon Tunnel,” a new documentary from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris, now streaming on Apple TV+, is a look at the extraordinary life of David Cornwell a.k.a. prolific author John le Carré. Through a retelling of his life, Cornwell examines the very essence of truth, and how memory and manipulation play a part in how we shape our world and our perceptions.
The set-up is simple, the story is not. Morris, who does not appear on camera, allows Cornwell/ le Carré, a leisurely ninety minutes to tell the story of his astonishing life. Dressed in an elegant blue businessman’s suit, he looks every inch the erudite MI6 intelligence officer he actually was from 1960 until 1964 when his career was cut short by the betrayal of double agent Kim Philby.
In measured tones, he eloquently describes a childhood that initially seems at odds with the sophisticated man seen in front of the camera. The son of Ronnie Cornwell, a career criminal and con man, says, “reality did not exist in my childhood. Performance did.”
And what follows is a performance of a sort. One that does not rely on truth as a cornerstone.
Early on, Ronnie schooled his son in the ways of duplicity, training that came in handy in his future careers as a raconteur, spy and a novelist. Cornwell/ le Carré, who died in 2020 shortly after the interviews for this film were completed, was a master fabulist, a storyteller who created a persona for himself in addition to the characters he created for his novels. He admits that much of what he says in the film isn’t true, that his recollections have been manipulated by the vagaries of memory and the trauma of youth.
A “long family background of betrayal,” from his father’s transgressions, his mother’s abandonment and later life changing disloyalty from his friend Philby, shaped him, and that is at the heart of what Morris wants the film to illuminate.
On the surface, it’s a look at an extraordinary life. But beyond the well-told stories, the real insight comes with how he sees the world. It doesn’t matter if the biographical details are true or not, what matters is his perception. It is how David Cornwell sees himself that is important and revealing. “I see my own life as a series of embraces and escapes,” he says.
“The Pigeon Tunnel” is as compelling as any le Carré novel. Cornwell/ le Carré knows how to tell a tale, and like any good spy, he knows what details to include, and which to hide away. Morris doesn’t attempt to chip away at the façade and get at the underlying truth, because he knows, in the hands of master storyteller, a good story is a good story, whether it is true or not.
On the Saturday October 14, 2023 edition of The Richard Crouse Show get to know Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris. His film “The Thin Blue Line” placed fifth on a Sight & Sound poll of the greatest documentaries ever made, and he has, in his films, documented everything from the career of Robert S. McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War and physicist Stephen Hawking to a topiary gardener, a robot scientist and a naked mole rat specialist.
“The Pigeon Tunnel,” his latest film, now streaming on Apple TV+, is a look at the extraordinary life of David Cornwell a.k.a. prolific author John le Carré. Through a retelling of his life, Cornwell examines the very essence of truth, and how memory and manipulation play a part in how we shape our world and our perceptions.
“The Pigeon Tunnel” is as compelling as any le Carré novel. Cornwell/ le Carré knows how to tell a tale, and like any good spy, he knows what details to include, and which to hide away. Morris doesn’t attempt to chip away at the façade and get at the underlying truth, because he knows, in the hands of master storyteller, a good story is a good story, whether it is true or not.
We’ll also meet Robert McCallum, director of the Amazon Prime documentary “Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe,” an award-winning look at the life and legacy of legendary children’s entertainer Ernie Coombs.
Finally, we’ll chat with Tatiana Maslany. You know her as the Emmy winning star of thew science-fiction thriller “Orphan Black,” and as part of the Marvel Universe as the star of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.” Today she joins me to talk about playing Jennifer, a Monarch butterfly who suffers from acrophobia, a fear of heights, in the new animated film “Butterfly Tale.” We talk Butterflies, Broadway and much more.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
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By default “Our Kind of Traitor” will probably be listed under the “thriller” section on Netflix and elsewhere simply because it was written by spymaster John le Carré but don’t be fooled. Labelling this Ewan McGregor film a thriller simply because of le Carré’s involvement is like calling “One Hour Photo” because Robin Williams took the lead.
McGregor and Naomie Harris are Perry Makepeace and Gail Perkins, an English couple on romantic holiday in Marrakesh. When she leaves him alone in a restaurant Perry meets flamboyant Russian oligarch Dima (Stellan Skarsgård) who takes the uptight poetry professor to a wild party resembling something out of a Fellini film. Inside a large mansion half naked women ride horseback and there’s enough drugs and booze to make Keith Richard do a double take. It’s a wild night that goes on until the sun rises, followed by a tennis match at Dima’s expansive villa.
Perry and Gail meet Dima’s family and nothing seems too odd until later that night at a cocktail party when the Russian asks Perry to smuggle a flash drive filled with very sensitive banking information to London. Turns out Dima is a money launderer whose usefulness to the mob has come to an end. He fears they may kill him and his family and his way out is to get the flash drive to the MI6 in return for safe passage to England.
Sounds like a plan until MI6 agent Hector (Damian Lewis) is less than entirely enthusiastic about the whole situation. Thus begins the intrigue, what little there is of it here, with Perry channelling his inner James Bond to become a Citizen Spy.
From buttoned down poetry professor to le Carré hero in a matter of days. It’s a leap, a gaping chasm even, which requires a well-oiled suspension of disbelief. The main problem is that the movie doesn’t offer up many clues as to why this couple would risk everything to come to the aid of a man they barely know. It’s a well-worn cinematic staple, the everyman as hero, but here it falls flat.
“I’ve BLEEPED up your life Professor,” says Dima. “Why are you still here?”
This would have been a good time for screenwriter Hossein Amini to offer up some kind of rational explanation as to why Perry has laid it all on the line. Instead we get this: “I’ve no idea.”
The rest of “Our Kind of Traitor” is about as riveting as that answer. Skarsgård’s boisterous performance is worth a look and Lewis is multi-layered enough to carry the whole thing but they are inexplicably pushed to the background behind the bland leads.
“A Most Wanted Man” is one of the trio of movies Philip Seymour Hoffman had in the can when he passed away last February. The spy thriller, based on a novel by John le Carré, is his final leading role and it is difficult to watch the film without a sense of dark foreboding.
One throwaway moment that has more resonance now takes place in a bar. Günther Bachmann (Hoffman) offers Annabel (Rachel McAdams) a cigarette.
“It’s OK,” she says. “I’ve given up.”
“Good luck with that,” he replies with the sardonic tone of someone who has tried and failed to let go of their vices. Blink and you’ll miss it, but taken in context his reaction is chilling, as is CIA agent Martha Sullivan’s (Robin Wright) line, “Even good men have a little bit of bad in them… and that little bit could kill you.”
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, of course, but these references to addiction and mortality, no matter how subtle, add pathos to an already poignant performance.
Hoffman plays Bachman, the head an anti-terrorism unit working in Hamburg, Germany. “Not many people know about it,” he says, “even less like it.” He works deep undercover with a small team, but this is no high flying spy style adventure. Instead, it’s a spy story about money transfers, private bankers (Willem Dafoe), a human-rights attorney (who Günther “a social worker for terrorists,” played by McAdams), a respected Muslim academic and philanthropist (Homayoun Ershadi), and Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) a half-Chechen, half-Russian refugee who might be worth $10 million. As he follows the money Bachman must untangle the web of intrigue in just 72 hours or the German police will upend his plans.
Looking like an unmade bed, Hoffman plays Günther as a hard drinking, chain smoking, heavy-breathing anti-James Bond. His one action scene involves walking across a bar ton punch someone in the face. The thrills here come from his methodical piecing together of the clues and his manipulation of the personalities involved. It’s a terrific performance in which you can feel the weight of the world in every decision he makes, every step he takes. It’s just a shame that the movie seems to value the minutiae over its characters.
Hoffman shines, but others aren’t given the opportunity. Wright has a handful of scenes but is primarily a plot point and not a rounded character. Dobrygin succeeds in looking mournful and Dafoe, while believable as a shady banker, isn’t given enough to do. Only McAdams as the idealistic but conflicted lawyer and the city of Hamburg—whose suitably seedy underbelly is as well developed a character as is on display here—keeps up with Hoffman.
“A Most Wanted Man” features a measured but intense performance from Hoffman, but the film itself isn’t as interesting as he is.
