The film suggests Poe was embroiled in a murder mystery in which a killer was using the works of Poe as inspiration for a string of murders. John Cusack plays the author; he’s joined by Luke Evans, Alice Eve and Brendan Gleeson.
Shock sat down briefly with McTeigue to talk about the film.
Shock Till You Drop: Did the prospect of delving into a genre/mystery-thriller excite you after some of the films you had done?
James McTeigue: Yeah, Ninja Assassin was pretty “genre,” but I get what you mean. It’s another level of genre and what got me into it was the script came to me and I thought it was a fun way with dealing with Edgar Allan Poe and not having to make a biography. Also, you get to tackle his stories without having to do one adaptation. I like the absurdist idea that Poe winds up in the middle of his own mystery. The script was smart and I knew there would be a lot of good people involved.
Shock: Did the time period within which this story is set challenge you on a visual level?
McTeigue: I have a pretty determined asthetic when I go in, but this was a little different. What was important to me was what existed just outside of the frame. It added to the mystery. Is the killer still there? Is he close at hand? Danny Ruhlmann the director of photography and Roger Ford the production designer had conversations about what’s just outside of the frame, using negative space to make the audience feel on edge. I did a lot of concept drawings and storyboards. I used clips from movies… Citizen Kane, Barry Lyndon, Coppola’s Dracula, Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog, Stalker, that Tarkovskiy movie.
Shock: How did you help get Cusack into the headspace of Poe?
McTeigue: I was lucky enough that John came with informed opinions about Poe. John was smarter at picking apart the Poe stories and he had read a lot about the author. He looked to artist friends that he knew, Hunter S. Thompson being one, and wondered why do artists go to that dark space? I think he drew from all over. He’s bright about what he does and the choices that he makes.
Shock: Was there any particular Poe story you would have adapted if the opportunity came to you?
McTeigue: Murders in the Rue Morgue is a pretty great story. It speaks to the time that it was written and the fear. It was one of the first detective fiction stories and I loved how absurdly gory. Two women’s heads severed with a straight razor and one of them stuffed up inside a chimney. That’s why the gore exists in our movie is because of those stories. There are a few others that are obscure that I liked. He did so many, and even the poems. We obviously have The Raven in the film.
McTeigue: Oh, The Pit and the Pendulum. I thought it would be fun to have this guy strapped to the bench – Poe’s arch enemy in real life. That was a fun part of merging fact and fiction. Eviscerate this guy on the table, that was a bit of fun.
Shock: Pit and the Pendulum has been recreated so many times on screen, I’m curious, as a director, what is the point in which you tell your actor, “Okay, the saw blade has just cut you enough that you are officially dead”? Because you see some movies where the actor is screaming away and the pendulum has cut them nearly in two.
McTeigue: [laughs] Right? Ah, there are tricks to doing that. [laughs] The actor we had was pretty brave. He’s strapped to this table, arms and legs – don’t worry about the blade swinging over him, but you always have three or four people by him. If something drops off, he can’t protect himself. Maybe that’s some of the fear you saw.
McTeigue is at work on a few more projects – including a Ness/Capone film – to read about those, follow this link!
