New York Film Festival 2023

[Chris Knipp]

ERROL MORRIS: THE PIGEON TUNNEL (2023) - NYFF 'SPOTLIGHT'


DAVID CORNWELL/JOHN LE CARRÉ IN ERROL MORRIS' THE PIGEON TUNNEL

A last interview with the prince of spy novelists, John le Carré (David Cornwell)

"I look at you as an exquisite poet of self-hatred," Errol Morris says to Cornwell, known as John le Carré and the celebrated the author of over two dozen matchless works of spy fiction including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Constant Gardener, with many film adaptations and TV series including the timeless Alec Guinness performance as le Carré's central figure, George Smiley.

Le Carré/Cornwell does not take this Morris sally amiss. He smiles his quick twinkle and says, "I would go with that." It's a disarming exchange indeed toward the end of a long string of them in what is one of Morris' most amiable, rich, and free-flowing of his famous studies of men. Though the time has been short, in ninety minutes the writer has made a searching exposition of his life and career, notably of the most seminal aspect: growing up as the son of the endlessly duplicitous, double-dealing Ronnie Cornwell, who's been described as "an epic con man of little education, immense charm, extravagant tastes, but no social values."

Le Carré describes here how even after he had become a rich and famous author, at the Sacher Hotel restaurant in Vienna Ronnie still essentially attempted to con him out of an outrageous sum of money, ostensibly to set up a pigs and cattle farm in Dorset - and how, when le Carré flatly refused, offering only a property and a stipend, Ronnie threw a terrible scene, letting out repeated loud howls of anger and protest that could be heard halfway down the street.

It's an extraordinary story, and certainly not the only one. The son had to grow up living in constant uncertainty, sharing in the deceptions, going on the run with his father who was always escaping from discovered deceptions and mountainous debts. Ronnie, le Carré says, came within a hair of great success, but always managed to slip into financial trouble again, seeming to thrive on risk and danger - just as, he also says, spies do.

Those of us who have read le Carré's own book about his life and his father know this story. But it's better to hear it in the master's own voice. Those who have listened to the author's masterful audio performances of his own books, especially the last ones - he seemed to get better and better, well into his eighties - know how good that voice is, the range of accents and voices - perhaps a hint at what a master of deception father Ronnie may have been, transferred to the master of invention and storytelling the son became.

There are reviewers who describe this interview as "contentious." There is no truth in this. In fact compared to other Errol Morris portraits this is a harmonious one. There is a sweet complicity, an understanding. Le Carré puts himself willingly in Morris' hands from the outset, declaring himself willing to tell all and be as honest as he can, and there is no reason to think this insincere. Le Carré has grown milder by this time, near the end of his life, than he was earlier in the two decades after 9/11, when he could be harshly critical in public both of England, which he'd come to see as a pathetic little empire hiding from its own decline, and America, the belligerent and dominant world empire. Here, instead, he chooses to talk about himself, about his father, about the schools that gave him upperclass manners and accent but never the will to think himself upperclass. He speaks also of the inspiration for his work that he found in the traitor, Kim Philby, and his path from working for espionage organizations to being suddenly a writer about espionage whose first book sold 12 or 13 million copies worldwide.

This film may not really tell us anything significant that is new. But it serves as a rich live-voice valedictory self-portrait. It serves a kind of ceremonial, farewell purpose. What it does also do is to tell us a little more each time, or more vividly, about what we already knew, with the filmmaker illustrating everything elegantly, with seamlessly introduced short reenactments of moments from the life, illustrated by an astonishing number of actual photos and film clips, thought none of these are ever intrusive and each of them always comes at the right moment. Morris sometimes speaks to le Carré, but never seems to be doing so too often. The whole thing is splendidly done, a treat for fans.

There is also a little more: because subtly Morris teases out, or partly just witnesses, le Carré's awareness that in his fertile inventions he was somehow always to some extent exploring his own pain, and each time he invented a new story or a new character he was discovering something new in himself. It's obvious, perhaps, but worth the sense it gives of pulling tings together as a wonderful life and impressive body of work are quietly summed up. And yet with an edge, as of one never at home anywhere, never knowing himself, finding the "inmost room is bare," as with the hidden safe of the head of MI5, where nothing but a pair of trousers is found. This rich exploration still leaves us haunted, hungry, ready to go for the real treasures, which are the books. David Cornwell died in December 2020 at eighty-nine, but his books will be alive for as long as English books are read. Wikipedia sums him up as "a sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer" - you better believe it! "he is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era." And now he is.

The Pigeon Tunnel, 93 mins., debuted at Telluride Sept. 1, 2023, also show at Toronto, Camden, Aspen, New York Sept. 30, Palm Springs, BFI London, and Chicago. Released on the internet in many countries Oct. 20, 2023. Metacritic rating: 81%.