* * The Raven. Written by Ben Livingston &
Hannah Shakespeare. Directed by James McTeigue.
 |
| John Cusack and friend in The Raven. |
By any sane standard,
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) led a remarkable life. Recognized in his time mostly
as a literary critic, lauded as a poet, he was also a key figure in the
development of whole genres of prose fiction, including horror, sci-fi, and
detective stories. He was one of the first American authors to attempt to earn
his living entirely from his pen. Alas, he published in the dark days before
international copyright, and Poe was literally “pirated” to death. As unauthorized British editions of his works
flooded the market, earning royalties for other people, Poe wandered New York,
Philadelphia and Baltimore, begging for low-paid jobs at literary journals. His
classic poem, “The Raven”, earned him just $9. He died at the age of forty
after turning up on the streets, weak and weary, wearing somebody else’s
clothes.
Fascination with all things Poe is obviously at the heart
of James McTeigue’s The Raven.
Unfortunately, just as Poe chose a bad time to become a full-time writer, the
filmmakers have chosen a bad time to produce anything like an historical
bio-pic. By any sane standard the literal facts of his life are remarkable, but
those aren’t the prevailing standards. It’s all well and good, for instance,
that the real Abe Lincoln won the Civil War and freed millions of slaves, that
he had a singular mind and met a tragic end. But what if he was also a vampire
killer, as in the upcoming preposto-thriller Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter? Now that’s a movie! And sure, Poe revolutionized an art form, mourned a
dead love, and lost his family as he led a hand-to-mouth existence in a cold, indifferent
world. Those stakes sound pretty low. But imagine he was on the trail of a
vicious serial killer, as in McTeigue’s (V
for Vendetta) fantasy, and the Hollywood suits might pause over their Cobb
salads at lunch.
The Raven isn’t
especially terrible. The script by Ben Livingstone and Hannah (“this ain’t”) Shakespeare,
concerning a killer in old Baltimore who draws Poe (John Cusack) into the
investigation by patterning his crimes after Poe’s stories, is marginally more
plausible than vampire hunting. It’s supposed to feel like a period version of Seven, with the killer taunting his
pursuers by leaving mordant clues to his next horror. There’s a liberal
sprinkling of gratuitous gore for the post-Saw
generation. For every bad line (“She’s so worldly, so full of life!”), there’s
a pretty good one (as when Poe declares, “If I knew my work would have such an
effect on people, I’d have devoted more time to eroticism!”) Cusack, a
professional, soldiers through the proceedings with fair commitment, showing
off his graduate-student level of knowledge of Poe as the character attempts to
poetize his way to free drinks at his local tavern.
The Raven isn’t
terrible as much unimaginative and, in the end, uninvolving. Post-Seven, the premise just looks and feels
tired; indeed, Seven itself, with the
killer patterning his crimes after the Seven Deadly Sins, actually had a more
Poe-ish ring than this. Even when he was writing about homicidal pendulums and
tell-tale hearts, Poe always brought forth a certain style, a poetry in macabre
things. Where “The Raven” is poetry, The
Raven is prosaic. Nobody should die on a park bench for the sake of this.
© 2012 Nicholas Nicastro
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