The Pale Blue Eye, which debuts Dec. 23rd in theaters and on Jan. 6th on Netflix, is Bale’s third collaboration with filmmaker Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace), who has been developing this movie for nearly a decade.
“I thought, “Okay, I have an opportunity to do three things with this film: Fashion a whodunnit, a father and son love story, and then a Poe origin story,” the screenwriter-director says. “Poe at this young age was quite warm and witty and humorous and very Southernly. The experiences that I’m putting forth in this film led him down the darker paths that we have come to know him for.”
Bale’s 19th-century detective, Augustus Landor, has devoted his life to using modern forensics to expose wrongdoers and bring them to justice. He’s since ended his career and retired to the woods of upstate New York, but when men from the nearby military academy of West Point are found hanged—with their hearts cut from their bodies—he is recruited to solve the case.
“He’s someone who is obviously accustomed to observing other people rather than being observed, due to the nature of his profession,” Bale says. “He’s successful at what he’s done, but has now completed that chapter of his life. He certainly has adopted a certain way of living, which isn’t really working for him anymore.”
Then the murder case brings him into contact with Poe, who is also a cadet at the academy. “He dismisses him initially, but comes to find him to be the centerpiece of his life, which he would be quite embarrassed to admit, with his age and standing and everything,” Bale says. “He does find himself maybe learning new things, and is certainly reminded of things that he’d forgotten about life.”
Anthony Breznican
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