Christian Bale reunites with his Out of the Furnace director, Scott Cooper, for a new Netflix film that uncovers the origins of Edgar Allen Poe. Cooper is a director that likes to emphasize atmosphere in his movies, helming films such as Crazy Heart and Black Mass; none of his movies are picturesque nor glamorous. “We are all influenced by our surroundings, our atmosphere, the environments in which we live,” the director says as he takes a similar approach with his new gothic film, The Pale Blue Eye.
The official Netflix synopsis for the film reads,
“West Point, 1830. In the early hours of a gray winter morning, a cadet is found dead. But after the body arrives at the morgue, tragedy becomes savagery when it’s discovered that the young man’s heart has been skillfully removed. Fearing irreparable damage to the fledgling military academy, its leaders turn to a local detective, Augustus Landor (Christian Bale), to solve the murder. Stymied by the cadets’ code of silence, Landor enlists the help of one of their own to pursue the case, an eccentric cadet with a disdain for the rigors of the military and a penchant for poetry—a young man named Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling).”
The Pale Blue Eye sports a cast that includes Bale, Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Hadley Robinson, Timothy Spall, Joey Brooks, Brennan Cook, Gideon Glick, Fred Hechinger, Matt Helm, Jack Irving, Steven Maier, Charlie Tahan, and Robert Duvall.
Bale backs up the director’s approach to using the environment to enhance the film by explaining, “It was ball-freezingly cold. There were times when we couldn’t even really talk properly ’cause our jaws were freezing up, but that’s appropriate. It looks good, it feels right. These are situations these tough characters have been accustomed to.”
The Pale Blue Eye is due to hit select theaters on December 23, then will be available on Netflix on January 6, 2023.