{"id":17843,"date":"2022-02-07T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-07T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=17843"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:13:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:13:09","slug":"the-tonal-trickery-of-death-on-the-nile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/the-tonal-trickery-of-death-on-the-nile\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tonal Trickery of Death on the Nile<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For almost a century, Agatha Christie\u2019s detective fiction has inspired filmmakers from across the globe. <\/strong>The appeal of adapting one of history\u2019s all-time bestselling authors seems irresistible. The queen of ingenious mysteries, she wove suspenseful and often macabre tales, often set in appealing locations like luxury hotels, country manors, or dramatic archaeological ruins. Yet taking a whodunnit from page to screen always involves tricky questions of what to show and what to tell. Christie was also a writer of many moods, and it\u2019s not always easy to decide what should be played as merely arch or downright nasty, as true human tragedy or lurid melodrama. It seems like Kenneth Branagh\u2019s Death on the Nile<\/em>, out this week, <\/strong>is going for the\u201ca little from Column A, a little from Column B\u201d approach, with a dance number thrown in. The previous film version of Death on the Nile<\/em>, directed by John Guillermin in 1978, took a similar tack, and is both a hoot and a cautionary tale about attempting <\/strong>to capture Christie\u2019s varied tones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Death on the Nile <\/em>stands out amongst Christie\u2019s many novels thanks to its daring murder plot. But it is also an astute <\/strong>examination of the dangers of wealth and privilege, jealousy and loving too much. <\/strong>In the book, Linnet Ridgeway, <\/strong>a rich celebutante, <\/strong>marries her best friend\u2019s fianc\u00e9. The best friend\u2014the poor and passionate Jacqueline de Bellefort\u2014stalks the couple on their honeymoon, following them on a cruise up the Nile and threatening to kill Linnet. But when Linnet is<\/em> killed and Jackie has an iron-clad alibi, Christie\u2019s iconic supersleuth Hercule Poirot discovers that practically everyone on board had a motive to kill Linnet. He must sift through a baffling array of clues before too many bodies start piling up. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guillermin\u2019s <\/strong>Death on the Nile<\/em> is one of a handful of big-screen Christie adaptations from the 70s and 80s. They are cousins of the epic disaster movies of earlier years: instead of raging fires or tsunamis, the looming threats are wily <\/strong>killers. (Guillermin had previously directed one of the most famous of these, The Towering Inferno<\/em>.) The Christie films provide similar pleasures to those disaster films, offering spectacular visuals, taut suspense sequences, and star-studded casts with ample opportunities for scenery-chewing. Death on the Nile <\/em>does not skimp on any of these: the glittering Nile and ancient temples are shot in stark and stunning color by famed cinematographer Jack Cardiff; Nino Rota\u2019s lush score turns gracefully from the adventurous and romantic to the dangerous. Peter Ustinov (as Poirot), leads a stellar cast, with Mia Farrow as the vengeful Jacqueline, Angela Lansbury as an alcoholic romance novelist, and Bette Davis as an imperious, acid-tart American grande dame<\/em> (in other words, Bette Davis), and Maggie Smith as her long-suffering, butch and equally bitchy, nurse. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where Death on the Nile<\/em> really excels is in bringing out the inherent campiness of Christie\u2019s fiction. <\/strong>Christie\u2019s characters are recognizable types, boldly and colorfully drawn with exaggerated personalities. They love making broad declarative statements about themselves and others, and tend to view the parade of murders happening under their noses with ironic detachment. And there is no greater camp character than Poirot himself: egocentric, fastidious and prone to wry, know-it-all proclamations on human psychology. Ustinov, gleefully brushing away most of the character\u2019s subtleties, digs into his interpretation with gusto. He is comic in his pomposity and lusty in his appetites, but can turn on a dime into a dramatically shrewd interrogator. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The rest of the cast follows suit: <\/strong>Lansbury steals the show in her tassels and turbans, teetering around and making slurry declamations about the \u201csex instinct.\u201d <\/strong>The almost Baby <\/em>Jane-esque dynamic between Davis and Smith is another highlight. <\/strong>On top of all this, screenwriter Anthony Shaffer <\/strong>adds several <\/strong>silly grace notes. Poirot dances the tango (because, why not?), there\u2019s a reference to the case of the \u201cDresden Sachertorte Murders,\u201d and an attempt on Poirot\u2019s life via a snake in the bathroom, which leads to the memorable line: \u201cThere is a dead cobra over there, do me the kindness of having it removed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this makes Death on the Nile <\/em>a lot of fun, but it also illustrates the biggest challenge of adapting Christie: balancing the camp fun of the material with its more serious elements. Some gravity is needed to give the deaths meaning and moral weight. Death on the Nile <\/em>has one of the most tragic and moving endings of any of Christie\u2019s novels, and while the film milks it for shocking melodrama, it lacks the build-up for the wallop to fully land. Christie\u2019s estate has increasingly encouraged newer and looser screen interpretations of her work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past 15 years, the pendulum has swung the other way. Darker adaptations are picking up on the psychological and social themes that underlie her work. What was once camp is often ironically macabre. Christie\u2019s underappreciated ability to balance the fluffy and the serious (which is really required for the classic whodunnit) has been better realized by Rian Johson\u2019s Knives Out<\/em>, which strikes that stylistic balance while maintaining shades of social commentary. It\u2019s an open question whether Christie\u2019s original works are the future of the big-screen whodunnit, or whether her style and spirit really require fresh blood. \u00a0\"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Kenneth Branagh\u2019s new adaptation out this week, we look back at the star-studded 1978 take on Agatha Christie\u2019s classic \u2013 and the landmines of adapting her work overall. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":634,"featured_media":17845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-17843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/634"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22055,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17843\/revisions\/22055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}