I cheated. I did not want to watch this entire program right now . . . because it is thirteen episodes of low quality BBC programing . . . so I only watched the Poe episode. I’ll try to go back and watch the whole show someday, maybe. If I have thirteen hours to spare.
Here we go. Episode eleven of the 1970s British mini-series opens with jaunty nineteenth century music and the word “Nightmare” in a lovely cursive. Yes, I’m really feeling the nightmare now. Good job, production team. Dickens is telling the story of his first trip to the United States (he famously hated the U.S. and the episode really leans into the idea that his wife being ill on the trip effected his mood). A hysterical Catherine Dickens declares she’s sick of her husband’s crusade to create international copyright laws and (this one is gross) that he should stop pointing out that American slavery steals more money from the English than from “the Black man”. Really, Charlie? Really. I knew Poe was a racist raced around Antebellum Southern values (I never said I thought he was good many, just a good writer), but you Dickens! You’re my progressive writer hero. At least I still have Louisa May Alcott. No one tell me anything bad about her!
Anyway, he uses mesmerism on Catherine in order to put her to sleep and to the lobby of their hotel where a short story writer and critic awaits an audience. Why look at that! It’s Edgar Allan Poe! Being played by a man who looks too old to play him (I’m starting to notice that’s really a common problem movies). Poe declares how grand Dickens work on copyright has been and then fanboys a great deal over Barnaby Rudge (for those of you who don’t know, Barnaby Rudge is the book with a pet raven named Grip as one of the key characters, based on Dickens’s own pet). Poe for his part tries to abstain from drink, but Dickens insists. I like this idea of Poe trying to keep his cool in front of his hero, but he caves super quick to a single glass of wine.
Next scene has the pair of famous writers stumbling in the streets playing some kind of game that sort of reminded me of when my childhood friends and I would play Charlie’s Angels (this game consisted of running from building corner to building corner with our hands up in a gun position). Still, the party is over when Dickens witnesses a moment of Poe melancholy when the slightly older man craves approval of his poetry.
Poe invites Dickens to witness a mesmerism experiment which is just the short story “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” played out. A previously uncomfortable and giddy Poe turns into a devious monster more fascinated with the torture of Valdemar’s soul than how you would imagine the author to be in reality. There’s maniacal laughter and everything. I’m . . . I’m really not sure what I was supposed to take away from this? Suggestions?
