Edgar Allan Poe: Terror Of the Soul

Aristotle said that good drama provides catharsis by eliciting the emotions of terror and pity from an audience. Edgar Allan Poe was a little stingy in this regard: he offered only terror. But what an exquisite terror! After wading through the sing-song poetry of Longfellow in 8th-grade English, what an abrupt shock it was to read something like "The Tell-Tale Heart," a juicy story of a guy driven to kill and then dismember another human being merely because the poor bugger had a film over one eye. Anyone who honestly believes the macabre, the grotesque, the violently insane, and the simply malevolent are features of late 20th-century society needs to recall the demented writings of Mr. Poe. Viewers are treated to two narrative modes here: 1) the richness of his stories and his tragic life rendered through dramatizations featuring Treat Williams and John Heard, and 2) informative interviews with Poe scholars and literary critics, including Alfred Kazin. Known primarily as a critic in his day (and a vicious one at that), Poe led an unhappy childhood, invented the detective tale, turned the short story into an art form, married his 13-year-old cousin (perhaps he inspired Jerry Lee Lewis) and drank himself into an early grave (he died at 40). The story of a writer who vacillated between periods of near maniacal industriousness and stretches of prodigious sloth, this is a fascinating film that offers a good introduction to the biographical and literary aspects of Poe's life and work. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)