Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? A literary enquiry a documentary by Jean-Christophe Klotz
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- Pierre Bayard Interview (contd)
- Maxime Jabukowski, Christie Biographer
- Still Photographs and Sound Archive
- Philosopher, Blandine Kriegel Interview
- 7. – The Mongoose Instinct
- 8 – The Epimenides Paradox
- THE END Directors Notes
(three dots) The hand continues writing. The camera nears the text, till it seems we are entering into the story itself. Dissolve to: The character of Dr Sheppard on stage, alone, seated at a small writing-table, drafting his manuscript. Nearby, in half-shadow, the Narrator provides commentary as though in an aside. Narrator The evidence is to be found on page three hundred and fourteen of the novel. Bold as brass, Agatha Christie allows herself the luxury of letting Dr Sheppard himself, the narrator and also murderer, give the game away. This is what he writes. (The Narrator hands over to Dr Sheppard, onstage). Dr Sheppard (rereading text) I am rather pleased with myself as a writer. What could be neater, for instance, than the following: "The letters were brought in at twenty minutes to nine. It was just on ten minutes to nine when I left him, the letter still unread. I hesitates with my hand on the door handle, looking back and wondering if there was anything I had left undone. All true, you see. But suppose I had put a row of stars after the first sentence. Would somebody then have wondered what exactly happened in that blank ten minutes? The lights go out on stage. The Narrator joins Pierre Bayard in his study. Pierre Bayard Interview (contd) Pierre Bayard recalls how the gaps that occur throughout the novel effectively allow Dr Sheppard to continue as narrator without arousing the reader's suspicions. But the novel also uses another source of disguise. Linguists call this double meaning. This is a somewhat devilish procedure which allows Agatha Christie and thus her narrator, Dr Sheppard, to say things that can be understood in two radically opposite manners. Hence the term double meaning. As Pierre Bayard sets out to provide a concrete example, the interview is intercut with shots from a new rehearsal session that accompany the explanation. Seen from above, each actor occupies a mark indicated in chalk dots on the floor, in such a manner as to remind viewers what role he or she is playing and thus understand the purpose of the scene (Thus, Ackroyd's Mistress, Principal Suspect, Narrator, Blackmailer and so on). Pierre Bayard (contd) One of the best examples of this technique occurs at the start, when Dr Sheppard spots Roger Ackroyd's mistress, Mrs Ferrars, with Ralph Patton, who is the main suspect from start to finish. Sheppard now confides in the reader that he hates to see them talking. The reader is led to believe that he is frightened to find Mrs Ferrars talking to a prospective killer. Now that we know that the murderer is in fact Dr Sheppard, we realize that his real fear is that Mrs Ferrars, whom he is blackmailing, might denounce him to Ralph Patton… Thus, says Pierre Bayard, double meaning enables Dr Sheppard to function as a narrator confiding in the reader, without ever revealing his true feelings. Bayard explains the significance of this mechanism, its ingenuity but above all its deeper sense. He explains how a rereading of Agatha Christie's novel in the light of the knowledge of Dr Sheppard's guilt utterly transforms the meaning of the novel. Changing the initial paradigm (Dr Sheppard as neutral observer / Dr Sheppard as murderer) shows how each of his statements has two distinct interpretations. Dr Sheppard's account is not mendacious, but it is not truthful either, in so far as we are reading two distinct versions simultaneously…! The Narrator waits outside the Librarian's Office in a specialized library… and peruses the shelving in search of specific documents. It becomes apparent that he is now interested in the character of Hercule Poirot. Narrator (OS) "Two distinct versions simultaneously…!" But what does this mean? Which version is right…? Is there a right version? And a wrong version? I have come to wish that ace detective and iconic Agatha Christie character Hercule Poirot's deductive powers were not quite so infallible. He makes everything seem so cut and dried. First, everyone is suspect. Then they are proven innocent. Or guilty. It's all too binary. People are either guilty or they aren't. Which, come to think of it, makes Hercule Poirot quite unlike his creator, Agatha Christie, whom, as I am finding out during the course of this enquiry, has turned out to be a subtle soul, with a taste for equivocation and manipulation of every kind… A closer look at the way she treats her main character, Hercule Poirot, provokes the inevitable thought that there is a dose of sadism in the approach… Of course, Hercule Poirot always wins out in the end, but time and again Mrs Christie makes him look ridiculous and if she doesn't do so herself, she lets one of the characters describe him with savagely mordant irony. Sometimes, it is his name that is pronounced wrongly. Sometimes his unprepossessing appearance is underlined… In every instance, Mrs Christie ill-treats her creature… Why, though? Out of revenge? For what? On whose behalf? Maxime Jabukowski, Christie Biographer The following interview is designed to teach us a little bit more about the way Agatha Christie's mind worked. As with most of us, the vicissitudes of life cost Mrs Christie the exemplary innocence of her youth. Especially the vicissitudes of her married life. She seems to have developed a general hostility towards the masculine sex. Something perhaps arising out of her early childhood, her father, from whose loss at the age of eleven, she undoubtedly never fully recovered. And then of course the particularly unpleasant manner in which her husband deserted her, the worst failure, one assumes, in her existence. Poirot, of course, is hers to do as she pleases with. She makes him a rotund little Belgian, prone to arrogance and implausible moustaches, obsessed with good breeding. Her own obsessions perhaps…. Often, she mocks him. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, she goes so far as to get his name wrong, before describing him as "the type of grotesquely, comical Frenchman one finds in cabaret revues." (Poirot is in point of fact Belgian…) A manner, then, of settling scores with the unfairness of life…? The one thing that we can be certain of, is that Poirot is her creature. For once, she has something to call her own, and nobody else's but hers… She takes evident pleasure in the fact. And we do too…! We feel as if we were able to better all the liars and hypocrites that have been trying to manipulate us throughout our reading. Only what we don't see is that it is she who is manipulating us… Especially here, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Fade to black. Empty theatre space. Dr Sheppard sits alone at his desk, writing his account of the affair. The Narrator is nowhere to be seen. The mysterious character of Dr Sheppard is observed unawares as he scribbles away. A woman (Caroline) appears, bringing him tea. She sits a short distance away and starts to knit, glancing up at him from time to time. Narrator (OS) Though all detective novels tell the same story, a duel between a detective and a murderer, it is the variations on this theme that are worthy of study. A conventional form within which an author may attempt to express some form of creativity. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is no exception. It is a tale of competition between Hercule Poirot and Dr Sheppard, our narrator and murderer. But who is this Dr Sheppard, in truth? A bachelor who lives with his sister, Caroline, dividing his time between visiting patients and writing his tale. Only one hobby is allowed him: precision mechanics. Whenever he has a moment to spare, he locks himself in a workshop to work on his collection of alarm-clocks… A doctor and family friend of the Ackroyds, he calls on them regularly at Fernly Park, their comfortable establishment. A tranquil life, perfectly regulated, until, that is, a celebrated detective named Hercule Poirot enters the scene. From the very first pages, one is given to understand that Dr Sheppard keeps a diary, in which every detail of the affair is covered. This diary provides the main skeleton of the book, until the final denouement. We must now take a closer interest in the book which Dr Sheppard is writing. Once more, a slow tracking shot takes into the words, giving us a sense that we are entering into fiction…. The character of Hercule Poirot sits in an armchair, finishing reading the last page of Dr Sheppard's diary, as the latter waits impatiently for a reaction. To one side, in shadow, stands the Narrator, describing the circumstances of the scene. Narrator By a somewhat astonishing device, that sets a story within the story, Dr Sheppard decides to give his manuscript to Hercule Poirot to read. This offers the doctor's description of events… and constitutes, in reality, the very book which the reader himself is reading… On stage, the character of Poirot has finished. He puts the manuscript aside, taps it. The camera is close on the two actors so the scene is witnessed as though from within (with occasional cutaways to the Narrator). Hercule Poirot Well, my congratulations on your… your modesty. Dr Sheppard Oh…
Hercule Poirot And fore-bearing. Dr Sheppard Oh.
Hastings, my faithful associate, would never write as you do. Every page, almost every line, contains the word "I". What he thought, what he said, whereas you… your personality is content to remain in the background. It intervenes only here and there, in a few, shall we say, domestic contexts. Dr Sheppard But what do you make of it? Is it any good? Hercule Poirot If may speak frankly… (grows serious) You have given us a most detailed and truthful account of what occurred. You give the facts, with considerable precision. Notwithstanding a tendency to over-discretion regarding your own part in events. Dr Sheppard So is it of any use to you? (Caroline, Dr Sheppard's sister, re-enters) Hercule Poirot It is. Highly useful, if I may say so. And now, let us proceed to my house. I must prepare for my little… performance. (to Caroline) I should have been delighted to ask you to join us, Mademoiselle, but under the circumstances, I do not feel it advisable. All those present, do you see, are suspect. I shall discover Mr Ackroyd's murderer amongst them. Dr Sheppard (sceptical) Can you be quite certain of that? Hercule Poirot (drily) I can see that you are not. You have yet to discover what Hercule Poirot is capable of achieving. The scene fades to black. Fade up. Our Narrator is discovered on the streets, making his way to the next interview. The story picks up again off screen. Narrator (OS) It would seem that, from this moment on, Hercule Poirot is convinced that Dr Sheppard is the culprit. He has noticed the omissions and double-meanings that we the readers have failed to see… And this is Agatha Christie's great achievement: she makes us experience the tale from the assassin's point of view. A peculiar idea, a perfect device and really, almost, well, perverse. The Narrator is now engaged in a conversation with a well-known semiologist, writer and occasional philosopher, Umberto Eco. Umberto Eco Interview Umberto Eco analyses the way Agatha Christie uses the first person singular. He evokes Roland Barthes' brilliant synthesis of her approach, according to which throughout the novel the reader is looking for a third-person murderer, when the murderer is actually concealed within a first-person narrator. Indeed. How can the reader possibly suspect the Narrator, who is his closest friend in the story, the person he trusts by definition and by convention? How can he think he is the murderer? Eco points to Agatha Christie's wilful perversity, her contempt for certain accepted modes of behaviour, her caustic view of the English upper-middle-classes in the first half of the twentieth century… She is the author of more than sixty murders, the Duchess of Crime indeed, a serial killer herself! Umberto Eco further notes the touch of sadism in her work… The disturbing way in which she treats her creature, Hercule Poirot, her snide remarks on men in general and on the coquettishness of certain young women as well, who, despite looking like frightened virgins actually harbour the most sinful thoughts… Which is of course a writer's privilege, to attribute to others one's own hidden feelings… Very entertaining it is too! And naturally it stimulates the readers own guilty thoughts… That is what Agatha Christie is about and particularly with Roger Ackroyd because in this instance the whole tale has been experienced through an assassin's eyes and from his point of view. A very pleasurable sensation, is it not? Still Photographs and Sound Archive Extracts from a long, BBC radio interview with Agatha Christie, show her to have been a modest woman with a penetrating and nicely dry, British sense of humour, who knew how to sound enigmatic and how to play cat-and-mouse with the interviewer… Philosopher, Blandine Kriegel Interview Blandine Kriegel completes this depiction by offering an analysis of Agatha Christie's morbid fascination for crime. According to this view, a part of her died in Harrogate, during the episode of her disappearance, with its associated memory-loss. She emerged a different person, highly aware of the potential murderer in each and everyone of us. We are all capable of symbolically killing what we hold dear, as Archibald Christie killed his wife's love and her innocence… We are all murderers. This is the profound sense in which her use of the first person singular in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is to be understood. It explains the singular nature of the reading experienced offered, which makes the reader want to defend Dr Sheppard against the arrogance of Hercule Poirot, who claims to "know everything". The Narrator reappears in an empty theatre space, at his work-table. He concentrates on his reading of the novel, takes notes… Previously seen photographs of Agatha Christie lie on the table. Narrator (OS) At heart, I have always found the ease with which Hercule Poirot confounds Dr Sheppard to be suspect. Because, like most readers, I have grown accustomed to the character of the good doctor… So when Poirot declares him to be the criminal, one is stunned, yes… But what if…? What if Poirot were wrong…? And Dr Sheppard was not in fact the assassin? Pierre Bayard Interview The Narrator is once more deep in conversation with Pierre Bayard, a professor of literature and psychoanalyst already encountered. The theme of their discussion is Do you believe Dr Sheppard is guilty? Do you not hold Poirot's demonstration to be overhasty? Pierre Bayard admits that he too has always had a niggling doubt. In the first place, the evidence that Poirot claims to have found does not really hold water… Roughly speaking, this adds up to an anonymous phone call and some business with a Dictaphone, which Sheppard is supposed to have hidden in Ackroyd's study so witnesses can hear the sound of his voice for one hour after the time the crime is committed. Come to think of it, no one ever finds the Dictaphone. But then there is the timing of the murder itself… Poirot identifies a second ellipsis of ten minutes. Sheppard is supposed to have managed, within these ten minutes, to get rid of the entire body of evidence and manufactured new clues to point to Patton as the culprit (in particular stealing the man's shoes to cast his footprints in the garden) … Bayard concludes that there are a number of implausibilities in the book that seem all the more surprising because Agatha Christie otherwise shows a taste for precision and a devilish sense of detail. Across a blank sheet of paper, a hand inscribes the next chapter-heading. 6. – Time Again, we track in on the words, plunging into the story. Dissolve to: Night-time in the English shires, outside the lodge-gates of a country-house… The Narrator stands clutching a discreet pocket-torch. He is wearing a mackintosh. Clearly, he does not wish to be seen… In one hand he holds a relatively voluminous and heavy bag. This is the start of a step-by-step reconstitution of Dr Sheppard's itinerary, as described by Hercule Poirot during the ten minutes following the murder. The Narrator comments on every stage. Narrator OS Let us run through Hercule Poirot's reasoning… The time is ten to nine. Dr Sheppard has just left Dr Ackroy's study, having stabbed him. In his bag (which no one has noticed throughout the entire period of his visit), he carries a 1927 Dictaphone. At that date, only cumbersome prototypes were available, roughly the size of this typewriter… There is also a pair of black shoes with commando soles. (The Narrator produces the relevant pair of shoes… Slight flashback, with a shutter-effect similar to those scenes in old-fashioned TV series…) As discreetly as possible, the Narrator penetrates into a hotel room, in which stands a man in shadow. Strangely, he does not notice that someone has entered. Taking care not to be seen, the Narrator opens a cupboard. The situation is deliberately stagey or comical. He takes a pair of shoes, places it in his bag and leaves, closing the door gently… Narrator (OS) The shoes are Ralph Patton's, then principal suspect. Dr Sheppard has managed to remove them from his bedroom, right under his eyes… Assuming, of course, that Ralph Patton has been good enough to pack several pairs of identical shoes! Back to the present. The narrator starts a stop-watch, the hands of which are shown ticking round on one half of a split-screen. The Narrator dons the shoes, stamps a few footprints into the ground and on one of the window-ledges in the house. Then he steps in through the window. He is followed into the study as the stop-watch continues to tick. He steps over the shadowy form of a corpse on the ground, shuts the door from the inside, leaves by the window, changes into his own shoes, then runs back to the hotel to put the stolen shoes back in place and come back to the main lodge-gates. Narrator (OS, over the above) Remember, all this business has to fit into a ten-minute timeframe, since it is established that Dr Sheppard was by the park-gates at exactly nine o'clock. Poirot claims that Sheppard had time to put on the shoes stolen from Ralph Patton to leave his footprints around Roger Ackroyd's desk. That he subsequently returns to lock the study from the inside, leave a few other footprints, leaves, changes into his own shoes and replaces Patton's ones in their rightful place. I ought to add that, given that the weather was perfectly fine, he must have moistened the ground in advance to get those famous footprints…The clock is now running at… (checks stop-watch, breathless) fifteen minutes and forty-five seconds… Sheppard has yet to rush to the lodge-gates, which he should in theory have reached some three minutes and forty-five seconds ago… (reaches lodge-gates, drenched in sweat, stops watch) Twenty-two minutes, thirty-five seconds. In other words, it doesn't hold water.
Across another page, a list of names and beside each name, a location.
Narrator (OS, over following images) Let us go back to the moment when the crime is actually committed… 8.45 pm, most probably. A quick chart shows where each of the characters is at that time. This should help clear things up. On all-fours on the stage, the Narrator outlines new areas in chalk dots: Billiard-Room, Servants' Hall, Terrace, Upstairs, Bedroom, Kitchen… Actors await their instructions. Once he is ready, the Narrator positions each in his or her respective area, according to the scheme shown at the start of the sequence. He gazes at each of the characters in his or her allotted zone and reflects. Narrator (OS, contd) Supposing Hercule Poirot is indeed mistaken… Well, we would need to prove that. The Narrator dives into the novel, turns the pages, searching for a particular reference… On the hand-drawn scheme, he lists a new name: Ursula Bourne…? He continues searching through the book, not finding what he wants… He adds a second question-mark, larger than the first… Narrator (OS) A thorough search reveals that of all the characters, the only one whose alibi is not given in the text is Ursula Bourne, the chambermaid's. She claims to have been in her bedroom when the crime was committed, before joining the other servants in the Servants' Hall. And indeed, they all confirm that she was in the Servants' Hall, but none can certify where she was previous to her appearance there. The Narrator observes the actor playing Ursula Bourne pensively… The actor expresses nothing in particular. The mere fact of observation renders her suspect. Narrator (OS) But what is her motive? The Narrator seems unable to answer that question. He glances at the actor playing Hercule Poirot, now showing signs of impatience to one side of the stage. The Narrator goes back to the book, turns the pages, seeking a solution. Once again, the camera tracks in on the words. Narrator (OS) Right, let's see what Hercule Poirot has to say on the subject… At this moment in the novel, he is getting ready to stage what he describes as his "little performance". Dissolve to: Stage-set, where the character of Hercule Poirot is carefully lining up a row of chairs opposite his desk. Each of the actors holds the script, in preparation for a new work-session. The camera searches the faces, as though seeking to identify the true murderer. The Narrator moves among the actors, outlining the circumstances in which this reading is to take place. Narrator This is Hercule Poirot's grand ritual, in which all the suspects are brought together to witness a brilliant process of deduction that will enable him to designate a culprit. A reading begins. Hercule Poirot So here we all. (consults list) Mrs Ackroyd, Miss Flora Ackroyd, Major Blunt, Mr Geoffrey Raymond, Mrs Ralph Patton, John Parker, Elizabeth Russell, Ursula Bourne… Geoffrey Raymond (concerned) What's the meaning of all this? Hercule Poirot The list I have just read is a list of suspected persons. Every one of you present had the opportunity to kill Mr Ackroyd. With a cry, Mrs Ackroyd springs up. Mrs Ackroyd I don't like it. I don't like it. I would much prefer to go home. Hercule Poirot You cannot go home, madame, until you have heard what I have to say. (clears throat) I will start at the beginning. When Miss Ackroyd asked me to investigate the case, I went up to Fernly Park with the good Doctor Sheppard… (The rest of the speech shifts into the background. The Narrator watches the scene. Apparently, something dawns on him.) Hercule Poirot (in background) I walked with him along the terrace, where I was shown the footprints on the windowsill… Suddenly: Narrator (to actors) But… Wait! The actors pause in their reading, taken aback. Narrator Someone is missing. Glances exchanged. What is this about? Narrator (reads) The motto of the mongoose family, so Mr Kipling tells us, is: 'Go and find out'. If Caroline ever adopts a crest, I should suggest a mongoose rampant… (thinks aloud) Kipling, a mongoose… (suddenly, a solution occurs) Kipling's Mongoose…! The Narrator rushes to the work-table, seeks out a particular book, finds it… Kipling's The Jungle Book. Narrator (OS) (over Jungle Book illustrations) Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is what the Mongoose is called in the Kipling's Jungle Book. A mongoose will do anything to defend its family against terrifying Cobras. It will go anything to any lengths to protect its own, including killing. Within a few pages, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi kills three King Cobras and twenty-five smaller snakes… Pierre Bayard Interview Pierre Bayard and the Narrator discuss the new element. Agatha Christie chooses to open The Murder of Roger Ackroyd with Caroline Sheppard, the good doctor's sister. And she slips Rudyard Kipling's name in, with a reference to the Mongoose. Surely not by chance. Kipling's Mongoose is the guardian of the family. It kills anything that represents a threat. Is this to say that Caroline is Roger Ackroyd's murderer? And that she killed him in order to save her brother, who can easily be a blackmailer and not a murderer? It is, to say the least, unsettling to realize that Caroline is the only person never to have been questioned by Poirot. Nor is she summoned to the ritual confrontation between suspects… Furthermore, she is shown throughout the book as knowing everything there is to know, the doings and secret thoughts and personal habits of all the other characters. She could easily have found out everything she needed to know to organize a murder. Still Photographs Portraits of Agatha Christie. The camera tracks very slowly forwards, as those penetrating a mystery. The Narrator lists the characters on stage. Narrator Sheppard, Parker, Flora, Mrs Ackroyd, Geoffrey Raymond, Major Blunt, Ursula Bourne… What about Caroline? Dr Sheppard's sister. Is she not here? Apparently not. The Narrator leafs through the pages, finds the scene, checks… All await the result. Hubbub on stage. No one knows what to do. Hercule Poirot's character seems annoyed to have his demonstration interrupted. The Narrator pursues his line of reasoning. Narrator (OS) It does indeed seem incredible, but one of the suspects does not attend Hercule Poirot's grand confrontation. And that person is Dr Sheppard's sister, Caroline. The actor playing Caroline is sitting in the theatre, watching the rehearsal. She seems surprised to find herself the focus of attention. Narrator (OS) Why is Caroline given this special favour? Was she plain forgotten by Poirot? By Agatha Christie, in fact? That seems unlikely. A deliberate mistake, then? And if so, why? The Narrator asks the actor playing Caroline to join the others on stage. This puts everyone out, because there is nothing in the text to justify her presence. Poirot in particular seems increasingly irritated, as if his great moment was being ruined. For a moment, nobody is quite sure what to do. The Narrator hurries to find some sort of explanation in the book. He seems to discover something near the beginning. Narrator (OS) But then why does Agatha Christie allow us to believe that the culprit is Dr Sheppard…? She is fairly extreme in this respect, because in the end Hercule Poirot, in a thoroughly unscrupulous manner, encourages the unfortunate Sheppard to commit suicide rather risk being arrested by the police. (More Stills of Agatha Christie through the years) Narrator (OS) The ending is even more unsettling when one considers that, at one point, Dr Sheppard gives this explanation for writing the whole business down: I meant it to be published some day as the history of one of Poirot's failures! he says… Well, what failure? Judicial error? An incapacity on Poirot's part to solve the riddle of who really murdered Roger Ackroyd? The Narrator seems lost in thought. He keeps glancing through the book, Various scenes pass through his mind, as well as actors' faces, lines of text and so on… Narrator (OS) (contd) The odd thing is that the more one reads this book, the more questions arise. Most remain unanswered… Yet, at the same time, it seems to acquire new stature, as if the range of meanings only slowly rose to the surface. As if, in fact, it had the ability to evolve and come to life through rereading… Umberto Eco Interview The famous semiologist gives his analysis of what sets detective novels apart from every other genre. Crime fiction is a type of writing, he says, that one might describe as "closed"… It posits the existence of an established Truth that pre-exists the reader's starting to read. Everything is then arranged so that this pre-existing truth unfolds gradually before the reader's eyes, up till the very last page. Throughout, the author will arrange a pattern of clues, each of which is designed to bring the reader to discover the one incontrovertible Truth, when the identity of the murderer is revealed. In classic detective writing, the reader is banned from offering other interpretations. If one thinks about it, in fact, the fundamentals of detective writing are similar to those of political propaganda. The author's Truth, like that of a totalitarian regime, is carefully elaborated throughout a story, the product of subtly distorted reasoning, propped up by a careful selection of clues, designed to corroborate the one Truth. This is particularly so with a character like Hercule Poirot who claims to "see everything, know everything"… whereas the truth is that he is ceaselessly shaping reality to suit his point of view. Detective writing is about controlling the reader and preventing subversive thoughts from arising. It is a dictatorial literature. In other literary forms and in other artistic disciplines as a whole, the opposite occurs. Readers are invited to make up their own minds. They are given an active role. Artistic experience is the fruit of an encounter between reader and work… Which is utterly different to what happens here. A hand inscribes the last chapter-heading on a blank page. 8 – The Epimenides Paradox The Narrator carefully parts the dust-jacket of an old copy of Agatha Christie's last novel, "Curtain – Poirot's Last Case". Carefully, respectfully, he inspects the pages. Narrator (OS) Before leaving, Umberto Eco lent me a copy of Agatha Christie's last novel… The English title is "Curtain". It is Hercule Poirot's last case. It was written in 1946 but Agatha Christie asked that it should not be published until her death. It is a form of literary testament. The end is astonishing and it throws a strange light on the rest of her work. At the end of his enquiry, Poirot decides to kill the culprit, because he can think of no other way of putting him out of harm's way. Then he concludes that, really, he cannot say where Truth lies. This impulse to murder is present in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, in as much as Poirot pushes Dr Sheppard to commit suicide at the end… This is a long way from the polarized nature of most, early detective fiction, in which Good always triumphs over Evil… Pierre Bayard Interview As far as Pierre Bayard is concerned, Agatha Christie shows herself to be a much more complex and subtle writer than is usually imagined… He expands by describing what is known as the Epimenides Paradox. Epimenides was a Cretan poet of the fifth century before Christ. He is the author of a line of verse that contains a fundamental paradox. Epimendies says "All Cretans are Liars". And of course he is one of them. So is he lying? Or is he telling the truth? He cannot be telling the truth, because he is Cretan - and so he is lying. But if he is lying, the sentence is a lie and so, since he is Cretan, it is truthful. In its way, Lacanian analysis has come up with a solution to this paradox. Lacan makes a distinction between the "I" in "I lie", which is a narrator's, and a real "I"; which describes the person themselves. This is the key to fiction, the code that lets us into the world of the imagination. Pierre Bayard relates this to the character of Dr Sheppard, the narrator in Agatha Christie's novel. Sheppard tells the story, but is careful to omit those parts that are compromising to him. In this sense, he is a liar by omission. Hence the question: should we believe him, as the person telling the story? Return to backstage. The actors are in their dressing-rooms. The atmosphere is feverish, unlike on previous occasions. The Narrator moves from one to the next, congratulating them and giving last-minute notes. Narrator (OS) Today is the dress rehearsal… I don't want the players to know this, but I feel all my certainties have vanished… This Epimenides business really means that nothing in the novel can be taken for granted. Every line is suspect… True? Or false? The end seems even more perplexing. When Hercule Poirot designates Dr Sheppard as the culprit, Sheppard's reaction is unexpected. He seems genuinely astonished. He calls Poirot "mad", but only rejects his theory quite limply and then goes off to commit suicide. The camera observes three actors more closely: Hercule Poirot, Dr Sheppard and Caroline Sheppard. Now the actors move onstage. The camera remains with the Narrator backstage, giving a view of the curtain, beyond which the hubbub of the audience (remaining invisible) can be heard. The curtain is down. From the shadows, the Narrator confides in us for the last time, whilst watching the players take their place on stage. Narrator (OS) (aside) The question now is: if Caroline had killed Roger Ackroyd in order to protect Doctor Sheppard, would Dr Sheppard have told us so in his account? It is plausible that there again he might have lied by omission, in order to protect her… (mischievously, in order to confuse us further). … I am not saying this is the Truth with a capital T… I'm saying it's an option. But if I don't say this is the Truth, well does that make me a liar too…? Who knows? Because, in the end, if we acknowledge that a Narrator may sometimes be unreliable, then who is there to trust? Silence. Sound of curtain rising. THE END Director's Notes Roland Barthes used to say that the reader of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd looked for a "he" murderer when the actual culprit was an "I" murderer. And indeed, "he" generally describes action and "I" a witnessing, outside the scope of the action. This is the Balzac model, where an "I" is an omniscient vessel for all that there is to know about a story, a spokesman for its truth. He or she does not tell a story so much as give a point of view on a story. For these reasons, a narrator is presumed not guilty. The reader weaves a relationship of trust with him. A narrator is the character a reader feels closest to because there are no gaps in the relationship. In Agatha Christie's novel, the reader remains unaware of the fact that, in truth, he is constantly shown the world through an assassin's eyes. First Person The issue of a shift from third to first person singular is central to this project. It may be central to the whole business of film-making. How to lure viewers into the action, how to interact with the viewer? How to make the viewer active and provoke mental images that will continue to thrive within the viewer's mind? An "I" is never suspect, else we plunge into the abyss and enter into a murderer's point of view. Truth would then be cast as "we are all murderers", intolerable in reality, but fabulously unsettling and fascinating as a dramatic device. At the very least, we must see ourselves as accomplices and peeping toms, which is why at the end of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, we are left with an unusually bitter taste. The guiding principle behind this film project is the notion of re-reading, in all its guises, from crime reconstruction to theatrical table-reading. The overall aim is to enable us to re-read Agatha Christie's novel and experiment with a variety of points of view, so that the tale can reveal its unexpected dimensions. From One World to the Next Basically, this is a thriller within a thriller. Our principal character and narrator will investigate an investigation in order to unmask Roger Ackroyd's true killer. He will in fact deconstruct Agatha Christie's tale in order to demonstrate the means that have served to confuse readers for years. The construction relies on the idea that one world may be switched for another. Different forms of traditional narrative here combine to lend our project its singular character. If every film is a prototype, some are more so than others. Take Al Pacino's Looking for Richard and above all Orson Welles' F for Fake. How fakery may be deployed to engineer reality… is that not, in point of fact, the essence of all film-making? In this instance, three narrative worlds come into play:
A word then on the Narrator as character. The person I have in mind is to be an actor – male or female – relatively well-established in the public mind, so that the line between reality and fictional reality is even more confusing. The actor will in effect be playing his or her own role, a theatre actor directing a story taken from an Agatha Christie novel, which explains his need to research and his hesitations. In this way, he will lead us gradually into an imaginary world, the world of narrative fiction, as he takes on the role of "director who is also a trainee detective", seeking to establish who really killed Roger Ackroyd. One important point of reference is the amazing effect Louis Malle achieved with his Uncle Vanya on 42nd Street, when, at the start of the film, the director manages, without our noticing, to slip from a filmed rehearsal of Uncle Vanya to the actors' own story (which is, in truth, an adaptation of Uncle Vanya). The principle pattern of course is mise-en-abyme, or worlds within worlds. Backstage locations, a play which may or may not be a real play, manuscripts, mirrors, corridors will recur as crossing-points between worlds usually kept apart. These crossing-points are passages from one world to the next. A Crime by Interpretation – And a Political Statement The initial goal was born of an enigmatic phrase placed by Agatha Christie in the mouth of the character of Dr Sheppard, A strange end to my manuscript. I meant it to be published some day as the history of one of Poirot's failures! he tells the reader. But where exactly does Poirot's failure lie, given that he has discovered the culprit in the person of Dr Sheppard and even presses him to kill himself? In truth, if Dr Sheppard is innocent, then there is a sea-change in what the book is about. It is no longer a simple account of one of Poirot's investigations. It is the story of crime: the slow execution of Dr Sheppard by Hercule Poirot, which Pierre Bayard calls crime by interpretation. And this is where the truly political dimension of the film begins. Unlike most forms of art, detective novels generally offer up an unequivocal reading. To solve a murder, one must finger the murderer, in other words process a solid truth established prior even to the reader's first encountering the story. Detective novels tend not to be re-read. They do not give much scope for interpretation. Readers are expected to find not create. The procedure is utterly different from those involving other artistic forms, which are designed to bring an idea to birth within the spectator's mind. Basically, all detective stories are the same. They are about readers' blindness. Readers only find out the truth on the last page, even though it was staring them in the face all along. But such truths are established by a cunningly biased story, woven step-by-step along the way – in this instance by Hercule Poirot. And by Agatha Christie herself, naturally, who peppers her tale with clues designed to prop up her famous detective's reasoning. Strangely, it is a similar process to that which applies to political propaganda, which elicits out of reality only those clues which prop up its version of the truth, systematically eliminating any information which might encourage alternative interpretations. Police stories are like police states: they want to prevent subversive ideas from thriving, beyond the narrator's control. Everything is designed to stop readers thinking. This is literature as dictatorship. The purpose of this film is to blow up the machinery of compulsion by offering to deconstruct and analyse interpretation. To this end, the viewer is invited to see the novel in a new light and regard Sheppard as innocent. This re-reading frees up the book. Its meanings multiply, as in any other artistic form. The film must therefore experimentally establish a different reading of the book, a mirror-image of Poirot's reading, established on similar principles. The goal is to refresh thinking on the nature and bases of interpretation, in order to work towards a potentially "true" interpretation… The difficulty is how to venture near truth? In his F for Fake, Orson Welles has this to say about Picasso: "Art is lie that helps us understand the reality of the world." A Cinematic Approach to the Notion of Rereading We shall revisit a number of scenes, adopting a different point of view, which is that Dr Sheppard is innocent. We will thus establish that several moments in the novel may be read in a range of different manners. Several readings coexist. The idea is to allow our Narrator to call Agatha Christie's book into question on a permanent basis. The film will shuttle between certain key moments in a reconstitution of the novel and the Narrator's investigation. The main location is a single, spare theatre-stage, upon which various key scene-of-the-crime locations are outlined in chalk, following a police crime reconstruction model, with the addition of a few props central to the enquiry. Our Narrator will for instance attempt his own crime-scene reconstruction in order to try out various hypotheses. But in trying to establish Poirot's thesis, he will draw attention to its less plausible aspects. Thus, according to Poirot, Dr Sheppard will have – prior to murdering Roger Ackroyd – hidden in his Gladstone bag, as well as professional equipment, a pair of shoes and a device, revolutionary in its day, known as a Dictaphone. The reconstitution of Sheppard's movements will prove a highpoint of this film. Putting himself in Sheppard's shoes, the Narrator will find himself having to make this technically sophisticated machine function, succeed in stealing a pair of shoes from out of Ralph Patton's bedroom while it is occupied, replace it by another pair transported in his bag (presumably a false-bottomed bag, given all that Poirot requires it to hold), retrace his steps to leave false footprints outside Ackroyd's study, on ground conveniently dampened by rain… After this absurd scene, the audience knows that what may work in a novel cannot hold water in a reconstruction scene on film. Indeed, as the investigation proceeds, the Narrator will gradually uncover the various ruses Agatha Christie uses in the novel to conceal the truth, mainly double-meaning and lying by omission. The deconstruction of these procedures opens up fabulous film-making opportunities, notably by playing on the rhetorical device of ellipsis, or omission, that lies at the heart of cinema cutting-room technique. Every cut of a film, every film-making decision is in itself a piece of re-reading. To this extent, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is highly cinematic work, founded on a ubiquitous subtext. Our film thus brings considerable added value to Agatha Christie. It is more than just an adaptation of Pierre Bayard's analysis, however brilliant this may be. The various means by which the book is re-read here offer sensational picture and sound opportunities, that can only reinforce our conclusion. A Shadow Portrait of Agatha Christie Beside investigating The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, this film offers an original portrait of its author. In the course of our investigation, the Narrator is bound to consider what Agatha Christie intended. He or she will delve into archival resources to reassess certain mysterious episodes in her life and notably the twelve days of her disappearance during the launch of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. One night in December 1926, Agatha Christie vanished at the wheel of her car. She was not found till twelve days later, registered under another name in a comfortable hotel in the north of England. It is true that she had been subject to intense stress. Her beloved mother had just died. Her husband had decided to leave her for a certain Mrs Neele, the very name under which she registered at the hotel, where she was found to be suffering from amnesia… This episode in her life has been the subject of intense speculation. Of the various hypotheses bandied about, the most striking are that she was about to engineer an attempt at revenge after being deserted by her husband and the idea that it was all a publicity stunt for the launch of the very book which is the subject of this film project. Not forgetting, of course, the idea that she was kidnapped by extra-terrestrials! A Narrative Structured Chapter by Chapter Lastly, as regards the narrative structure of this project, the important fact is that a division into thematic chapters, breaking with traditional chronology, will afford sudden changes of theme and bold juxtapositions. Again, this relates to Pacino's Looking for Richard, in which chapters work to allow successive passages from one world to another, as discussed above. Pacino can thus shift in a moment from showing King Richard on horseback to his own part, that of an actor questioning a series of experts. Each chapter is designed as its own miniature mystery, whose resolution shifts the entire investigation forward. Taken as a whole, the project should be seen as an invitation to travel into the heart of fiction; into the heart of a place where words and thought interact. Its aim is to blow the polarization of reality into truth and falsehood sky-high, at least for as long as we are on our way; and thus to attack and demolish a simplistic, black-and-white vision of the world. The audience will be invited to play an active part in our investigation, to make sense of it in any way it chooses. And lastly, through our rereading, our reinterpretation of Agatha Christie's novel, we shall discover that such was perhaps the author's own intention. If we admit that a Narrator, like Orson Welles in F for Fake, is entitled to tell his or her tale in perfect bad faith, then whom are we to trust? Jean-Christophe Klotz, September 2015
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