The pandemic-fueled era of bingewatching was really beneficial to the current age of documentaries. Had a great documentary film idea? Well, folks like Netflix, Apple, etc. wanted an eight-part series instead to make sure subscriber retention remained through the roof. At the same time, true crime documentaries were booming, so doc filmmakers made the most of that era, both financially and from the perspective of content and having more time to tell your story (the matter of quality dipping with too many doc series having too much time thus negatively affecting their projects is another story). One of the filmmakers who thrived during that era is Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris who returns with the doc “The Pigeon Tunnel.”
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His latest is not a series; however, that era has abruptly ended. Yet docs are still very much still in vogue as streamers need to pack their wares with content, so Morris’ latest is a riveting portrait of the master of espionage fiction, John le Carré (most people will at least know him as the writer behind the film “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” but he is the author of many spy and espionage classics).
Did you know that le Carré was once a British spy; part of the reason his books were so good, on-point and riveting? Here’s the official synopsis:
In “The Pigeon Tunnel,” Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of former British spy David Cornwell—better known as John le Carré, author of such classic espionage novels as “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “The Constant Gardener.” Set against the turbulent backdrop of the Cold War leading into present day, the film spans six decades as le Carré delivers his final and most candid interview, punctuated with rare archival footage and dramatized vignettes. “The Pigeon Tunnel” is a deeply human and engaging exploration of le Carré’s extraordinary journey and the paper-thin membrane between fact and fiction.
In the aforementioned boom period or new golden age of documentaries, Morris made the docudrama miniseries “Wormwood” for Netflix in 2017 and the docuseries “A Wilderness of Error” for FX in 2020.
As just revealed, “The Pigeon Tunnel” will make its world premiere at the upcoming 2023 Telluride Film Festival. The doc will debut in select theaters and globally on Apple TV+ on October 20, 2023. Watch the trailer below.
