Stills from Murder on the Orient Express: Director Kenneth Branagh plays Detective Poirot in the play.
Murder on the Orient Express
A journey through time and space on the silver screen
Reporter/Liu Yuanhang
This article was first published in the 828th issue of China News Weekly
In late 1928, at the age of 38, Agatha Christie took the famous Orient Express through then-Constantinople to a mysterious land she had never set foot in. The naïve detective novelist has just ended his 14-year marriage and is still struggling to emerge from the shadow of failure. In the same year, her work was first adapted into a silent film, but the initial success of her writing career did not add weight to her personal happiness, but instead laid the groundwork for the imbalance in their relationship. Two years ago, in order to attract her husband's attention, Agatha even planned a bizarre disappearance for herself, disappeared for 11 days, and let conan Doyle, who was still alive at the time, join the search for Mrs. Christie.
This time, Agatha, tired of her Estate life in England, decides to board the traveling intercontinental train alone and leave, but also to say goodbye to that painful past, trying to find a new self in a strange exotic land. She originally wanted to go to the West Indies near the Caribbean, but before leaving, she followed the advice of others and decided to go to the Middle East, where she would meet her second husband, who was 14 years younger than her. In murder on the Orient Express, published 6 years later, Belgian detective Poirot, also at the suggestion of an old friend, boarded a journey in the opposite direction of Agatha and encountered a tricky murder on the express.
American detectives, Italian drivers, Russian princesses, German maids, Swedish women... The seemingly out-of-line 12 passengers were caught up in the bizarre death of a wealthy businessman. In fact, the mix of character identities, the exoticism of the journey, like the fictional natural soil, loaded with adventures and adventures, murder and escape, has also attracted novelists such as Hemingway and Grimm Green. In Agatha's work, the layers of stripping away the cocoon reveal not only a well-planned revenge story, but also the complex humanity in the legal dilemma.
In 1974, Murder on the Orient Express was first adapted into a film, with Albert Finney, who played Poirot at the age of 38, and had to dress up as a 60-year-old for each shoot, but the film was seen by Agatha, who was still alive at the time, as an adaptation she was very satisfied with. In the forty years since, the novel has been put on the screen and stage several times, passing through different cultural and epochal backgrounds, constantly changing and reborn.
In the 2010 TELEVISION version, "Detective Specialist" David Sucht showed the audience a rare glimpse of Poirot's inner struggles and compromises. In the 2001 American film version, the context of the case was moved to the 21st century, where Detective Poirot appeared to be only about forty years old and even had an emotional entanglement with a young woman in the Middle East. In the 2010 Japanese version, the express train carrying passengers from all walks of life is described by the characters in the play as a microcosm of modern Japan. In 2017, the latest version of the "Orient Express" was once again on the road. "Like Hamlet, Poirot's image is reinterpreted in the different actors' roles." Kenneth Branagh, director of the upcoming edition of "Murder on the Orient Express," told China Newsweek that he also played detective Poirot in the film.
"The murderer is among us"
"Now, I want to figure out what kind of person I really am, and whether I do anything depends on others." Agatha wrote this in her autobiography. She booked herself a second-class sleeping car on the Orient Express, and another passenger in the carriage, an experienced tourist, insisted on making a precise travel plan for Agatha, but Agatha declined the tourist's offer. She had been in a closed life for too long, had just divorced her first husband, and desperately needed all the unknown adventures rather than a pre-arranged trip. The train passed through Trieste, Yugoslavia and the Balkans, and after a few hours, entered a world completely unfamiliar to her.
At first, Agatha was particularly excited. "It was an incredible beauty that will last a lifetime." She recalled this in her autobiography. But soon she saw a different side of the world. Those mosquitoes were biting me my arms, on the back of my neck, on my ankles and knees, all pervasive. She developed symptoms such as fever and headache and began to feel that the trip was a mistake.
But it was the trip that freed Agatha from her failed marriage and she felt her life was restarted. It was also because of her travels that she met her second husband. The two married in 1930 and once again spent their honeymoon on the Orient Express. Previously, she had a strong sense of anxiety about writing itself. After this, she really embarked on the path of professional writing, and between 1929 and 1932, she wrote a number of representative works and opened a new chapter. In 1930, the novel "The Mystery of the Apartment" was published, and Miss Marple began to appear, and together with Poirot, she formed two of the most famous detective figures in Agatha's detective kingdom. One is an old-fashioned little old lady living in the countryside, and the other is a short, fat, over sixty-year-old Belgian private detective, but they all have the ability to solve cases that are unimaginable to ordinary people.
In 1933, while accompanying her husband on archaeological excavations in what is now Iraq, Agatha began writing Murder on the Orient Express. The cause of this fictional murder is derived from another real kidnapping. In 1932, Lindbergh, a famous pilot who had flown across the Atlantic in an airplane, found a note on his window sill that his son, who was only 20 months old, had been abducted, leaving a ransom demand of fifty thousand dollars. The news of the kidnapping shocked the entire United States. When Lindbergh finally paid the ransom, what awaited him was the child's corpse.
The fictitious valve thus opens. In Agatha's novel, the kidnapping becomes the direct motivator for the murder. The kidnappers, who did not receive the punishment they deserved, fled the United States, changed their names and surnames, and became rich. Several others, including the parents of the abducted young children, died one after another as a result of suicide or dystocia. The 12 people involved in the case lost trust in the law and decided to form a "jury" to personally bring the fleeing kidnappers to justice.
Before writing Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha had already taken the train several times between Europe and the Middle East. In 1929, the Orient Express stayed in Turkey for six days due to the sudden arrival of a snowstorm. In December 1931, Agatha was on the Orient Express when she also suffered a flood and landslide and had to stay for 24 hours. These observations and experiences become the inspiration for the blizzard weather and journey interruptions in the novel.
It is this kind of accident that makes the passing train stop in the middle of the desert, becoming the scene of "secret room reasoning". Without police officers and judges, and without intruders and outsiders, Agatha's tried-and-true narrative suggests an undeniable fact that "the murderer is among us." Often at this time, Poirot, who had not been noticed, began his reasoning analysis. Unlike sherlock Holmes, the unassuming Poirot appears in every corner and often observes details that others may overlook.
Stills from Murder on the Orient Express: Michelle Pfeiffer as Mrs. Hubbard and Johnny Depp as Edward Rechtert.
Strange phone
In early 1973, Agatha, already the "queen of mystery novels," suddenly received a strange phone call. "My name is John Braburn and I want to adapt Murder on the Orient Express into a movie." That's what the other end of the phone said. Agatha was somewhat surprised, she was eighty-three years old, and had lived most of her time in Wallingford, 40 miles from London, and the adaptation was handled by an agent. Although the previous adaptations of the two novels "Witness for the Prosecution" and "No One Survived" have been successful, MGM's adaptations of her many works have since disappointed Agatha herself, and even angry. At this time, it was almost impossible to get the famous detective novel to agree to Agatha's proposal to adapt her novel, not to mention that it was Agatha's most famous work to be adapted.
Why did you want to bring this work to the screen? Agatha did not directly refuse, so asked. Her agent had mentioned to her that a London producer who wanted to adapt Murder on the Orient Express was the son of a friend of hers. "Because I especially like trains." Braborn answered bluntly. This answer gave Agatha a touch of intimacy with the reckless young man. "Trains have always been one of my favorite things. Sadly, no one now sees trains as close as a friend. She once wrote in her autobiography. When she was young, the train took her out of her previously closed life and into a new world. So Agatha suggested that we talk in person, so we could make an appointment and have lunch together. "Is it okay today?" The other end of the phone asked. Agatha had no choice but to explain that her residence was forty miles from London. "I'm not in London, I'm in the phone booth downstairs from your house!" Braborn said.
Soon after, the film officially began filming, and the addition of a number of movie stars attracted widespread attention to this adaptation. The director of "Twelve Angry Men" is Sidney Lumet, played by Ingrid Bergman, a Swedish female missionary, in addition to A-list stars such as Martin Balsam. The film greatly retains the plot and language characteristics of the original work, and the lines are rarely changed, and it is considered by many to be an adaptation that is closest to the original work. Albert Finney has a very blunt accent, but there is a kind of boyish humor in his voice when it comes to revealing those clues. Although some critics believe that the pace is somewhat slow, overall, the degree of completion is already very high.
At the film premiere in London, Agatha appeared in a wheelchair, still looking in good spirits, although she was eighty-four years old. It was her last appearance in public, and a year later she passed away.
After the release of Murder on the Orient Express, it was a great success at the box office and word of mouth, receiving multiple Oscar awards and British Academy Film Award nominations. Ingrid Bergman, 59, eventually won Best Supporting Actress for her outstanding performance, the third Oscar in her acting career.
"Poirot Professional"
When the producers of later Poirot asked if they were interested in Agatha, David Suchte frankly admitted that he hadn't read a single one. It was 1987. Suchte is more familiar with writers in the traditional literary spectrum, and from an early age he was taught by his father, who was a gynecologist, "Read those great writers and works and never forget Shakespeare." Since then, Suchte has worked in the theater, having played Othello and Sherlock.
Two years ago, in order to earn money to support his family, Sucht participated in the detective drama "Human Nature Record", in which he played Poirot's good friend Inspector Japp. Sucht felt that it was probably the worst experience of his life. But what he did not expect was that for more than two decades, detective dramas would occupy most of his acting career, and he would also become the most famous "Poirot professional" of all time. Poirot, who played Detective Poirot in Human Nature, was film star Peter Ustinov, who was best known for playing Poirot in several films based on Agatha's work, including Massacre on the Nile and Sin in the Sun. In this way, the two generations of Poirot completed the "handover" in an interesting way.
For how to portray Poirot, Sucht has a different understanding than before. He got Agatha's work from the producer and began to read it carefully. He wasn't reading about the somewhat comical Belgian, or his funny accent and beard, and his fetishes, elements of comedy and humor that were far from the whole story of this detective. Albert Finney's performance in the 1974 film version of Murder on the Orient Train was good enough, but Suchet felt that he could play a different Poirot, a detective with more human depth.
In 1988, the series "Poirot the Great Detective" began to be filmed, and met with the audience the following year. The first season consisted of 10 detective stories, each of which was within 1 hour. Beginning with her first novel published in 1920, Agatha wrote a total of 33 novels, more than fifty short stories, and a play with Poirot as the main character. David Sucht, from 1989 to 2013, devoted 25 years to the role.
In 2012, the twelfth season of "Poirot" began airing, and the fourth episode was "Murder on the Orient Express". In this episode, Suchte contributes the most complex Poirot ever, which also caused great controversy. "I don't remember laughing once during the shoot." Suchet later wrote this in his autobiography Poirot and I. At the end of the episode, Poirot experiences a difficult inner struggle, even bluntly criticizing the 12 passengers who orchestrated the murder for revenge. He is no longer the detective who can always solve the case easily, and in the dilemma, he shows full anger and eventually has to compromise. But even so, Suchte still believes that Poirot himself does not agree with the use of violence to fight violence, no matter how righteous the motive for killing may seem, the violent way of revenge cannot be truly justified. And as a devout Catholic, he believed that any violence must be punished as it should be.
In 2013, "Poirot the Great Detective" reached its thirteenth season, and finally came to an end, and Poirot died in the last episode of "The Curtain". This scene was filmed on an afternoon in November 2012. After playing a detective for so many years, David Suchte felt like he was finally Poirot. When the fictional character died, Sucht felt that part of his life had also died because of his death.
A journey without end
In 2016, when Kenneth Branagh decided to remake Murder on the Orient Train again, not only had Agatha's detective novels become part of British culture and literature, but many of the film and television adaptations based on the original had become classics. The audience of Agatha's works is still broad and far-reaching. "She used a number of conditions, structured out a large number of murders, and the clues were intricate, like weaving work and picking up wonderful warp and weft tissues. These lines and structures are all materials for daily life. Writer Wang Anyi commented on Agatha's writing in an article.
Of course, there are many people who don't like Agatha's detective novels. Reading Agatha was once a popular fad, but there were also those who thought she was somewhat old-fashioned and conservative, outdated, and that she had written too much to avoid failing. "Just as Shakespeare would encounter this kind of thing, but Agatha is aware of it, and there are some works that she herself doesn't like very much." In the face of media questions, Branagh, the director of the new 2017 edition of "Murder on the Orient Express", said.
Agatha herself has mixed attitudes toward Poirot. Most of the time, she liked her famous detective, but sometimes she wrote about Poirot's overconfidence and even pride. But as she grew older, Agatha and her two detective figures experienced aging. The New York Times published a special obituary in August 1975 announcing Poirot's death. "He was often in a wheelchair and was taken from his bedroom to the sanatorium hall. He still wears a wig and a fake beard to hide the traces of time. Aging itself was an affront to him. The obituary reads. Four months later, Agatha herself died. In her sickly old age, she, like her characters, was always in a wheelchair, being helped from the edge of the bed to the living room.
For more than forty years, the Orient Express in the fictional world continued to travel between different regions and cultures, adapted into films, television series, stage plays and comics, as did many of Agatha's works. Today, in many of Agatha's profiles, you can see the sentence that "sales are second only to the Bible." In countless readings and adaptations, the Belgian detective still wears an upturned moustache and looks like an ordinary tourist, but he can always inadvertently uncover the truth of life for people who are in a hurry.