Errol Morris is one of the greatest living documentarians, having created some of the best films of the past 45 years. Over the past three decades, most of his films have focused on singular individuals — Stephen Hawking, Robert McNamara, Donald Rumsfeld, Joyce McKinney, Steve Bannon. He continues that trend with The Pigeon Tunnel, though in several ways, it feels like a kind of autobiography, despite his subject being the legendary spy writer, John le Carré (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Tailor of Panama, The Constant Gardener).

The film opens with an explicit mention of interrogations, something Morris is quite familiar with; after all, his clever ‘intelligent camera’ set-up for interviews is called ‘The Interrotron,’ which adds two-way mirrors and video monitors to the usual interview set-up and enables the subject to feel and look comfortable staring straight into the camera. The Pigeon Tunnel itself is notable for its kaleidoscopic use of mirroring and splitting, as if the nature of truth is too slippery and complicated for just one image. It’s a perfect complement to this investigation into the life of a spy novelist (and former spy), whose work and existence was so mysterious, most people don’t realize his actual name is David John Moore Cornwell.

To bring this enigmatic documentary to life, cinematographer Igor Martinovic creates a series of fascinating, beautifully filmed images and sequences that symbolically parallel le Carré’s interviews and his life story, beginning with a childhood of abandonment and loneliness. Martinovic spoke with MovieWeb about the film.

Filming John le Carré Before His Death
The Pigeon Tunnel Release Date October 20, 2023 Director Errol Morris Cast John le Carré Runtime 94 min Main Genre Documentary
John le Carré is probably the most acclaimed spy novelist in history, and apart from Ian Fleming, arguably the most famous. He passed away near the end of 2020 at the age of 89, and now, three years later, his enigmatic presence haunts The Pigeon Tunnel. The film was a long time coming. “I believe we started in 2018, and then COVID happened, and so the second part was delayed, the narrative part,” explained Martinovic, adding:

“Because we first did interviews within four days, interviewing John le Carré, whose real name is David Cornwell, and then we had COVID. We shot reenactments in Hungary, and that was basically all together not too many days of shooting, but a lot of work in post trying to figure out, because we always wanted to do reenactments, but there were a lot of different ideas how to do it. So it took a little bit of time with that as well.”

“So John le Carré was a spy writer and a spy in real life,” continued Martinovic. “As a spy, he had to embody different personalities, different personas. So we thought that using mirroring images would kind of be a visual representation of what he did. So we used mirrors, not just in the woods and in the house; we also used mirrors in the interview. So we shot with four cameras with mirrors right behind David, and the mirroring became a visual theme throughout the film.”

And also, it’s not just the mirroring, but it’s like a broken reality. There is no integrity to the picture itself, because you’re constantly seeing different views with the same shot. That kind of represents his life and what he did.

Fragmenting The Pigeon Tunnel
Apple TV+

“We wanted to create an imbalance within the visuals,” added Martinovic. “So a lot of reenactments deal with David’s upbringing. He came up from a broken family. His mother left him, his father was deceiving people and lying, and was in prison several times, so [David] kind of never had a balanced life. And that actually led him to become a spy, because he learned all these traits from his father. But we wanted the images to carry that imbalance as well, so it is not perfectly framed, but it’s a little bit off, with a little bit of negative framing and so on.”

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“We use fragmentation throughout, even in the narrative part, in recreations,” said Martinovic, “but yes, we had one camera, an intelligent camera, where David would talk directly to Errol’s image projected in front of the camera, and he talks directly to David. But the other three were filming frames that are kind of off and negatively framed. We played a lot. Usually what happens is, we start the interview, we have four cameras doing four different shots and then, like an hour in, Errol comes in and he’s like, ‘I’m bored. Let’s move on.'”

It was always like that, we tried to create as many visuals as possible, but in this case, it works, because it is about defragmentation, it is about multiplication. So, multiplication of the point of view with the multiplication of images kind of went well together.

Working with Errol Morris
Apple TV+

Igor Martinovic has been the cinematographer behind not just great documentaries like Man on Wire and What Happened, Miss Simone? but also a range of genres throughout television and film, including The Night Of, The Outsider, House of Cards, Red Riding, and Silent House. But it’s his collaborations with Errol Morris, including the unsettling American Dharma about Steve Bannon, that’s perhaps his most challenging work.

“With Errol, I did two more projects, which is My Psychedelic Love Story and Wormwood,” said Martinovic. “So, this is our fourth collaboration in the long form, and we have some short films, as well as probably like 100 or so commercials. So what is different in this collaboration is that Errol is an incredibly visual storyteller, and he actually doesn’t get so much credit for that. But I think working with him is a beautiful challenge, because we try to push each other to create images that are unusual; both of us tend to appreciate images that are not classic ‘point of view.’ We like angles that are unusual, we like lenses that are different and that are a little bit more extreme.”

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Martinovic continued, opening up about his relationship with Morris and their work together. “He’s not someone that plans every shot in advance, but he’s open to things that happen on set. It’s a little bit like jazz when we’re on set,” said Martinovic, “we just play, and it’s literally like playing. I mean, it’s the closest to playing I can think of, being on a set, playing like a kid with different angles, with different positions, with the lighting, with all the creative elements.”

“So it’s really a great thing to work with someone that allows you to play and allows you to actually express yourself in a way that is unexpected. But at the same time, he challenges you, which is amazing. He comes in, and he’s like, ‘Okay, I don’t feel like this is working, let’s just find something else, this is boring,” and then I find something else. Right now, we have a pretty good collaboration where we can really tell each other what we feel and how we feel about it, and like and challenge each other, which is, I think, the most important thing.”

Finding a Visual Parallel to a Spy’s Life

A director of photography ideally discovers a way to visually manifest the emotions and themes behind a project, and that’s what Martinovic always does. “I think for me, the most important thing is to find the concept, find the visual response to the narrative,” explained Martinovic of his approach to each project he films. “[With Wormwood], the idea was that the main character was in search of the truth, and he had limited information. So, the information he had, he would try to put together almost as a collage, and the collage became a theme in the visual approach. So [in The Pigeon Tunnel], the fragmentation became a theme as well. We sometimes had like 16 different shots within the same frame, stuff like that.” He added,

I always look for unifying elements that will help tell the story in a certain way, and if you turn off the sound, it would already be speaking to you in the same way. So the visuals are enhancing the story itself, the narrative itself, but they could also stand by itself.

From The Ink Factory, Fourth Floor Productions, Jago Films, Storyteller Productions, and 127 Wall Productions, Dogwoof and Apple TV present The Pigeon Tunnel, currently streaming on Apple TV+.

Watch on Apple TV+