The day has been long and hard or the week, with things that have given us no rest, ends all at once; then we find that on Film and Arts they announce an episode of Vera. We may have seen it before but it doesn't matter. Indeed, a scene in a factory, a small house or a street, all under a cloudy sky, a gesture, an evasive answer, tell us that it is so and the memories, which seemed lost, begin to rise from that diffuse zone where the images remain, as if archived; an invisible hand pulls them from their shelf, brings them back and unfolds them. Halfway through the chapter we have already remembered who the murderer or the murderess is, but we continue to watch with the same interest as the first time.
What are the reasons for this attraction?
The answer is not easy to find and seems to
depend on several things.
A
familiar code
Let's think for a moment about English series
and miniseries: someone is walking in a lonely place, for example, dressed in
sports clothes, running; or that someone is on a beach or walking along a
narrow path, among the trees. We know that at any moment a corpse will appear.
Sometimes the variant is less plausible: the owner of a junkyard - in Unforgotten - arrives at the land
listening to his car radio when suddenly the leg of a headless corpse emerges
from the open door of a refrigerator that a crane is about to lift by means of
a hook.
Who was the victim? What was he doing there?
Who could the killer be? Did he have enemies? What about his banking status?
In Unforgotten, these preliminary questions
and diligences alternate with passages from the daily lives of different
people. We know they will be linked to the plot, but in what way? Will any of
them be the murderer? Will they all be, as in Crime on the Orient Express?
The clues soon begin to appear and generate a
series of side paths that open up to parallel episodes, will they have to do
with the crime or not? As veterans of the genre, we learn to distrust the clues
that seem more solid because they are too clear and obvious and we know that
the truth will be more indirect and intricate and that it will take time to
appear.
A surprise finding comes up and Vera or Cassi
Stuart tell Ailen or Sunny to take their coats because they have to go out
right away to question again a certain witness who -they discover- did not tell
everything he knew. Sometimes the statement is explicit: "let's pay him a
visit" and the action branches out into other situations and when
everything seems to be about to be resolved, something happens that takes the
investigation back to the starting point.
Before the phrase, which is also a
revelation: "there is something we are missing", a new direction
emerges, but the final finding suddenly appears of something that Vera and
Ailen or Cassi and Sunny had not noticed, because the previous direction of the
investigation was focused on other situations.
This mechanism could not work
without another parallel to the central action, which is the one referred to
the detective's private life.
The protagonist always keeps a dark secret,
something unsaid but of which there are veiled indications. The character must
fight against an adversity that distracts him or her from the case, but
sometimes it is the case that distracts him or her from something he or she
needs to avoid (loneliness, alcohol, an old trauma). The detective is solitary,
reserved and not always patient. They have a rough manner. They speak little.
They don't hug or kiss. They don't say kind words. Either they are this way by
nature or they were made this way by something we don't know.
Another key character is the
forensic scientist who usually clashes with the detective and who always ends
up giving the key to the case, one that needs a path that leads from a suspect
to that key. The forensic scientist is discussed with and urged to discover
that elusive piece where the whole enigma rests. It is the scientific side of
the story, which gives it a certain "rationality."
Path
and outcome
A discovery generates an enigma
whose resolution is expected but delayed: therein lies the intrigue, one that
is reinforced when there is more than one suspect but that admits, so to speak,
"a maximum quota" so that the story does not diversify into paths
that will never find a conclusion. The enigmas sometimes fan out and sometimes
follow one after the other, but not everything can be an enigma, there must be
some resolution at some point and those resolutions are partial and lead to new
enigmas: that's how (as Haroldo Conti would say) the issue seems to work.
Intrigue must be supported by
"moderately" plausible circumstances within the action through which
the plot operates. From this point of view, intrigue and verisimilitude never
cease to exist in association and form a mechanism that is chained together
with increasing intensity; that is precisely what sustains the intrigue.
A body remains mutilated inside a
refrigerator for thirty years, while the head is found in another refrigerator
that is found in a furniture warehouse. The cause of death is the wound
produced by a pen stuck in the temple of the deceased: this is the plot of the
fourth season of Unforgotten. It is
about the corpse of a thug who was intercepted by one of the members of a group
of police cadets traveling in a car after their graduation party. On
reflection, the whole thing seems absurd, but for the duration of the
mini-series the story holds up: it does so because of the intrigue (which of
them was it, if any? What will happen?), and more than anything else, because
of the acting performances. The greater the incongruity of the plot, the
greater the importance of the performances.
The denouement and the consequent
resolution of all the questions occurs in the last minutes; it happens very
quickly and the resolution is so abstruse that a rational mind could never
conceive it, nor establish the series of premises and conclusions capable of
leading to it; but the plot is what matters least to us in the series or the
miniseries. What matters are the intermediate steps, that long road in the
course of which the unknowns are being cleared and the new clues are being
induced - however incredible they may seem - and while doing so, the lives of
the different characters are being glimpsed.
However, these particularities seem
to be precisely what we expect from this narrative species. We are not looking
for rationality or the classic enigma, but something that resembles it on the
outside.
"Where
are you going honey?"
What
do we expect from Vera, for example?
When
the police arrive at her house, a suspect who had something to hide rushes out,
computer in hand, through the back door and when she opens it there is Vera
with her smile shutting her out and saying something like "Where are you
going honey?"
It
is precisely those gestures that we expect and the stringing together of hints,
revelations and intrigues only seems to be the scaffolding for such gestures
and the accompanying dialogues to happen.
The sources of this kind of hybrid
narrative seem to be both the enigma story and the detective noir.
The first because the crime is set
out as an unknown that the detective seeks to clear up "rationally",
through observation and logical inferences, but at the same time not only
rationality but the law of the street rules, where the nature and life of the
characters can become more important than the enigma itself, that is, a typical
element of the crime novel where the crime is just one more part of a plot of
characters very different from each other.
In the police headquarters there is
always an area where all the members of the team work and in the center there
is a blackboard where the photos of the suspects and the lines that link them
to the crime are placed. The enigma is represented there where it is not only
possible to see the faces but also serves as inspiration for that hunch that always
raises an unexpected possibility. -Suddenly Vera or Cassi Stuart observes the
blackboard and says "how come I haven't seen it before" and quickly
leaves in search of a new clue. The initial enigma is gradually traversed by
possibilities, represented in lines that link the characters and change shape.
At the end, when the solution has
been produced, the pictures are removed, the lines are erased and the
blackboard regains its whiteness.
The detective's office overlooks
that common space but she or he is never in his office for too long: as soon as
they enter, they leave again to go to the blackboard, ask new questions and
order someone to find out about bank transactions or communications and someone
else to check this or that alibi. When they have no choice, they go home or
back to the boat they live on (The Chelsea Detective).
Something very unfair happened to
the detective in his life - a separation, a death or who knows what - and he
seeks (seeks?) to overcome it, while not telling anyone what makes him suffer
because he has no friends, no one close to him and only drinks and eats junk
food. Sometimes, like Wallander, he has a dog, the only being he can definitely
trust. The detective is forbidden sex, tranquility, good food and leisure (in
other words, everything worth living for).
The detective is always skeptical, trusts no
one and does not let anyone get too close to him. He has no pleasures or
passions and everything around him is gloom and darkness: the camera takes him
alone, in his office, with the simple light of a desk lamp. He would rather be
there than back at home or at the boat-house; or if not there, the lens shows
him in the kitchen of his house, with a bottle and a sandwich already suffering
from cadaveric stiffness. Vera's Land Rover belonged to his father, is
rust-bitten and must never have known a wash. There is nothing neat and tidy
about the detective's life. Nothing new. Nothing pleasurable and that is one of
the major conventions of the species, even more important than the enigma, and
that brings her closer to the detective novel, to a detective like Phillippe
Marlowe and makes the enigma a secondary issue.
"If
this is confirmed you will be in trouble, better tell me the truth now."
Paul Grice (13.III.1913, Birmingham, England,
28.VIII.1988, Berkeley, California) was a philosopher who made a great
contribution in the field of the theory of meaning and communication. There are
literal and non-literal utterances in speech, and the cooperation of the
speakers is necessary to establish a message. The message acquires meaning in
the context and in the culture or way of life of the various characters.
I set out to get to Saint Jean de Luz, I travel by motorcycle, I am in a nearby town
but the Google maps by which I am guided in the navigation, keeps me locked
inside a circuit of traffic circles from which I cannot get out. I don't speak
French and those I ask for directions speak neither Spanish nor English.
Nevertheless, they give me the right directions, they make every effort to do
so, and soon I can get back on the road: the communication was based on
cooperation, on the tacit certainty that the directions would be given in good
faith and with kindness.
Language is cooperation, one that is possible
to perceive in the tone of voice, gestures and in those moments when the person
helping us is thinking about trying to find a way to do it better. Gestures are
part of the message.
The detective story, as we have been
considering it, rests precisely on the rupture
of cooperation and is full of over-understandings, veiled threats or
defiant attitudes such as the "no comment" that suspects usually
answer when they feel cornered in the interrogation. Nor is there strict
cooperation among the police team, but rather that which results from
compliance with orders. On the one hand the language is hostile and deceitful
and on the other it is hierarchical and disciplined.
Paul Grice establishes several maxims in order
to be able to communicate with an interlocutor:
The first is the maxim of quantity, relating to the amount of information that the
interlocutor supplies to the speaker, in order to fulfill what is required by
the speaker and the purpose of the exchange.
The second is the maxim of quality, linked to the truth of the contribution - in my
case, despite the language differences, the quality of the information allowed
me to get out of the labyrinth of traffic circles and reach my destination.
The third is the relationship maxim, which refers to getting to the point and not
diverting the speaker's attention. Again in my case, the information was
accurate.
The fourth is modality or manner, which involves abolishing ambiguity.
As we can see, the maxims are closely linked
to each other and it is difficult to distinguish one from the other, it is also
possible to notice that, precisely, the kind of story we are dealing with is
based precisely on violating all these maxims.
In fact, one of the central resources is that
the witness, who later becomes a suspect, hides something that the detective
later finds out in another way and because of this decides to question him
again, increasing the intensity of the initial suspicion. The response of the
questioned is invariably: "because I thought it was not important" to
which Vera's reply is "we are in the investigation of a crime, honey, and
we decide what is important".
The omitted information -first maxim- is
linked to quality, i.e. whether the omitted information is relevant, truthful
and univocal, as required by the other maxims.
Generally this is a false path because the
final resolution is the least predictable, the one that is found almost by
chance and the suspect is the one who seemed most innocent and distant from the
victim.
There is however something else in this
language, what Roland Barthés (Cherbourg, 12.IX.1915; Paris 26.III.1980) in the
set of codes of signification, calls the
pro-aietic code, which is the one referring to the actions and behaviors of
the characters.
This code is very visible in the detective
species: an avid look of the witness after an interrogation -which leads us to
anticipate a suspicion about him- or a gesture of annoyance before the return
of Vera or Cassi Stuart to interrogate that character who looks at them
awkwardly from behind a curtain. The work of the pro-aiegetic code and its effectiveness depend on the performances,
something in which series and miniseries tend to excel. Gesture and attitudes
join the words and between them create meaning, feed the intrigue or make the
plot less implausible.
Let's leave codes and maxims here because,
although we can go further, the ones exposed are those through which,
inevitably, the species runs.
I
wondered
Perhaps it was Columbo who inaugurated the
detective image of the old green trench coat, the unkempt appearance and the
persistence.
When it seemed that, after questioning the
suspect, he was leaving, he would suddenly turn back, raise his arm or put his
hand to his forehead in a perplexed gesture and say something like "I was
wondering..." and then he would formulate the unexpected request, the one
that showed that the suspect's version had a gap that he had not noticed.
The Peugeot
403 cabriolet he used to drive
seemed to be part of the character's misaligned appearance, but it is, in the
automotive world, a car of great interest to the connoisseur, because it is in
itself very beautiful and not many models of that kind were built: what is
presented one way turns out to be another: nothing in this kind of narrative
seems to be credible at all.
Is the
case closed?
After a brief tour of detective
stories, what can we answer to the initial question? If the plots are
implausible, sometimes indiscernible and always confusing, why are we so
interested in them that we watch the same episode more than once?
Perhaps we should find an answer in
the fact that this kind of stories are a simple entertainment that uses the
enigma to create a form of evasion that resides, more than anything else, in
waiting for those tics of a character that becomes endearing to us thanks to
his own weaknesses.
If something gives them validity, it
is precisely those recognizable things of someone who is different from
everyone else.
Finally, we do not end up discerning
the plots but we always remember the phrases and gestures of characters that we
will never forget and we wait for the opportunity to see them again in another
episode, unknown or not.
(Mar
del Plata, November 3/ 4, 2023)
Eduardo
Balestena
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