The Beauty of Honest Men
Mythology Goes to the Movies
The past is something I am intimately acquainted with. From the age of 16, to this day, my nose has been stuck somewhere in between the ancients in Mesopotamia, to those lovelies of the Edwardian era. Yes, I get it, that’s a lot of time travel: A big expanse. Which I have added to because of my interest in the “who done it” literature. Classics like Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie, moved the study the past meter up to modern history.
It began when I saw the 1947 movie, And Then There Were None, from the novel by Christie. Next, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, introduced me to film noir in my history of film class. Follow that up with The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett, and I was hooked. On the genre, and the history that surrounded those novels and the movies.
Sam Spade and Phillip Marlow were not cops, but private detectives. They knew many cops, naturally. The male characters featured in these stories, are driven by truth. They are obsessed with finding it. A man obsessed with finding the truth is an honest man. Like a cop, he has seen much of life, of dirty people and tragic situations.
When American TV began producing cop shows, they were what I call, shallow. Those were the days when the powers that be decided people shouldn’t see the real results of crime. In a way, we are still in that modus operandi. Oh, we may we see a bit of blood, and a focused detective on the job, but until Law and Order came along, the internal process was glossed over. Law and Order set a precedent for what is termed, the procedural cop show.
Life is always about the internal process. The thinking, the hunches, the ability to figure people out, is a skill that a good detective has. Like all skills, it begins with a talent that must be developed, with both theory and practice. It is the practice end of things that makes a detective successful at his, or her, trade.
It is nuance that makes for an outstanding detective. And brutal honesty of thought. No wishing, no if only, just the facts ma’am, as Joe Friday used to say.
Reading Christie is an education in the immorality of murder. Through the voice of her famous detective, Hercule Poirot, his inner thoughts, and how they influence his reactions to murder, the reader comes away with an understanding that murder is a heinous crime. Nonetheless, there are situations when the detective has to see it for the big picture event it is. Death on the Nile, and Murder on the Orient Express, both give us a reactionary backstory on the how, and why, of the current tragedy. Not all criminals will receive their just chastisement. So it takes another crime to bring that justice to those who had not received it.
Sometimes the honest man must keep things to himself.
There is a new crop of who done it dramas, coming out of Europe, that I find intriguing. Two are based in historical eras. The first, Vienna Blood, is an Edwardian era drama, based in Vienna, beginning in 1906. It revolves around two characters that one would never guess would team up; the police detective, Oskar Rheinhardt, and the doctor, Max Liebermann. What are these two doing together? Max, the quintessential Jewish doctor, a “Freudian” as he is referred to in the setting of 1906, and Oskar, the quintessential tough guy cop, team up because Max provides motives, and profiles of the criminal character. In other words, Max is a prototype for a profiler or criminologist. The team is also built on friendship, each man offers the other something they don’t have, whilst they are bonded by their common ground:get to the truth so that they can catch the bad guy.
Both men take risks. Physical and personal risks. Both deal with conflicts within their main job. Inspector Rheinhardt has the annoying bureaucracy to deal with. Being an honest man, well, dealing with any bureaucrat is troubling. Bureaucrats have their bosses to deal with, and in most established states, that means corruption. Interestingly enough, in 1906, the Viennese bureaucracy is empire based, and nearing its end. In a dozen years, the empire will come tumbling down, to be replaced by a republic, that in another dozen years, will be under the spell of Adolf Hitler.
Max has the bureaucracy of the medical system to deal with. In 1906, he is considered the odd man due to his new training with Dr. Freud. I love the way some of his fellow physicians, in the hospital, mouth the word, “Freudian” when they direct the term at Max. “Oh, you’re a Freudian.” Oo, nasty stuff there. Of course it can be little disconcerting when the new kid is not only bright, he’s innovative. And now he’s working on murder cases with this Viennese cop. Whoa!
Max is like Oskar. He has to know, not only what happened, but why it happened. That is the BIG QUESTION every detective wants to know, the why of it, because that is motive. The mystery is solved once they figure out opportunity, and can place the perp on site.
Max reminds me of my mother, who constantly asked the question, “Why is that?” She could drive me a little nuts at times. However, it made me think. Which motived me to look at mythology and folk tales differently; to take the gloss off them, and look at them the way that Freudian, Max Liebermann, would see them.
Vienna Blood is from a series of novels written by Frank Tallis. The production team is from UK and Austria. The cast is English, German, Austrian and Australian. Max Liebermann is played by Matthew Beard, Englishman, and Oskar Rheinhardt is played by Austrian actor, Juergen Maurer. Essentially, everyone speaks an Anglo-Saxon language with different accents. Germans and Austrians do quite well in English.
You will find Vienna Blood on Amazon Prime.
Max may be innovative with his new psychological skills, but Il Commissario Ricciardi can see ghosts.
Il Commissario Ricciardi is an Italian production set in Il Duce’s Italy. To say it’s a dark drama is to describe not only the crimes, but the atmosphere as well. Fascist Italy would not be a place I would want to visit. The locale is Napoli. One of the establishing shots they flash at times, is a view of Mount Vesuvius across the bay, puffing out a bit of smoke up into the Mediterranean sky.
Luigi Ricciardi reminds me of the French character, Raphaël Balthazar. In the series from France, Balthazar, a modern French drama, he too, sees ghosts. Balthazar would talk to his ghosts, because most of them are the apparitions of the bodies Balthazar is autopsying. Yes, he is a forensic pathologist, helping the police find the bad guys. Balthazar also sees, and speaks, to his dead wife.
Ricciardi doesn’t speak to his apparitions. For one thing, they are horrible looking. Well, they are murder victims. The magic of these ghosts, and their purpose in the investigation, is that they give Ricciardi a verbal clue. It is the same sentences they will repeat several times to him, whenever he visits the crime scene. As he interviews witnesses and suspects, he listens to learn if anything they say matches the meaning of the ghost’s words.
Ricciardi has a sidekick, who is the sergeant that accompanies him everywhere, during an investigation. In Europe, and in UK, that’s what detective sergeants do; they do the grunt work for their superior. In Italy, the sergeants are in uniform. The commissarios are the equivalent of a Lieutenant Columbo. They lead the investigations, and report to the commissario capo, the captain.
The ghosts work as a device to motivate Ricciardi to solve the crime. As the viewer of the drama, you too will try and solve the puzzle. So remember the phrase the ghost repeats over and over. That is the clue.
The undercurrent in this series is love. Italian style. Which means, traditional behaviors. Like the love interest that won’t knock on the door to ask the young woman out. He just hangs around in the background. You know the kind. Italians think such a guy is a tease, and may be up to no good. Good old dad, or the brothers, will do the honor of knocking on the iffy guy’s door, to tell him either court, and marry, or get lost.
So cut and dried. This is good conduct, which Americans need to relearn. But I digress.
Ricciardi is one of those honest men who is in search of the truth. But he goes beyond the truth, to come to an understanding of the why the murder happened. The law does accommodate the why. That is the purpose of the degrees, or levels, of murder. Premeditated murder is inexcusable. Anywhere. Crimes of passion need compassion. In the first episode of this series, Ricciardo deals with a crime of passion. He handles it with empathy. The mystery is solved, as he finds the truth. And that ghost shuts up, and goes away.
What a magical production for a cop show. The Italy of the 1930s is well done. The story lines are fascinating, because they are Italian storylines. The writer of the novels the series is based on, is Maurizio de Giovanni.
One other item Ricciardi, Oskar, and Balthazar have in common, is that they are played by actors who are just downright gorgeous. Lino Guanciale plays Luigi Ricciardi. He reminds me of the young Christopher Reeves in Superman, with those curly strands of hair on the forehead. Be still my heart! His sergeant, Raffaele Malone is played by Antonio Milo. He too, though an older gent, is a handsome dude. Tomer Sisley, an Israeli living and working in France, who also does standup comedy, plays Raphaël Balthazar.
Juergen Maurer’s Oskar is as manly as they get. And Matthew Beard? I swear this is what my elder grandson will look like when he is a man.
A word of caution on Ricciardi; each episode is nearly 2 hours in length. So wait until you have time to curl up to watch a segment.
Ricciardi, and Balthazar are also on Amazon Prime. All three series have the seal of approval of The History Desk.