‘The Pigeon Tunnel’ documentary review: A fascinating portrait of a spy as a novelist

Errol Morris' documentary The Pigeon Tunnel investigates the life of British intelligence agent David Cornwell, better known as John Le Carré. It begins with Cornwell's intriguing notion that interviews are also interrogations. Based on Le Carré's memoir, the film explores his difficult relationship with his father, abandonment by his mother, and his feelings of not belonging. It also delves into the inspirations behind Le Carré's famous books. The Pigeon Tunnel is a captivating look into the life of a great writer.

The Pigeon Tunnel, the epistemological Academy-Award-winning docu-filmmaker Errol Morris’ investigation into the life of British intelligence agent David Cornwell (better known as the bestselling author John Le Carré), begins with Cornwell asking Morris, “Who are you?”

And that sets the tone for this descent into a labyrinth of evasions, half-truths and suppositions. Based on Le Carré’s 2016 memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life, the film begins with Cornwell’s intriguing notion that interviews are also interrogations, which is a way to look at interviews, particularly the adversarial kind.

Starting with the title, which Cornwell says was the working title of almost all his books, to the existential black humour of the final chapter involving the trousers of the Nazi leader, Rudolf Hess, and a secret safe, The Pigeon Tunnel makes for fascinating viewing.

Cornwell’s difficult relationship with his father, Ronald Cornwell, whom he refers to as Ronnie, the trauma of being abandoned by his mother, Olive, when he was five, the succession of stepmothers, Ronnie’s various schemes and frauds, and Cornwell’s constant feeling of not belonging, of leading a double life, make him an ideal recruit for the intelligence service.

The title comes from pigeons who are bred on the roof of a castle in Monte Carlo, where Cornwell’s father took him when he was a boy. The pigeons go through this long, dark tunnel into the air for gentlemen to shoot at. The pigeons that are winged or escape, return to the roof for the whole process to start again, giving a despairing new meaning to the word ‘Sisyphean’.

Insisting his childhood was not tragic, Cornwell quotes Graham Greene, “Childhood is the credit balance of a writer.” There are captivating insights into the inspirations behind Le Carré’s famous books. From Kim Philby’s “murky lamp” that lit his path in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), to teaching at the “low-life prep school” that Cornwell put at the beginning of the book.

There is his father in Rick Pym, the con man father of A Perfect Spy (1986), Magnus Pym. His most famous work, his third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), was born of his disenchantment with the Secret Service and the Cold War. Cornwell was posted in Berlin when the Wall came up. With “all the Nazis wandering around West Germany,” Cornwell wonders “what had we really fought for.” His emotional response to the Berlin Wall, Cornwell says, was “a mixture of anger, disgust and empathy.” The “seamless transition from anti-Nazism to anti-Communism” and “both sides inventing the enemies they need,” fuelled the rush of “blood and anger” to find a fable for the disappointment.