{"id":425,"date":"2017-11-09T15:04:27","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T15:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/copyright.lboro.ac.uk\/research\/?p=425"},"modified":"2017-11-09T16:21:30","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T16:21:30","slug":"murder-orient-express-go-see-remake-know-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/research\/communication-culture-citizenship\/murder-orient-express-go-see-remake-know-ends\/","title":{"rendered":"Murder on the Orient Express: why go to see remake when we know how it ends?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For the distinguished crime novelist PD James, Agatha Christie\u2019s distinctive contribution to the genre lies not in thematic complexity nor stylistic prowess, but in the meticulous fashioning of mysteries. In her 2009 book Talking About Detective Fiction, James wrote that Christie<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2026 is a literary conjuror who places her pasteboard characters face downwards and shuffles them with practised cunning \u2026 Game after game we are confident that this time we will turn up the card with the face of the true murderer, and time after time she defeats us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If James is correct, however, and the satisfaction of a Christie story comes from its surprising plotting, then Kenneth Branagh\u2019s new film adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express<\/a> would appear to be in difficulty.<\/p>\n

It might be stretching things to claim that the plot of Murder on the Orient Express, written by Christie in 1934, is as familiar as that of Hamlet. Nevertheless, the identity in this instance of \u201cthe true murderer\u201d is part of global cultural knowledge. Branagh\u2019s film is after all merely the latest in a series of adaptations that include work for the big screen (Sidney Lumet\u2019s Oscar-winning 1974 version<\/a>) and for TV (in 2001 and 2010), as well as for BBC Radio (1992-93).
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