Legendary documentarian Errol Morris on his explosive John le Carré film: ‘He didn’t want to talk about sex’

Errol Morris, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind genre-defining docs including ‘The Thin Blue Line’ and ‘The Fog of War’, was granted rare access to the spy novelist shortly before he died in 2020. The resulting film, ‘The Pigeon Tunnel’, is an unflinching portrait of a literary great. But the characteristically curmudgeonly Morris isn’t personally sure about its quality, he tells James Mottram

‘I don’t think he intended to die’: John le Carré in Errol Morris’s new documentary ‘The Pigeon Tunnel’ (Apple TV+)

Errol Morris is arguably one of the greatest living documentary filmmakers. The 75-year-old American may also be one of the grumpiest. Films like The Thin Blue Line (1988), about the killing of a Dallas police officer, and his Oscar-winning The Fog of War (2003), about former US secretary of defence Robert McNamara, have changed the way we think about non-fiction films. But when we meet in London to talk about his latest film, The Pigeon Tunnel, an absorbing portrait of John le Carré, author of classic espionage novels A Perfect Spy and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, he’s ready to shred any enquiries he doesn’t like.

I gently ask why Le Carré, whose real name was David Cornwell, wanted to participate in the film, which delves deeply into his personal relations, especially with his father Ronnie. “I find it a crazy question,” Morris retorts. “As if, somehow, I am myself lodged somewhere in his brain. Do I know exactly why he decided to do this interview? No.” Did he never say? “He does say at some point during the interview that I can ask him any question I choose. And he says he will answer any question that I care to ask. He also says he doesn’t want to talk about his sex life! I have to admit, I wasn’t particularly interested in talking about his sex life.”

The film is sculpted around 2016’s The Pigeon Tunnel, Le Carré’s autobiographical account of his early years and his time in the British intelligence services during the Cold War. “I often compare him to [Heart of Darkness author Joseph] Conrad, because here you have a guy travelling the world, interacting with people, with history,” Morris says, admiringly. “And for me, it’s one of the things that makes him this incredibly fascinating character. Not the fact he was f***ing around. I’m sorry. [For that] you get Masters and Johnson to interview him.”