Secrets of suspense... why we've all fallen for The Fall

As the compelling crime drama nears its climax, writer Allan Cubitt and star Gillian Anderson reveal the secrets of suspense to Richard Godwin
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28 May 2013

On the face of it, The Fall has much in common with the new wave of crime thrillers. Like The Killing, Broadchurch and The Bridge, it has a story-line designed to tap into modern anxieties — in this case a serial killer who preys on young professional women. In Gillian Anderson’s investigator, DSI Stella Gibson, it has a first-rate actress in a lead role. In inky black Belfast, it has an evocative location.

And yet, from its eerie opening scene of Anderson, washing away a green face mask, it casts a different spell. This is both a premonition of the unmasking to come and a sign that it will tell the story at its own pace. “What we’re seeing on the screen is so different from how we’ve seen this kind of story told before,” says Anderson. “When I first read the script, it felt oddly removed from all other currents.”

That first episode, broadcast two weeks ago, won BBC2’s largest audience for a new drama since 2005. Last night’s third episode takes us beyond the midway point of the five-part series. Anderson promises that what is to come will only become more compelling.

The director is the Belgian, Jakob Verbruggen, while the writer is Allan Cubitt, who formerly worked on the seminal Prime Suspect. He has taken the unusual move of revealing the identity of the killer at the beginning — which gets round the central flaw of the whodunit as he sees it. “One of the reasons the crime genre appeals is that it allows us to focus on aspects of human motivation forensically — because that’s what you have to do if you want to solve one of these crimes,” says Cubitt. “But usually, because you have to disguise the real culprit from the audience, you rarely have the chance to explore their psychology in any depth. It’s nearly always an anti-climax when you discover who did it. My idea was that if you identify who did it at the beginning, you get to know the victims and you could get to know the killer.”

He is Paul Spector (a chilling Jamie Dornan), a father of two who works as a bereavement counsellor, to all appearances a sensitive modern man, with a sensitive modern beard to match. “I was at pains to create a character who would resonate. I would like to think that people watching it like yourself would find it disturbing precisely because there is a normality about him,” adds Cubitt. Spector’s family are also victims of his crime — the point is emphasised in one unforgettable shot where the camera swoops slowly over the rooms of the family home, like a Death-Eater.

Despite the fact that modern men pride themselves on their emotional literacy, there are still deep undercurrents of violence, Cubitt suggests. “I seem to be reading an awful lot about crimes against women, perpetrated by men. The opportunity to explore that is not only interesting but timely and, dare I say, important.”

It is surely not a coincidence either that in one of the most creepy scenes, Spector watches his young daughter dance to We Found Love, the despondent disco anthem by Rihanna, the most prominent domestic violence victim in the world.

Cubitt describes Spector as a “power-and-control killer” and the themes haunt Gibson herself, who arrives in Belfast projecting sexual and professional confidence. “For Gibson, it’s simply an aspect of patriarchal society that violence against women is commonplace. She doesn’t need to dig much more deeply into this man’s actions, other than to say this is a man who is being violent because he hates women. It is all too common.”

Some viewers have found the subject matter disturbing to the point of being exploitative. Spector specialises in murdering professional women in their thirties, creeping into their homes to do so; it is surely not a coincidence that professional women in their thirties are avid watchers of such crime dramas. Anderson does not feel it manipulates its audience, however. “Completely the opposite,” she says. “More than any other series or film that deals with this subject, it actually looks at the human beings behind the atrocities. We’re actually getting to see women in the midst of their busy, productive lives. You really feel the absolute abomination of the snuffing out of an individual’s life.”

The Belfast setting is a key part of the drama, too. Northern Ireland is already home to a growing film industry — Game of Thrones is also shot there.

“It’s a lovely place to film,” says Anderson. “The people are so welcoming and want so much for their city to be used and seen in a different way — as a contributor to the rest of the world.”

Despite its violent past, Cubitt contends that he chose it more for its small-town innocence. Due to the historic paramilitary presence, people have traditionally left their doors unlocked and let their children play in the streets.

Is it the new Copenhagen? Cubitt is sceptical when I say British drama has been overshadowed by our Danish cousins in recent years. “I don’t want to suggest that Scandinavian drama has been hyped out of all proportion … But I think it probably has. It’s not as if this sort of drama never existed before.”

As for Anderson, she burst out laughing when I suggest that British TV has ground to make up. “It’s hysterical. People complain that the BBC cannot make an American-type series. And it’s true. For some reason, they can’t get the formula right. In America, everybody adores what the BBC puts out — and they can’t figure out why they can’t make programmes like the BBC does.”

AFTER THE FALL

Top of the Lake on BBC2

Mini-series co-written and directed by Jane Campion (The Piano), it stars Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss as a detective searching for a missing, pregnant 12-year-old. Holly Hunter and Peter Mullan co-star.

Expected: June or July.

The Returned on Channel 4

In an Alpine village, the dead come back to life, resuming their former lives apparently unchanged. Supernatural shenanigans fuel Channel 4’s first foray into subtitled foreign-language drama.

Expected: June.

The Americans ITV

Joe Weisberg’s US series follows two KGB agents posing as a suburban couple in Reagan’s America. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell are the spies, and there’s a sexy Mad Men vibe.

Expected: June 1.

Hinterland S4C/BBC

Anglo-Welsh murder drama starring Lark Rise’s Richard Harrington. It has already been bought by DR in Denmark, broadcaster of Borgen and The Killing.

Expected: November 2013 on S4C, 2014 on the BBC.

NICK CURTIS

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