The producers of a new public television film about Edgar Allan Poe are counting on the iconic author’s popularity to get their production over the finish line.
“Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive,” starring Denis O’Hare as Poe, is launching a Kickstarter campaign for the month of October and aims to raise $75,000 by 12 midnight (EDT) on Halloween.
“We’re constantly amazed at Poe’s ubiquitous presence on the web,” says the film’s director, Eric Stange. “His worldwide fan base is extremely wide and includes everyone from goths to steam punks to scholars. We’re hoping plenty of them will step up and help us get this project completed.”
The popularity of the film’s star, Denis O’Hare, is also a draw for potential donors, say the filmmakers. O’Hare was recently nominated for an Emmy® for his role in FX’s “American Horror Story,” and has long had a following from his days as the senior vampire Russell Edgington in HBO’s “True Blood.”
Despite Edgar Allan Poe’s fame, many people – including his fans – often have misunderstandings about his life and his work, say the filmmakers. Poe is best known for his horror stories, but he was also a versatile and popular poet, and an influential literary critic and magazine editor.
However, when a scurrilous obituary by a literary rival appeared immediately after his death in 1849, Poe’s false reputation as a drug-addicted, unstable loner was established. The author of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and other classics had a troubled personal life, but the many depictions of him as a dark, demonic character are wrong.
“If Poe the man met Poe the myth on the street, they probably wouldn’t recognize one another,” remarks Hal Poe, one of Poe’s descendants, in the film.
The documentary has received partial support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is slated for broadcast on the PBS series American Masters in 2016. The production is based in Boston, and the drama scenes starring O’Hare were filmed at Castle Island’s Fort Independence in Boston Harbor.
The Kickstarter campaign page for “Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive” can be found at:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2012085870/edgar-allan-poe-buried-alive
