INPERSON
Ushering Poe into the Spotlight
Thad Ciechanowski’ s faithful adaptations bring Edgar Allan Poe to the masses like never before.
By Paul Glasser
Thad Ciechanowski’ s first two film adaptations of works by Edgar Allan Poe won regional Emmy awards, and he hopes to repeat the feat with a third movie later this year.
Since 2011, Ciechanowski, a film editor who lives in Crafton, has been bringing Poe’ s short stories to screens in classrooms throughout the country. The first film was based on“ The Cask of Amontillado,” and in 2013 it won an Emmy for best educational film from the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. In 2015, Ciechanowski’ s adaptation of“ The Raven” also won a Mid-Atlantic Emmy.
“ Having that statue is surreal,” he says.“ Now let’ s move on and go for the next one.”
Poe’ s 1843 short story“ The Tell-Tale Heart” will be the next installment in the series. Ciechanowski is currently raising money to finance the project and hopes to complete the film this year.“ The Tell-Tale Heart” recounts the story of an unknown person who slowly goes insane after committing murder.
Ciechanowski is a fan of Poe and decided to bring his stories into the classroom. There were other educational films based on Poe’ s works, but they were either poor quality or were only loosely based on the original text, according to Ciechanowski.
“ We wanted to stay as close to the original story as we could. That’ s what differentiates [ ours ] from other films,” he says.
Ciechanowski hopes the films will help students recognize how Poe had a significant influence on detective novels and horror stories.“ If you have ever read‘ Sherlock Holmes’ or seen‘ CSI,’ they are all influenced by Poe,” he notes.“ Maybe Poe didn’ t invent horror, but he took it to a whole new level.”
Students across the country read Poe’ s stories and“ The Cask of Amontillado,”“ The Raven” and“ The Tell-Tale Heart” are among his most popular works. Ciechanowski’ s wife is a former teacher and created lesson plans and worksheets for teachers to use in
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