Murder was the case: An exposition.

Dre's seminal piece Murder Was The Case exposes principally though the stream of consciousness narratives of Charlie Murphy and rapper Snoop Doggy Dog themes of murder, infidelity, Faustian demonic pacts, and imprisonment.

After a long panning shot of a gathering of Murphy's, reminiscent of the rolling camera pans of Tarkovsky, the film jumps almost immediately into a still of a voluptuous bosom and a confrontation between the male embodying Eros and the female embodying Thanatos.

The film progresses in an almost biblical style, the woman's infidelities gradually poisoning the male until he too is possessed with Thanatos, represented here by the desire for suicidal revenge. Indeed if one word were to characterise this film it would be self-destruction, the ambulance drivers are intoxicated and negligent, the shop keeper is armed and foolhardy, the gunmen are hoist on their own petard. The destruction reaches an arete just as Satan/Christ appears. This particular painting of the Dark One mirrors the duality of man, Satan here both embodies good and evil; both as the pining Christ and the overbearing devil.

 

We come now to the scene of imprisonment, the timeless narrative is almost a reverse echo of the situation of St Peter. Peter following Eros, makes a pact with God and is freed from his fetters by an Angel in Acts, the unfortunate Snoop sides with the Dark One and from freedom is thrust into chains.