Ten Years of Sherlock Holmes
Sep. 12th, 2019 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glitter_n_goreGuy Ritchie's take on Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, is ten years old now. Good lord. How did that happen? And how did I get this far into my blogging life without knowing about #Thirstday? Let's fix that. This post is going to be GIF-heavy.
GIF: RDJ in Victorian garb and dark glasses
Source.
I rewatched both 2009's Sherlock Holmes and 2011's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows earlier this week, not for any particular reason. Maybe the fact that Iron Man's days are over is starting to sink in, and I needed to see RDJ's face again. Maybe it's part of my self-prescribed diet of All Gothic Media All the Time I started last month, the better to psyche myself up for Halloween. (No, not ALL of Victoriana is Gothic, but it's close enough aesthetically to hit the spot.)
Anyway, I started thinking about the cultural impact of Sherlock Holmes, the many incarnations he's gone through over the years, and the public's continued fascination with him. He's one of the most consistently popular fictional characters of all time, so ubiquitous that our modern idioms include the phrase, "No shit, Sherlock," to underscore something painfully obvious. He's also so intrinsically linked with mystery fiction that the genre labels at my library have a little cartoon man with his distinctive hat and pipe.
I myself have read several of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories, including "A Study in Scarlet," "The Red-Headed League," "The Five Orange Pips," and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (my favorite ♥). Also Neil Gaiman's paranormal-tinged graphic novel homage, A Study in Emerald. I've seen a few of the old movies from the 1930s and '40s starring Basil Rathbone. My favorite Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Snowmen," includes a moment of the Eleventh Doctor cosplaying as Holmes when he confronts the Alien of the Week. And I watched enough of BBC's Sherlock to decide I hated it and didn't need more. (I have not yet seen Elementary, but it's on my list.)
GIF: Matt Smith in Sherlock Holmes costume w text "Gotcha"
Source.
I love detective stories. I particularly love the intersection of detective story and penny dreadful that comes out of this literary era. Not surprising when you consider one of Doyle's influences in creating Holmes was Edgar Allan Poe's French consulting detective, C. Auguste Dupin, who first appeared in "The Murders In the Rue Morgue" in 1841. Stories that are well-constructed enough that the characters are actually smarter than the audience, but never talk down to them, are rare and delightful. You have to craft the story in such a way that the audience can see the clues after they've been pointed out, but might not put all the pieces together--and definitely not before the characters themselves. Infodumps at the end of the story where you finally hear someone explain it all are not easy to get right, but incredibly satisfying when they work.
So yeah, I'm a fan. Not as dedicated a fan as Cleolinda Jones, whose review for the 2009 movie you should read, because she knows her Holmes canon much better than I do. But what I am realizing is Downey's Holmes, with all his anachronisms and kickboxing and flop-haired scruffy handsomeness, is in fact my favorite interpretation of the character. Not only that, but Holmes might be my favorite character he's ever played.
It's worth mentioning that, unlike Tony Stark, I genuinely like this character. He's similarly brilliant, obviously good-looking, and occasionally sarcastic, but something about the way Holmes is framed in his own story is so much more appealing to me. He's successful and well respected in his field, sure, but he also has phenomenally poor social skills. His more self-destructive bad habits from the books, like using morphine and cocaine to pass the boredom between cases, were replaced by eccentricities like drinking formaldehyde out of highball glasses and performing inexplicable experiments like this one with the flies and the violin. There's a melancholy desperation in his search to give his life meaning--badly, with many false starts--that's sympathetic somehow.
GIF: Closeup of Holmes plucking violin and staring intently at glass funnel full of flies
Source.
If you haven't seen either of these movies before, it probably goes without saying that it's not an exact adaptation. It's very action-packed and high energy, quite silly in some places, and Holmes himself is often a total awkward mess who doesn't know how to behave around other humans. (With the noted exception of Dr. Watson, of course.) Also, the mystery of Lord Blackwood and his secret society of occult followers does not appear in any of Doyle's works. Still, the characters included here--the slippery thief Irene Adler, the diabolical Professor Moriarty, and hapless chief of police Lestrade--are lifted from the original stories with only a few additions or alterations. Even though Doyle never wrote about this particular case, it's easy to imagine Holmes tackling one like it.
As I always say, the most important aspect of any story is not the plot, but the characters, and both movies are almost defiantly character-driven. The question of What Lord Blackwood Is Up To shapes the events of the first movie, but what really moves the story forward are these people's relationships to each other. Who is this Holmes guy, anyway? Why does he do this kind of work? Why is he compelled to create elaborate experiments at home when there isn't a murder to solve? What is his relationship with Watson and why he is so threatened by the idea of his best friend getting married? Who is Irene to him, and why does he care? Why should we? The answer to all of these is "It's complicated," which is what makes these movies so utterly watchable despite the lack of canon adherence.
Also, Downey is just so damned fun to watch, especially when he's rattling off 19th century non-sequiturs and casually picking apart the secrets of everyone around him.
GIF: Holmes making pained expression w text "Well, now we have a firm grasp of the obvious."
Source.
He brings this balance of slapstick physicality and pin-sharp intellect that you don't see much with other modern Sherlocks. One of the things that left me cold about the modernized BBC version was Benedict Cumberbatch's performance. He plays Holmes so detached and emotionless it was impossible for me to connect to him. That is by design, but there's this pervasive post-Millennial mindset that "smart," and more often "logical," equals "compassionless" or even "mean." It's not an invalid reading of the character, but I dislike it.
It's also a very contemporary invention, that distant, calculating persona. I've seen lot more of the asshole genius type just in the past ten years. It wasn't always that way. If you haven't watched Basil Rathbone in the 1939 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, you should. Rathbone was a horror and suspense icon, but also funny, adept at conveying Holmes's sense of humor and penchant for wacky disguises. He reminds me a lot of David Tennant's take on The Doctor: equal parts brilliance and zaniness, both aloof and charismatic at once.
Downey is like a comfy middle ground between the two. His total lack of filter in both taking in information and spitting it back out makes him difficult company at times, but he also has an obvious affection for his friends. The main conflict in the second film is the way Moriarty uses his few human connections against him, and even gets him to slip up because of it. Holmes's undisguised jealousy of Watson's impending marriage is a major source of tension in both. One wonders if keeping Watson around is an even bigger motivator than the thrill of solving unsolvable crimes.
GIF: Holmes and Watson greeting via handshake and taking off hats
Source.
Now, this is usually the part where I talk about the flaws in the series, the parts that don't hold up as well, or are problematic, or just don't work for me. I will say there are some unfortunate dialogue choices in both movies (repeated use of "midget" in the first, same for "gypsy" in the second) that are impossible to avoid. Whether this happened because of some claim to "historical accuracy" or (more likely) no one bothered to find out they were hurtful, I don't know. Ten years doesn't feel like such a long time that this sort of thing wouldn't happen if it got remade today.
But honestly, that is the only thing I can nitpick. Overall, it's just a good time. I miss the days when film "franchises" didn't stretch out to four movies or longer, even if I happen to like them. This incarnation of the Baker Street sleuth is one of the last one-sequel-and-done cinematic universes we've got, that had a moderate fan following and respectable box office returns. I'm glad I took another look at it. Also, someone find an excuse to put RDJ in Victorian suits and dark glasses again, because he has never looked better.
(Cross-posted torhoda_rants.)
GIF: RDJ in Victorian garb and dark glasses
Source.
I rewatched both 2009's Sherlock Holmes and 2011's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows earlier this week, not for any particular reason. Maybe the fact that Iron Man's days are over is starting to sink in, and I needed to see RDJ's face again. Maybe it's part of my self-prescribed diet of All Gothic Media All the Time I started last month, the better to psyche myself up for Halloween. (No, not ALL of Victoriana is Gothic, but it's close enough aesthetically to hit the spot.)
Anyway, I started thinking about the cultural impact of Sherlock Holmes, the many incarnations he's gone through over the years, and the public's continued fascination with him. He's one of the most consistently popular fictional characters of all time, so ubiquitous that our modern idioms include the phrase, "No shit, Sherlock," to underscore something painfully obvious. He's also so intrinsically linked with mystery fiction that the genre labels at my library have a little cartoon man with his distinctive hat and pipe.
I myself have read several of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories, including "A Study in Scarlet," "The Red-Headed League," "The Five Orange Pips," and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (my favorite ♥). Also Neil Gaiman's paranormal-tinged graphic novel homage, A Study in Emerald. I've seen a few of the old movies from the 1930s and '40s starring Basil Rathbone. My favorite Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Snowmen," includes a moment of the Eleventh Doctor cosplaying as Holmes when he confronts the Alien of the Week. And I watched enough of BBC's Sherlock to decide I hated it and didn't need more. (I have not yet seen Elementary, but it's on my list.)
GIF: Matt Smith in Sherlock Holmes costume w text "Gotcha"
Source.
I love detective stories. I particularly love the intersection of detective story and penny dreadful that comes out of this literary era. Not surprising when you consider one of Doyle's influences in creating Holmes was Edgar Allan Poe's French consulting detective, C. Auguste Dupin, who first appeared in "The Murders In the Rue Morgue" in 1841. Stories that are well-constructed enough that the characters are actually smarter than the audience, but never talk down to them, are rare and delightful. You have to craft the story in such a way that the audience can see the clues after they've been pointed out, but might not put all the pieces together--and definitely not before the characters themselves. Infodumps at the end of the story where you finally hear someone explain it all are not easy to get right, but incredibly satisfying when they work.
So yeah, I'm a fan. Not as dedicated a fan as Cleolinda Jones, whose review for the 2009 movie you should read, because she knows her Holmes canon much better than I do. But what I am realizing is Downey's Holmes, with all his anachronisms and kickboxing and flop-haired scruffy handsomeness, is in fact my favorite interpretation of the character. Not only that, but Holmes might be my favorite character he's ever played.
It's worth mentioning that, unlike Tony Stark, I genuinely like this character. He's similarly brilliant, obviously good-looking, and occasionally sarcastic, but something about the way Holmes is framed in his own story is so much more appealing to me. He's successful and well respected in his field, sure, but he also has phenomenally poor social skills. His more self-destructive bad habits from the books, like using morphine and cocaine to pass the boredom between cases, were replaced by eccentricities like drinking formaldehyde out of highball glasses and performing inexplicable experiments like this one with the flies and the violin. There's a melancholy desperation in his search to give his life meaning--badly, with many false starts--that's sympathetic somehow.
GIF: Closeup of Holmes plucking violin and staring intently at glass funnel full of flies
Source.
If you haven't seen either of these movies before, it probably goes without saying that it's not an exact adaptation. It's very action-packed and high energy, quite silly in some places, and Holmes himself is often a total awkward mess who doesn't know how to behave around other humans. (With the noted exception of Dr. Watson, of course.) Also, the mystery of Lord Blackwood and his secret society of occult followers does not appear in any of Doyle's works. Still, the characters included here--the slippery thief Irene Adler, the diabolical Professor Moriarty, and hapless chief of police Lestrade--are lifted from the original stories with only a few additions or alterations. Even though Doyle never wrote about this particular case, it's easy to imagine Holmes tackling one like it.
As I always say, the most important aspect of any story is not the plot, but the characters, and both movies are almost defiantly character-driven. The question of What Lord Blackwood Is Up To shapes the events of the first movie, but what really moves the story forward are these people's relationships to each other. Who is this Holmes guy, anyway? Why does he do this kind of work? Why is he compelled to create elaborate experiments at home when there isn't a murder to solve? What is his relationship with Watson and why he is so threatened by the idea of his best friend getting married? Who is Irene to him, and why does he care? Why should we? The answer to all of these is "It's complicated," which is what makes these movies so utterly watchable despite the lack of canon adherence.
Also, Downey is just so damned fun to watch, especially when he's rattling off 19th century non-sequiturs and casually picking apart the secrets of everyone around him.
GIF: Holmes making pained expression w text "Well, now we have a firm grasp of the obvious."
Source.
He brings this balance of slapstick physicality and pin-sharp intellect that you don't see much with other modern Sherlocks. One of the things that left me cold about the modernized BBC version was Benedict Cumberbatch's performance. He plays Holmes so detached and emotionless it was impossible for me to connect to him. That is by design, but there's this pervasive post-Millennial mindset that "smart," and more often "logical," equals "compassionless" or even "mean." It's not an invalid reading of the character, but I dislike it.
It's also a very contemporary invention, that distant, calculating persona. I've seen lot more of the asshole genius type just in the past ten years. It wasn't always that way. If you haven't watched Basil Rathbone in the 1939 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, you should. Rathbone was a horror and suspense icon, but also funny, adept at conveying Holmes's sense of humor and penchant for wacky disguises. He reminds me a lot of David Tennant's take on The Doctor: equal parts brilliance and zaniness, both aloof and charismatic at once.
Downey is like a comfy middle ground between the two. His total lack of filter in both taking in information and spitting it back out makes him difficult company at times, but he also has an obvious affection for his friends. The main conflict in the second film is the way Moriarty uses his few human connections against him, and even gets him to slip up because of it. Holmes's undisguised jealousy of Watson's impending marriage is a major source of tension in both. One wonders if keeping Watson around is an even bigger motivator than the thrill of solving unsolvable crimes.
GIF: Holmes and Watson greeting via handshake and taking off hats
Source.
Now, this is usually the part where I talk about the flaws in the series, the parts that don't hold up as well, or are problematic, or just don't work for me. I will say there are some unfortunate dialogue choices in both movies (repeated use of "midget" in the first, same for "gypsy" in the second) that are impossible to avoid. Whether this happened because of some claim to "historical accuracy" or (more likely) no one bothered to find out they were hurtful, I don't know. Ten years doesn't feel like such a long time that this sort of thing wouldn't happen if it got remade today.
But honestly, that is the only thing I can nitpick. Overall, it's just a good time. I miss the days when film "franchises" didn't stretch out to four movies or longer, even if I happen to like them. This incarnation of the Baker Street sleuth is one of the last one-sequel-and-done cinematic universes we've got, that had a moderate fan following and respectable box office returns. I'm glad I took another look at it. Also, someone find an excuse to put RDJ in Victorian suits and dark glasses again, because he has never looked better.
(Cross-posted to
rhoda_rants.)