Sherlock Holmes

So last Sunday I finally saw Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes with my parents. I laid my expectations at the door and was actually able to really enjoy myself. It was a great buddy-cop movie. I thought "the dredger" sequence was pretty bad-ass and the bit with the dog was totally silly and cute. Mark Strong was perfect as a self-important, crazypants baddie. I liked that Ritchie kept a few quotes from the stories, the most obvious of which I noticed was the famous observation that, "Crime is common. Logic is rare." (A favorite of mine.) I think Eddie Marsan, who has been steadily impressive in most of the roles I've seen him in (Vera Drake, The New World, Happy-Go-Lucky, The Illusionist), plays a great Lestrade. A little more antagonistic than usual, but that seems to be Marsan's modus operandi and he bulldogs with the best of them. There is also at least one visual (I won't give it away) that is undoubtedly a reference to the great BBC series of the 1980's starring Jeremy Brett. It's some of my favorite television of all time.

Before I get to that though, I have two complaints. Really the only part that fell flat for me was Rachel McAdams as Irena Adler, but that was mostly the purist in me being a stickler for details. Yes, they rewrote her story and much of her character, but I think in essence she is still the woman who outsmarts Sherlock. Despite his mostly asexual and unsympathetic nature, she's the who one gets in. A little. My bigger complaint is how discordant all the violence is with the actual character of Sherlock Holmes. As I said, I did not go into the theater expecting to see Jeremy Brett resurrected on the screen, but the violence (as opposed to rational forethought) was excessive. This is Guy Ritchie's thing though, right? And I get that. But the real Holmes would not have voluntarily entered a boxing match unless there was some motive for doing so, something he needed to know or trust he needed to earn or SOMETHING. He was skilled in basic hand-to-hand combat; he knew baritsu, was a good boxer (Plus sometimes he hit people with his cane) and was a decent shot, too. But Holmes didn't usually resort to violence when he could help it. He had a seriously demented love for dramatically exposing the criminals he hunted, or creating a situation in which they exposed themselves, but he usually avoided going beyond restraining them when he could. In fact, Sherlock often let Scotland Yard and Watson's trusty revolver be the muscle. Oh well. Still fun, if not the total awesome of the print or television series.

Let me back up a bit. Before eighth grade my knowledge of Sherlock Holmes included the apocryphal quip, "Elementary, my dear Watson," and The Great Mouse Detective. Not very extensive. It was in Miss Candee's literature class that I realized how great this series was, introduced to Doyle's brilliance by a baby-voiced woman with a frazzled head of permed brown hair and a stern set of thin lips. She was very sweet, as long as you weren't an asshat in her class. (I was, but she liked me anyway because I actually read what she assigned and cried when we watched The Outsiders. Shut up. Stay gold, Ponyboy.) Anyway, amongst the varied things we read was Arthur Conan Doyle's The Speckled Band.

I can still remember pulling open my reader, not knowing what to expect from this Victorian dude, and then finding myself utterly engrossed in the intrigue. What was the deal with the music? Why were the doors locked? What HAD happened in India? The next day I was so excited to go to class. I wanted to talk about this great mystery and how Holmes had put the whole thing together with a bunch of seemingly insignificant details.

I was and am a nerd. I admit it.

Still, I dug it. And when I did a little more digging to find out that my parents had two full volumes containing all of Holmes' exploits, I spent the next few months intermittently devouring the cases and daydreaming up my own. It wasn't the kind of thing you could read straight through, but they were short enough so that you could read one before bed and plentiful enough that if you got stuck with a rainy afternoon, you'd stay entertained.

Now, I've seen at least one of Basil Rathbone performance as the great amateur and while I acknowledge the importance of his movies in putting Holmes & co. back on the map, I think he's too jovial and sporting and all those other Britishisms. He's too... Rathbone-y. I also saw the made-for-tv movie Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking, starring Rupert Everett. Despite being aired on PBS, I was still embarassed watching that with my parents as the whole movie was about some foot fetishist who was killing women. It was weird, and Everett kept being all Everett-y and sort of dashing, which is to say: all wrong.

So then we get to Jeremy Brett. The only other notable thing I really can remember seeing him in is My Fair Lady. He plays some snobby British dude (surprise!). The point is, I think in some ways Brett was made to play Holmes. While Downey definitely captures the sharp wit, I think he brings a rakishness and romance to Holmes that the character would probably recoil

at. I won't get into the violence thing again, but

needless to say: Sherlock don't play like that.

(So young! So British! So... obscured by impossibly large and frilly hats!)

The BBC series includes (chronologically) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; The Return of Sherlock Holmes; The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes; The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and periodically some feature length films including The Sign of Four, The Hound of Baskervilles, The Master Blackmailer, The Eligible Bachelor, and The Last Vampyre. Throughout all of them (including the last two seasons and several of the films, during which Brett was seriously ill and depressed after the death of his wife) he manages to bring not only the funny, biting snark but also the Holmesian arrogance. Holmesian: a new word that I just made up! Tell your friends! The Holmes that Brett plays is not always a likeable man or one who feels the need to explain or apologize for his decisions. He sometimes takes justice into his own hands. He is erratic and disorganized, but unlike Downey, Brett's Sherlock is still a Victorian man with a deeply ingrained sense of hygiene and decorum (if not the actual sentiment behind that polite behavior). Brett plays the man as capable of exuberance and lethargy; rejoicing in victory and self-flagellating when perplexed. If Brett's Sherlock is arrogant, it is because he has earned the right to be; he is his own judge, jury and executioner when he is less than perfect.

The series feature two Watsons, the second of which is my favorite (after much deliberation and repeated viewings... for science!). Watson was played first by David Burke, who has literally not been in a single other thing I've seen. Judging from his IMDB page, after this part he returned to his previous occupation as a Shakespearean stage actor as well as doing some religious shit before taking an abrupt right turn into the horror genre in the last decade. Weird, but whatever. Burke plays a great Watson. Totally compassionate, a little bit uptight but not at all dim-witted. (I was relieved Ritchie didn't make Watson into a blubbering idiot because there's nothing I hate more. He's a doctor, for God's sake! He fought in India! He's not a goddamned innocent, he's just a fucking gentleman!) Anyway, by the end of the season Burke has a really great repartee with Holmes. He is after all the documentarian, which allows the series to play around with Holmes' warring ego and practicality. He wants Watson to record their adventures so people will acknowledge his genius, but he doesn't want Watson to add his gentrified, typically Victorian touches. He doesn't want his exploits romanticized, and yet in some way he very badly does. Burke and Brett play with this, and Burke manages to get in some very arch wittiness of his own.

After that they switch over to Edward Hardwicke for the rest of the series. Hardwicke sort of looks absolutely nothing like Burke. They don't even really look like they could pass for relatives. Maybe second cousins. Maybe. He apparently showed up in Love Actually as someone's grandfather, and had a part in that fucking atrocious Demi Moore version of The Scarlet Letter but other than he's basically another "who??"

Except that he's not because he's absolutely great as Watson. Whereas Burke is the younger, flustered Watson, Hardwicke is the gentler (if possible), wiser Watson. It's not that Holmes isn't still five steps ahead of him; he is. It's just that Watson has learned by this point that he is just going to have to wait for Holmes to explain what's going on and in the mean time he should probably be keeping his own eyes and ears open, as he is not a complete idiot and has picked up a few observational powers of his own from Holmes. He's still unfailingly polite, but he's also a little more resolute. The dialogue in these later series is also a little more tempered; the men still pick at each other from time to time but while Burke and Brett seem settled into a kind of companionship Hardwicke and Brett truly resemble longtime, war-hardened friends. As they should; they get into enough dangerous scrapes with each other! (Is my nerd showing yet?)

I won't get into the sets and costumes and lighting except to say this show always manages to make me feel completely at ease and submerged in late 19th century England; but I do want to comment about a few supporting characters. Irena Adler, or The Woman, actually only makes one appearance in the first episode (Scandal in Bohemia). She gets the best of Holmes, he respects her, case closed. The actress who plays her is gorgeous (Gayle Hunnicutt: what.a.name), but goes a lot less modern than McAdams' spunky American troublemaker. Maybe McAdams' version is supposed to be a younger version of this character, because by the time we see her in the BBC series she seems a little wistful of her days spent gallivanting around with European princes. She's not undressing in front of anybody, and she's certainly not working for any criminals. She's pretty cool, she just wants to live her life in peace.

Rosalie Williams plays sassy Mrs. Hudson throughout all the series, and she's a great part of what grounds all their adventures in reality. She's the maternal worrying figure and also often the voice of reason. She's easily excitable and not afraid of Holmes, more afraid for Holmes.

Finally, Charles Gray plays Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's equally if not more brilliant but exceptionally sloth-like older brother. We meet him in the first season episode The Greek Interpreter (a pretty harrowing episode, as the forcing-a-woman-to-be-married-and/or-keeping-a-woman-locked-up ones often are). He lives in a club where none of the men speak to each other. A club for loners. First sign of awesome. Second sign of awesome: upon seeing Sherlock they immediately start competing to see who can gather more information just be spying on some guy on the street below Mycroft's window. Third sign of awesome? The guy also played a villian in Diamonds are Forever and was the narrator in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And finally, the fourth and perhaps most awesome sign that Mycroft is awesome: Mutton chops. But in all seriousness, what really makes Mycroft so great is that he clues us in on some important things about Sherlock. He wasn't developed in a petri dish; he was once a schoolboy, he has a sibling rivalry, etc. His relationship with Mycroft adds humor and humanity to a character that otherwise often veers towards austerity and absolutism.

So I think I've said enough. I love all the episodes so it would probably be nigh impossible for me to pick a favorite. I am extremely partial to The Devil's Foot, in which Watson takes Holmes to an isolated ocean town to convalesce after Holmes gives up cocaine and in the course of discovering and solving a case, they both end up tripping balls. It's pretty fucking magical. I of course love Brett's manic energy from the beginning of the series, but I also love his weary sorrow by the end. His genius has a price, and that is that if he is not involved in following harrowing, dangerous criminal exploits he is hopelessly depressed and stagnant. It's sort of a shitty life, when you stop to think about it.

However, when I think of Brett and his performance I look to one amazing moment that I have managed, through the magic of Prnt Scrn and Window's Paint, to capture for everyone. It takes place in the first episode of The Return of Sherlock Holmes, titled The Empty House. Holmes, believed dead after his fight with Moriarty under the Reichenbach Falls, disguises himself as a beggar. After casually interacting with Watson on the street Holmes follows Watson back to his practice where he dramatically reveals himself to be alive. After reviving and warmly greeting a shaken Watson, who swoons at the sight at his formerly dead friend, Holmes admits he's been hunched over to play the stooped old beggar for some time. Then he does this.

Decidely awesome.

(Well, maybe just one more thing. Fun fact: Before he played Dr. John Watson in the 2009 incarnation, a very young Jude Law actually had a small part in one of the episodes in this series. I'm not going to say which one, in the hopes that if you're reading this and you're not a spambot that this nugget will stir the inner Law-fanatic into a frenzy and motivate you to watch the series. I'll give you a hint, though: stableboy.)