I thought I had moved past this, however with the impending DVD release of Sherlock Holmes (2009), my irritation at people has been renewed. I am referring to the collection of bad reviews that many people, including critics who should no better, have given this movie. Now let me be clear, I am not in any way saying that everyone should like the movie, I’m really not, what bothers me is peoples reasons for disliking the film. If the plot did not move you, fine. If you were underwhelmed by the photography, fine. If the film bored you, fine. However, if you disliked the film because it “betrayed the work of Doyle” or “ruined the character”, then I am afraid I must call Bullshit.
Too many people have taken the way of the literature snob, and so please forgive me if I indulge in a bit of snobbery myself when I say that they are all very very stupid. These are the comments I see so often, allow me to paraphrase and comment.
“It wasn’t like in the books” (No film is, lets stop with this particularly insipid response, this was not a direct adaptation so unbunch yourself)
“Holmes uses his wits not his fists!” (I’ll get to this one later)
“Anybody who liked this has never read the books!” (I wouldn’t say things like this, because people like me will call you out on it)
“A travesty to Doyle and his creation!” (did you know the man personally, then kindly blow this one right out your ass)
“One of literature’s greatest creations reduced to a Victorian batman!” ( I will address this one directly)
“The actors were too young!” (Holmes was 27 when he met Watson in A Study in Scarlett, people need to stop relying on previous film versions for their “literary knowledge”)
Okay, so what these and other comments tell me is that many people all have a different way of saying the same thing, namely,
“I have never read a Sherlock Holmes story in my life. and my opinion ius derived from a combination of skimming the material, seeing other film adaptations, and stealing these ideas from people who I think are smart.”
Now, many professional reviewers have made similar comments in their thoughts on the film. This surprises me, as these are professional people who are paid to write about these things. Yet so many of them claim that Downey Jr.’s performance was nothing like Holmes is supposed to be. I can only surmise that when people say these things that they mean to say “It wasn’t Basil Rathbone” or more correctly, “It wasn’t William Gillette”. You see, Holmes in the original stories was a foul tempered drug abusing misanthrope with a serious god complex and a tendency to do ridiculous things like disguise himself in silly costumes, box his way across Europe and live in marshland caves. In fact, if you remove Batman’s cape and tragic beginnings, then what you have are two characters who are essentially the same. Both are brilliant detectives. Both are more than capable in a fight, and both are supremely aware of how much smarter they are than everyone else. So lets stop bashing this version for turning Holmes into Batman and perhaps get annoyed that Batman has always been an orphaned Holmes with pointy ears and a larger bank account! (this fact might be why I can’t get enough of either character, they satisfy the same pulp craving).
And that is another thing I’ve had it with. Stop saying these stories are “Literature” this is such a tired phrase. These were pulp stories, not high brow art, they were meant to entertain and thrill. Doyle wasn’t the Michael Chabon of the Victorian era, he was the Michael Creighton. (if you think I’m pushing the analogy, both were doctors who wrote about Dinosaurs, and their main characters all think they are smarter than everybody else. Not to mention the sequel to Jurassic Park was named after Doyle’s action adventure dinosaur novel The Lost World).
People are also upset about the physical violence in the film, saying that Holmes rarely if ever fought, and that he thought his way out of situations. Okay, fine, this has some merit, his fighting talents are usually referred to rather than shown, but this is film, we have to make exceptions. Also , it is true that Holmes though his way out of situations rather than fight, and if he did fight it was minimal, he was not a physical person. Just like the time he thought his arch nemesis over a cliff and then thought his way up the side of the waterfall to evade the bullets of his rivals henchman. I’m sorry, but anyone who doesn’t see that the man punched his way through half the brothels and bars in London just to get some information clearly wasn’t reading carefully enough. And if anyone missed the sarcasm up there, Holmes and Moriarity did not have a wordy battle of wits in Switzerland, they grappled like a comic book battle until Holmes overcame his foe and let him fall/tossed him like a rag doll over a cliff.
So lets not here any more wining about the fighting shall we, it is stupid. The man was a pulp hero, and he fought, he fenced, he boxed, he used strange Victorian martial arts and was also known to beat people about the head with a stick if it was the weapon at hand. Holmes was a character of wit, action, and humor. His jibes toward those he felt to be intellectually beneath him (i.e. everybody but his older brother) often made me laugh out loud.
I should also like to address the fact that many people seem to base their opinions on previous adaptations rather than the stories themselves. These adaptations all take liberties, whether it is Watson’s size and intelligence, or Holmes’ manner of dress. the characters are almost always played older than they should be as well. Even the Granada show, hands down the best adaptation of the canon in film or television, played the characters as older than they reasonably should have been, we forgive this one though because Jeremy Brett made Rathbone seeem like a parody of holmes. I don’t know if Downey Jr. took a lot of his manic energy from Brett’s portrayal or if it was just a coincidence of interpretation, but at time they are very similar, much to my enjoyment. Brett will always be the standard for me, so I was pleased to see something of his take in the new film.
Or perhaps this was because both Brett and Downey Jr. were actually trying to creat ea charcter as he was described and realised on the page, hmm, food for thought…
(and I don’t want to hear any crap about me comparing Downey Jr. to Brett, so save it.)
These stories were adventures, a mystery always at the heart of themes, but adventures first and foremost. It was not as if the reader was ever supplied with the clues to figure it out himself, but instead we went along for the ride. Yes, the movie emphasized the physical aspects bit, but no where near as much as some people are claiming. It is a modern film, it must be made as a modern film. If you disliked the movie because of other reasons, I have no quarrel with you. Those things are a matter of taste, and we all have our own, but it really gets to me when someone says they got the character’s wrong, which in my mind was the only thing they got perfectly right. Sure, perhaps Holmes seemed a bit too interested in Adler romantically, but you know what, I expected some liberties.
Yes the plot was silly and melodramatic, but the best pulps are. Still if it didn’t do it for you, that’s what makes horse racing as they say, but if you think they screwed up the characters, then please, pull you head out of your ass and stop the pretense of literacy, we see right through your false sophistication.
I know who you are, you are the same people who think that horror comics shouldn’t use Lovecraft because the medium is beneath his work. You are the people who think Dickens was high art. You are the people who don’t see the fart jokes in Shakespeare or the sex scenes in Chaucer. The people who think Stephen King is a bad writer not because of quality of his craft, but because of the genre. You are the literature snobs, often the cousin of the uninformed expert, so let me close with some more informed snobbery of my own.
I have forgotten more good books than you will ever read, and I have disliked more movies than you will ever deign to see. And while I might be wrong in thinking that this makes me smarter than you, it definitely means I will always have more fun.
Respectfully yours,
Chris Vander Putten, I.S (Informed Snob)
