Over the years, I've come to discover than any adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, and whether I like it or not, really keys in on the actor and their choices/direction in portraying the character. Scripts can rise or fall, but there's something in the man himself who must no by off-key when playing along with my inner music that is what Sherlock Holmes means to me. The fascinating thing is that I have liked so many widely differing personality of the character.
Rathbone, Cushing, Stephens, and Attwell all come down on my "liked" list, and if you look at them chronologically, you can see Holmes start to change with the times. While his origins in literature are that of a young professional, starting a career of his own as something of a prodigy, adaptations soon started to want to make him an older man, with the wisdom of a classic male authority figure. Robert Stephens from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes was the first glimmer we had of a Sherlock Holmes who might not be "all that," as Stephens's Holmes points out himself, claiming Watson has over-hyped him in the stories.
Then, of course, came The Seven Per Cent Solution and the idea that for all his gifts, Sherlock Holmes could also be burdened with a drug addiction, a childhood trauma, and deep flaws to somehow balance out his genius. Those themes seemed to come up more and more as Holmes started to be portrayed younger and younger. Benedict Cumberbatch seemed to catch the most perfect and palatable mix of wonder and weirdo, so different from Basil Rathobone and yet popular enough to catch the attention of a generation, just as Rathbone did.
Harry Attwell's Sherlock on the podcast adaptation Sherlock & Co. has become another favorite, starting as a familiar echo of Cumberbatch, but then evolving into something new and yet oh, so Sherlock. Attwell's Holmes is almost childlike at times, silly, but also imperious and commanding at other times because he knows the truth and is acting upon that thing he knows he is not wrong about. That is a fine line for an actor, to hit that part of Holmes and not come off as a complete asshole. (I won't name the actors that I didn't think made that leap, because your mileage may vary.)
There's a steel rod at the core of a Sherlock Holmes that must be there, I think. There are softer, malleable parts around that core that can be molded for a particular adaption, but without that core, I don't think a Sherlock can fully succeed. We never got to see enough of the non-hallucinatory Robert Carlyle version of Sherlock Holmes in CBS's Watson to 100% say that core wasn't there, but one has to wonder how he would have developed in another season had the show not been cancelled.
While we all have our likes and dislikes among our Sherlocks, there must be threads that run through all of the varieties of Sherlock Holmes that we each choose as favorites despite their differences. Those keys for opening the door to 221B Baker Street are what make for any great Sherlock Holmes portrayal when they work for more of us than not, keys that can not only unlock doors, but be played in a new tune that we'll love to hear.
And on Sherlock Holmes will go.
An interesting thought, Brad, that their is a lot that is malleable about Holmes, but there is a solid core around which all else must revolve.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I find most interesting is how that solid core differs between various Sherlockians. We know a couple instances where you and I disagree, which must mean our "cores" are different.