Let's talk about a tidbit first. When Ian McLean talked about Christopher Lee, he mentioned that Lee told Ian that he was an excellent candidate for "Gandalf" when he first met him for filming. Instead of being "Gandalf", he created a great "Saruman". On the contrary, in the roles played by Li, Ian wanted to play "Sherlock Holmes", but although he got his long-cherished wish, it is a pity that his old friend Li died a month before the release of the movie "Mr. work.
Speaking of "Sherlock Holmes", perhaps one of the most popular literary figures in Britain. At least according to the "Guinness World Records" statistics, "Sherlock Holmes" ranks first in the ranking of the most popular literary images on the screen. So far, it has appeared in more than 200 film and television works, and more than 70 actors have played this role. Name, this record is really staggering. Most of us must be more familiar with younger actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr., but the acclaimed classic is Jerry in the 1980s M. Brett, from appearance to temperament to gestures, is almost the deity of "Sherlock Holmes". It is worth mentioning that Christopher Lee, mentioned above, not only played "Sherlock Holmes", but also played his brother "Mycroft Holmes" and "The Hound of the Baskervilles". The "Sir Henry" in the story is also a good talk.
Sherlock Holmes has always been a symbol of wisdom, and is one of the ancestral characters in the Western detective world. In the public's impression, his daring and alert, erudite, humorous and withdrawn are all iconic features. Even works such as "The Great Detective Holmes" and "Sherlock" have been dyed with a layer of "basic affection" and The color of "corruption", but these basic characteristics have not changed, and the stories are all based on the detection of cases. So when a silver-haired, wrinkled, faltering, sluggish-thinking Sherlock Holmes appears in a movie, many viewers probably won't get used to it all at once.
However, "Mr. Sherlock Holmes" precisely shows such an atypical "Sherlock Holmes". This film is adapted from Mickey Collin's novel "Mind Tricks". The background is set in 1947. Sherlock Holmes is already 93 years old, and the old detective who has returned to the forest for more than 30 years is still troubled by some things. . In essence, "Mr. Sherlock" is more like a biopic, and viewers who watch it for suspense and reasoning films may be slightly disappointed. Although the protagonist of the biography is only a virtual character, because we are too familiar with this character, we will feel in a trance that such a real person really exists, and his old age and his slenderness are also taken for granted. feel.
The film's attention to detail makes a good first impression. In the story "Lion's Mane" in Sherlock Holmes, there is a passage of Sherlock Holmes's description of his retirement life: "After I retired to the cottage in Sussex, I had by then lived a quiet life with all my heart and soul. The idyllic life I have often longed for when I lived in gloomy London for many years... My villa is situated in the southern foothills of the Sussex Downs, facing the wide strait. On this promontory, the entire coast All chalk cliffs, the only way to go down to the sea is by a long, rough, steep and slippery trail. At the end of the trail, even at high tide, there is a hundred meters of pebble beach... My villa is lonely. I, the old housekeeper, and my bees, are all the residents of this house.” These descriptions are almost presented in the film, especially when you can see the famous White Cliffs on the south coast of England , that is, "the whole coast is chalky cliffs" mentioned in the novel.
The second good impression the film gives is that Sherlock Holmes seems to be an ordinary old man who has fallen from the altar. This technique of washing away the lead and revealing his humanity is not uncommon in biopics, and is often used on some high-ranking figures. , even in Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy. In the film, Sherlock Holmes has cloudy eyes, a decline in memory, and his hands and feet are no longer neat. He also tried various methods to delay aging, such as drinking royal jelly, making a special trip to Japan to find Iwasan pepper for juice and even injecting it, but in the end, he could only rely on his cuffs. Writing a cheat sheet helps with memory. The end is not chic, but only embarrassed.
In addition to these superficial skills, the director also used a number of clues to shape Sherlock Holmes. The first is to get along with the housekeeper and her son, which is both eccentric and stubborn, and amiable; it can make the housekeeper angry enough to resign, and it can be close to the little boy like grandparents. The second is two old events, one of which is the entanglement with the Umezaki father and son from Japan, and the other is the bizarre death of Mrs. Kelmer. A lot of flashbacks are interspersed in the narration of these two old events. Through Holmes' recollection of the past, he helped others and himself to complete the redemption of his soul.
If the consistent impression of Sherlock Holmes is that the rational side is mostly, then the Sherlock Holmes in this film is more emotional. There is a saying that "people are emotional animals at night", which probably applies to the whole life, and will become emotional with age. Especially in the passages recalling Mrs. Kelmer's case, the softness and humanity revealed by Holmes is quite moving. Of course, compared to the slightly bland plot of "Mr. Sherlock", Ian McLean's performance is the biggest attraction, sometimes with the sharpness of "Magneto", sometimes with the kind eyes of "Gandalf", especially in the performance Sherlock Holmes is very expressive when he is old-fashioned and slow-witted. Watching his famous detective roll on the bedside and twitch helplessly, you realize that no god can escape the clutches of time after all.
♑
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