Singular, Remarkable AND Curious

July 2, 2015 6:32 AM

In advance of Ian McKellen's new take on Sherlock Holmes being released later this month (trailer), The Guardian has published a nice set on infographics on Arthur Conan Doyle's most beloved detective.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI (20 comments total)

I guess when Jojen got stabbed by the wight in sight of the tree from Bran's vision, it reversed aging for Thomas Brodie Sangster so he could repeat his performance as the adorable, precocious moppet from Love Actually, this time as middle school Watson.

Yeah, I'll totally see this.
posted by fatbird at 6:51 AM on July 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

There's a nice meta-gag in the trailer. The actor who plays the movie version of Holmes within the film is Nicholas Rowe from Young Sherlock Holmes.
posted by cazoo at 6:56 AM on July 2, 2015 [13 favorites]

Mod note: Maybe let's not jump into spoilers for GoT here.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:23 AM on July 2, 2015

Also, no Giant Rat of Sumatra spoilers, please
posted by thelonius at 7:48 AM on July 2, 2015 [6 favorites]

Image 16 in the infographic nicely ties to the trailer, where Holmes clarifies he never wore a deerstalker, and prefers cigars rather than a pipe.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:51 AM on July 2, 2015

Okay, can I tell an Ian McKellen-related anecdote here? It's actually pretty funny.

So, at my university we had a long-time, beloved and very witty faculty member who, late in life, looked extraordinarily like McKellen, especially in photographs. This faculty member died a few years ago. A conference room was named for him and decorated with his extensive collection of honorary degrees, weird little tchotchkes and several humorous letters of his. In the hallway is a large (some might say too large - it is really museum scale) very fine head and shoulders portrait of him.

Over heard:

Lost student 1 to lost student 2: Where are we and why is there a giant picture of Magneto on the wall?

(Thereby bringing together my favorite mutant and a favorite faculty member - he really was a darling.)
posted by Frowner at 7:55 AM on July 2, 2015 [11 favorites]

Interesting that the screen appearances graphic features solely characters from the great tradition of English literature. But that must mean English language films?
posted by Major Tom at 8:05 AM on July 2, 2015

The screenplay was cowritten by playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, who I know from Minnesota. In fact, he lives in Minnetonka, and is one of three playwrights associated with Minnetonka, along with Pulitzer-finalist Lee Blessing (who I am also friendly with) and me.

I like both guys a lot, but, man, do they make me feel like I have failed to accomplish.
posted by maxsparber at 8:11 AM on July 2, 2015

I didn't know that about adjective use in the stories (goes off to update his own). Thanks!
posted by Palindromedary at 8:45 AM on July 2, 2015

I read the Holmes canon about two years back. Interestingly, among Holmes's villains are the KKK (Four Orange Pips), the Italian mob (The Six Napoleons), evil unions (The Valley of Fear), and evil Mormons (with the suggestion that all Mormons are bad - A Study in Scarlet).
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:54 AM on July 2, 2015

Very neat, though it's missing an infographic on an important topic in the Holmes canon.
posted by tocts at 9:03 AM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm going to spend the rest of the day puzzling myself over the last infographic. Strong cases to be made on both sides.

but seriously read Scandal in Bohemia first, I mean COME ON.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:35 AM on July 2, 2015

I saw the film (it's already out in the UK) and liked a lot of things about it, but was wary of how it attempts to redefine-- and, in some cases, devalue-- the relationships central to Holmes's character.
posted by Pallas Athena at 9:55 AM on July 2, 2015

I saw this movie during the Seattle Int'l Film Fest a few weeks back, and enjoyed it very much. I went on a man-date with a friend whom I don't get to see that often because of his job, who is a big fan of Holmes and who got me into Holmes more seriously than anything before, particularly with the loan of his DVDs of the mid-1980s Jeremy Brett adaptations (previously on the blue-- many links don't work, but search youtube for the titles).

This one had an interesting story which involved flashing back to a number of different time periods (including a recent post WWII Japan trip by Holmes) , revealed in an almost suspenseful, in any case engaging fashion, even as the main narrative continued apace. Not one of your "game is afoot" Moriarty thrillers for sure, and the not your typical lace-curtain mystery either.

He's the greater authority than I am, and he enjoyed it as much as I did; he loves the post-Conan Doyle works as well-- I guess if one is strictly a fan of Canonical Holmes, well, I guess this can't be for you.

This film is based on Mitch Cullin's book "A Slight Trick of the Mind," which refers to the antagonist of the movie which, strangely, is part of Holmes. Cullin also wrote the novel "Tideland," the basis for the Gilliam movie -- I was going to say "grotty, surreal fantasy Gilliam movie," but what a redundancy that would be.

Re: your link, tocts, here's the QI infocloud on Holmes which includes the references to Holmes' and Watson's, erm, climactic vocal emissions.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:23 AM on July 2, 2015

I should add that the original Deerstalker & Calabash pipe portrayal of Holmes by William Gillette, which began as a stageplay called "Sherlock Holmes," was later made into a silent film with the original cast. The film was recently (last year!) found in a french archive, having been sectioned and edited into a serial format and restored nicely.

I saw that at SIFF as well, and it was unfortunately suffering from the conversion to film-- I suspect the play was wordy, but in silent form, it came off as long and unthrilling, and still quite stage-y-- I can't recommend it with enthusiasm, except maybe the last Episode (of 4, each in 2 parts) which had a nice bit of physical comedy amid the confrontation with Moriarty. I suppose we'll see an DVD/Bluray version of this in the next year or so.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:30 AM on July 2, 2015

I strongly recommend A Slight Trick of the Mind (warning: bleaker than the movie, which I saw in the UK and also enjoyed). Have no clue if it's a response to Michael Chabon's The Final Solution, which is strikingly similar in both its set-up and its implications--both novels juxtapose the comforts of the Holmes stories to the events of WWII, in ways that also poke sharply at the Rathbone/Bruce WWII propaganda films.
posted by thomas j wise at 10:31 AM on July 2, 2015

I read one of the early drafts of this (to underscore how long it takes to go from script to movie in theaters) about ten years ago. A writer friend shared it with me - I don't know why it was crossing his desk. It was crazy well written but most memorably my friend stated his admiration for Holmes, for having written those amazing stories...
posted by From Bklyn at 1:34 PM on July 2, 2015

Best way to get me interested in a Sherlock Holmes adaptation: No deerstalkers
posted by ckape at 1:42 PM on July 2, 2015

"Mr. Holmes," does pay special heed to the differences between the fictional version of Holmes (by which I mean based on the published works of Dr. Watson) vs. the real, living breathing Holmes of the film, including the problem of the deerstalker and pipe.
posted by Sunburnt at 2:39 PM on July 2, 2015

The infographic of most appearances struck me as a little odd, because among the entries is James Bond -- he has over a hundred appearances as a character. A bit of investigation revealed that as well as the Eon series, we of course count the non-canonicals (Never Say Never Again, the 1967 Casino Royale, the Barry Nelson version on TV in 1954, and a bunch of miscellanea -- every time James Bond has popped up in an overseas unlicensed flick, every video game, every time that he has been in a TV comedy sketch. This last bit is intriguing, as I learned that in 1964, on an episode of the UK comedy series "Mainly Millicent", James Bond was played by Roger Moore.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:33 AM on July 3, 2015