Somebody in the Gift of the Heart for Jeremy Brett group on Facebook just pointed me toward a wonderful interview with Peter Haining, author of many books, including The Television Sherlock Holmes. (Well worth reading, BTW) In the interview he expresses a great deal of admiration for Jeremy Brett who really poured himself into his role as Holmes, but the part that I thought really hit the nail on the head was when he talked about Peter Cushing:
"Peter Cushing...who was very quiet, very gentle, but determined to portray the character in the way he felt was closest to the original author's intention - whereas so many actors want to change a character and imprint themselves on it. If you're dealing with classic figures of fiction, if you want to really carry the audience with you, then go back to the original. It wouldn't be so popular or enduring if the original hadn't got it right in the first place."
Bingo! Mr. Haining, you just expressed in three sentences exactly why I don't care for either Elementary, or Sherlock, or the 2013 Russian series. Note that I'm not necessarily blaming the actors themselves; I'm sure the directors had a great deal to do with the idiosyncratic, quirky portrayals of Holmes that emerge from those shows. And they are original, they are modern, they are whatever. The point is, none of them are Sherlock Holmes to me in the way that Jeremy Brett, Peter Cushing, and Vasily Livanov were - precisely because those are the guys who kept it closest to Doyle's original character.
"Peter Cushing...who was very quiet, very gentle, but determined to portray the character in the way he felt was closest to the original author's intention - whereas so many actors want to change a character and imprint themselves on it. If you're dealing with classic figures of fiction, if you want to really carry the audience with you, then go back to the original. It wouldn't be so popular or enduring if the original hadn't got it right in the first place."
Bingo! Mr. Haining, you just expressed in three sentences exactly why I don't care for either Elementary, or Sherlock, or the 2013 Russian series. Note that I'm not necessarily blaming the actors themselves; I'm sure the directors had a great deal to do with the idiosyncratic, quirky portrayals of Holmes that emerge from those shows. And they are original, they are modern, they are whatever. The point is, none of them are Sherlock Holmes to me in the way that Jeremy Brett, Peter Cushing, and Vasily Livanov were - precisely because those are the guys who kept it closest to Doyle's original character.
