Emotions for the Modern World

Caution: this blog post contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the season two finale of Sherlock, and you think you might potentially watch it one day—which you should—then probably don't read this post. Although, at this point, I'm not sure how you could have possibly kept from hearing any Sherlock spoilers.

As I started talking about in my last post, Sherlock Holmes has inspired a major fan following ever since Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the original stories. Especially in recent years, adaptations of Sherlock Holmes have become very popular. In this post, I want to talk about the 2011 BBC series Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch and the 1984 Granada series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett.

Benedict Cumberbatch

Jeremy Brett

  

Something that I love about Sherlock is that it is focused on Holmes’s intellect and personality. This adaptation focuses more on Holmes’s complex emotional character than any other adaptation. This change in focus has also gained the show one of the biggest Sherlock Holmes’s fan followings.

The contrast between Cumberbatch’s Holmes and the other actors’ is especially apparent when you look at Sherlock side by side with other adaptations. I looked specifically at Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes to contrast with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes.  

The way that I see it, the difference between Sherlock and the other adaptations is mostly in the portrayal of Sherlock Holmes's personality. In The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Holmes is certainly deep down better at everything than the rest of the human population, but he is still someone that you feel like you could have a conversation with without having to run away in tears.

Sherlock, however, has dug a little deeper into the complexities of the man Sherlock Holmes and has taken a discussion of Holmes's personality quirks to a whole new level. The best part is that the audience loved it. I mean, it makes a lot of sense—anyone who is that much smarter than the rest of the world can't possibly act like a normal human being, right?

Just to give some examples to illustrate what I'm talking about, I placed here a few comparisons, using the episode "The Final Problem" from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and "The Reichenbach Fall" from Sherlock. These episodes are both adaptations of the story "The Final Problem." Looking at some scenes side by side clearly shows that Sherlock took a hard right turn to the emotional.

First off, here is a clip of Jeremy Brett's Holmes learning that the police have let his arch-nemesis Moriarty slip through the trap Holmes so carefully set up for them. Note his reaction to their incompetence.

Jeremy Brett "The Final Problem" (The part of this video that I am focusing on here goes from 4:00 until 4:45; I'm still working on the whole video editing thing.)

Now compare that with Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes in Sherlock. This is how he reacts to the incompetence of the police.

Interesting. One of these men is a little more outspoken about his distaste for those "less brilliant" than himself, which, let's face it, is everyone. I'm guessing Brett's Holmes gets invited to a few more parties than Cumberbatch's.

The other comparison I wanted to show was the *SPOILER ALERT* death scene at the end of each of these episodes. In each one, Holmes leaves a note for Watson, but they are presented very differently.

Here is Holmes's goodbye to the world and Watson in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. 

Jeremy Brett death scene "The Final Problem"

And here is Holmes's goodbye to Watson and the world in Sherlock. (Sorry that it's in two different videos.)

As you can see, the scene from Sherlock is much more emotionally charged. That is not to say that The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes wasn't also a great series. It just doesn't have the intensity that Sherlock does.

Why do you think that is? Is it the time period difference? Are people of today more interested in complex emotional characters than the people of thirty+ years ago? This is a question that is still up for discussion.