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Reviews
Christine (1958)
Operatic version of classic play
Especially if you are German, it is easy to write this film off as one of those kitsch content-free lavish films which filled German cinemas in the 1950s. Firstly, because the star is Romy Schneider, best known as star of the Sissy films broadcast almost every Christmas (about the best you can say of them). Secondly, because it's in colour. Thirdly, because the dubbing in the German version is so good you don't realise that this is originally a French film.
That would be unfair. The film's lush optics and idealised sets are not cinematic candy-floss, but absolutely necessary to set up the final tragedy-
It helps to understand the background. First, the class structure, which made Christine a completely unsuitable match, according to the standards of the time, for anyone in the upper classes. Secondly the honour code of those classes, which obliged them to choose between being murder and losing caste.
The costumes, scenery and nostalgic invocation of a bygone era are a dangerous illusion. But that's the whole point!
The ABC Murders (2018)
Fascinating new version of Poirot
I suppose I am a purist and I've read all Christie's detective stories, some several times. So I ought to hate this adaption.
The basic crime plot in the book is pretty good, but not one of Christie's best. The many changes made in this adaption are neither especially good nor especially bad. They will upset some fans but not me.
BUT what I really like about the adaption is the completely new take on Poirot. You can't say the adaption is "based on Agatha Christie's novel", because it isn't. It is more as if Hercule Poirot was a real person and Agatha Christie his authorised biographer in 1936. 80 years later someone else comes along, discovers a huge cache of new documents, and writes a new biography which makes you see the original Hercule in a completely different way. Why not?
I'm sure many Christie fans will HATE this. Well, if you want Christie and nothing but Christie, why not just read the book?
Sherlock (2010)
Modern Updating which loses too much
NB: I have only watched Series 2, but I don't think I should be obliged to watch everything, which I don't intend doing, before posting a bad review.
The idea of updating the Holmes stories to the 21st century is clever, but it is only worth doing if you get more from the update than you lose. Updating the techology is easy, but there is so much more to the original Holmes stories than gas lamps and hansom cabs. The original Holmes stories were deeply embedded in the intellectual environment of the 19th century, referring to Carlyle or Wynwoode Reade or Jean-Paul or Wagner (to mention just a few examples) far more than other detective stories of the time. Although in the very first pages Conan Doyle seems to have made Holmes a thinking machine like the machine played by Cumberbatch, he rapidly changed this into a much broader, sometimes fallible and human character. Cumberbatch's Sherlock is a pure thinking machine, as if Google were to program a detective bot.
It's typical of this that, at least in Series 2, Cumberbatch's Holmes is unable to act his way out of a paper bag. The original Scandal in Bohemia includes two scenes where Holmes is able to convincingly portray other characters, in a "Scandal in Belgravia", Sherlock attempts one impersonation and is made in five seconds. Sherlock lacks the ability to empathise with others and so cannot act, unlike the original.
In fact, the 19th century fictional detective "Sherlock" most reminds me of is not Holmes, it is Austin Freeman's Dr Thorndyke, who featured in a series of (rather boring) detective stories high on analytical reasoning but lacking all of the other features which made Conan Doyle's stories interesting.
On top of that, the plots are ludicrous. In "The Reichenbach Falls" Sherlock assumes on very little evidence the existence of a simple computer code sufficient to break into all computer security systems. This is pure hokum, worthy of the best 1950s B Movies. (Remember the one about the atomic radiation which caused house-flies to grow as big as elephants? That kind of thing.) Steve Moffat can get away with this kind of thing when he writes episodes for Dr Who, Whovians don't have a problem with Atlantis being destroyed several times over in different ways, or London being invaded by aliens for no particular reason several times a year. But Conan Doyle tried to make his plots, if not plausible, at least appear plausible. The original Holmes was no superman, but based on a lecturer Conan Doyle knew at medical school.
My favorite Holmes: Clive Merrison in the BBC radio series. Against him Cumberbatch is just a caricature.
Heil Caesar! (1973)
Miniseries as Shakespeare might have written it
This review covers all three episodes of "Heil Caesar", not just the first.
This is a version of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, set in an modern democratic state on the verge of descending into fascism. The script is however not Shakespeare's, but has been completely rewritten into modern English with major changes in the plot.
This may seem completely barmy (wby do away with Shakespeare's wonderful language) but actually it works brilliantly. The production reminds me of some Shakespeare productions I have seen in languages other than English, which often seem to be liberated by not having to adhere to the text. Many of the changes relate to modern (1973) technology (for example Brutus is turned against Caesar by a "photostat" as Cassius calls it), or one episode where various torture methods are discussed in the presence of the victim. The overall atmosphere is chilling and I strongly recommend this series to anyone interested in the original play. The acting, especially that of Anthony Bate (Brutus) is magnificent.
I've seen this twice, once a long time ago at school, recently when I discovered someone had kindly put the series on Youtube. BBC, please release this on DVD.