Aka Saturday 2nd March 2019
No walking or weights today, today was a day of rest
(relatively speaking)…I did some more prep for Tuesday’s interview, just “role
playing” being asked questions and how I’d answer them and reading up on the background
of the policy that the post covers…and I watched the two Robert Downey Jr.
Sherlock Holmes films – ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows’.
My favourite Sherlock is the Jeremy Brett Holmes, partly
because of how well he played Holmes and partly due to good memories of watching
the show as a child, but I think the RDJ Holmes is my second favourite. This
Sherlock is a lot more physical than the traditional portrayal, he even has a
bare-knuckle fight at the first film, and there is a moroseness (or maybe it’s
a world weariness) about him and Watson is harder, with the solider aspects more
to the front.
Both films have great casts and look great, with lots of action
and the trademark Guy Ritchie flash and bangs. But the first film has a nice,
almost traditional Conan Doyle, mystery at its heart. It’s a hyper-realised
Victorian England, but it’s grounded by the characters feeling real and
reacting in believable ways and it’s fun to watch these new versions of old
characters go about their lives and interact and solve the mystery. It’s also very
reminiscent of how Warren Ellis approached Sherlock in a writing exercise (see below). 7.5/10.
Whereas the second film has a lot action, but it feels like action
for action sake rather than for a story/plot, for example, a train carriage is
half destroyed by machine gun fire and explosives, which feels like a blunt
tool of Professor Moriarty to use (although maybe this is to tie into the films
theme of arms escalation and the industrialisation of war?). There’s also more
playing for laughs, laughs that don’t really come and make the film a drag to
watch and make the first half of the film almost as annoying as the
Moffat/Gatiss ‘Sherlock’. But things do pick up a bit once the film focus on the
plot and we’re got past the (re)introduction of the character and the setting up
of the plot. 6/10
…and I did the G2 Crossword:
…and it’s a Christmas Miracle as I don’t have to cheat on
any of the clues!!! A clean sweep!!! About half the answers just came to me and
it only took a bit of extra work from the little grey cells to get the rest.
Will this continue into next week? Let’s find out!
Sherlock Holmes by Warren Ellis:
From: WarrenE@aol.com [mailto:WarrenE@aol.com]
Sent: 18 June 2003 02:08
To: badsignal@lists.flirble.org
Subject: BAD SIGNAL: Lock, Stock And Holmes
bad signal
WARREN ELLIS
badsignal-unsubscribe@lists.flirble.org
This is something I was messing around with a few months
ago. Don't read anything into the screenplay format -- I was trying to find the
tone, and screenplay format suited the attempt to find the particular voice I
was after. (Some things start out
looking like screenplays, some things start out looking like prose, some things
start out as linked monologues. I like
to have as many tools to hand as I can.)
I was messing about with it as a writing exercise, one of
the things that gets the brain moving. I
decided to try and find a way to do a Sherlock Holmes adaptation that might
capture a jaded audience and not echo previous shots. What I ended up with was, if you like, the
Guy Ritchie version -- honest to the book and Conan Doyle's intent to his
characters, while also being honest to the way people actually speak. In particular, letting Watson out of the
strictures of writing and publishing that Conan Doyle was working within in the
19th Century. One did not say Fuck in the magazines of the time – even Jack
London watched his mouth.
Anyway, it's just a bit of fun, and I'm taking it for a bit
of air before it gets backed up onto the Misc. File, never to be seen again.
-- W
FADE IN:
EXT. LONDON DOCKLANDS - 1887
It's bleak and filthy here.
Nineteenth Century London was dark, and busy with swarms of people. So it is here, with dockers going about their
business as a long line of SOLDIERS crocodiles out of a moored ARMY SHIP.
SUPER: 1887
Each of the soldiers passes through a CHECKPOINT that's
really just a wooden table and a seated INSPECTOR, reading through the papers
each soldier provides.
Reaching the checkpoint; DR JOHN WATSON, a lean man in his early
thirties. He stands straight, but is
down on his luck: in a dirty army uniform, with a weakened left arm and a small
battered suitcase in his right hand.
INSPECTOR
Papers.
Watson hands them over.
The Inspector peers through thick little glasses.
INSPECTOR
Captain John Watson.
WATSON
Doctor John Watson. I
received my discharge before boarding.
INSPECTOR
Take the sodding uniform off, then.
Next.
Wearily, Watson trudges off out of the docks, to the streets
beyond.
EXT. LONDON STREET - DAY
Crossing a cobblestoned junction, not too different from the
London of today aside from the horses and the dung, Watson looks around.
WATSON
Good God.
Walks on, sourly.
WATSON
London's still a fucking toilet.
Pushing on through the light crowds, Watson sees a tough
STREET KID yanking the HANDBAG off an older lady.
WATSON
Hey!
The street kid looks him in the eye.
STREET KID
What?
Watson looks around, sees a POLICEMAN clearly turning his back
- can't be bothered.
STREET KID
Got something to say, you gimpy bastard?
The kid pushes Watson in the left shoulder - Watson YELLS
with sudden pain.
STREET KID
Come on then. You
want some?
Watson drops his suitcase as the kid shoves again -- feints
with his left side so that the shove doesn't connect -- and punches the kid in
the head with surprising force. The kid drops backwards, smacking the back of
his head on the cobblestoned street. He
doesn't get up again.
Watson recovers the bag, hands it to the distraught woman.
WATSON
Madam, your handbag.
She's too shocked to speak.
This just doesn't happen in London.
Watson, wincing, lifts his own case and soldiers on.
WATSON
A fucking toilet.
INT. PUB - DAY
A smoky pub, half-full.
Watson is propped in a corner seat, reading a copy of The Strand
magazine. Glaring at it furiously, in
fact. He reads it to himself, as if
that'd make what he's got there the more believable:
WATSON
"…By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his
boots, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression -- by
each of these things the scientific enquirer may plainly reveal a man's calling
and background…"
He looks up, to see a large ROACH crawling across the damp, yellowed
wall next to him. He addresses it.
WATSON
Is callosities even a word?
Honestly, what crap.
He rolls up the newspaper and smacks the roach into pulp with
it, even as he hears someone call his name.
STAMFORD (V/O)
John Watson?
WATSON
Hello?
STAMFORD appears at the table, a very clean young man in a suit,
the very image of the young doctor.
STAMFORD
Dr John Watson? It is
you, isn't it?
WATSON
Is that… you were with me at St Bart's Hospital, weren't
you? Young Stamford?
STAMFORD
Watson, whatever have you been doing with yourself? You're thin as a rake and you look like
you've been roasted on a spit, man.
WATSON
I've just been booted out of the army, Stamford.
STAMFORD
That sounds like call for a drink.
WATSON
Several.
Stamford waves his arm at MARY, the grim woman behind the bar,
eagerly sitting down next to Watson.
STAMFORD
Mary! Two pints of
best over here!
MARY
Get 'em yourself, you bloody layabout!
STAMFORD
They love me here. So
tell. You were in the Afghan War?
WATSON
Army surgeon. Took a
bullet in the left shoulder at Maiwand.
Busted up the bone pretty badly and clipped the subclavian artery.
STAMFORD
Nasty.
WATSON
They got me back across British lines and on to the hospital
train to Peshawar. Which was the worst thing they could have done.
Watson reaches for his beer; just a slight shake in his
hand.
WATSON
Men laying in their own blood and piss and shit,
Stamford. Breeding ground for disease like
you wouldn't believe.
STAMFORD
What happened?
WATSON
Enteric fever. Nine months I was in bed. Had my last rites twice. And with my health
therefore officially irretrievably ruined, here I am back in London, pensioned off.
Stamford laughs and raises his pint.
STAMFORD
Cheers. So what now?
Watson takes some more of his beer, settles back and
considers.
WATSON
Well. No living
relatives in England. Hell, no living friends in England. So, first thing is to
look for somewhere to live, on eleven shillings and sixpence a day. Comfortable rooms at a reasonable price,
anything so long as it's not a bloody tent in Afghanistan…
STAMFORD
Funny. You're the
second man to use that phrase to me today.
WATSON
Tents in Afghanistan?
Don't tell me it's some new slang phrase I have to learn. Doesn't mean anything to do with bums, does
it?
STAMFORD
No. The comfortable
rooms bit. There's a man at the chemical laboratory at Barts right now, and he
was moaning just this morning that he couldn't find anyone to go halves with
him in some nice rooms he couldn't otherwise afford.
WATSON
Well, if he wants someone to share the rooms and the
expense, then, right now, I'll share with anyone who doesn't intend to shoot me
in the subclavian artery.
Stamford looks uncomfortable.
STAMFORD
Yes, well. You'd have
to talk to him about that.
EXT. ST BART'S HOSPITAL - GARDEN - DAY
The gardens surround the ancient old edifice of St Bart's Hospital,
flowers blazing with the first real colour we've seen.
STAMFORD
The St Bart's Gardens still amaze me, y'know. No matter what the state of the rest of
London, they still bloom…
WATSON
You know why, of course?
STAMFORD
Why?
WATSON
Why the gardens are so rich and beautiful, no matter
what? The gardens are planted on mass
graves. Lepers, mostly. Good compost.
Stamford looks around with new eyes, and then hurries into the
building. Watson follows, smiling.
INT. ST BART'S - CORRIDOR
Footsteps echo in here - all marble floors and wooden walls.
The pair walk together, past flocks of nurses.
WATSON
So he's a medical student?
STAMFORD
No. I mean, don't get
me wrong, first-class chemist, excellent anatomist, but he flits in and out of
here like a mayfly. I have no idea what
he intends to go in for.
Some shouting ahead.
STUDENT DOCTORS in white coats running out of the LAB they're approaching,
and down the nearby STAIRS.
STAMFORD
Hey, hey. What's all
the noise?
STUDENT DOCTOR
Your crazy mate's up to something in the morgue!
Watson eyes Stamford sourly, and then they follow. The sign on the stairs shows that they're
descending to the MORGUE:
INT. MORGUE
The morgue's dissecting-room is a separate office within the
larger room of the morgue, big windows allowing one to see clearly inside. There is a door into the dissecting-room, currently
locked, and an aged MORGUE ATTENDANT sits on the floor outside it, tending a
cut lip.
In the dissecting-room, two male corpses are arranged on
benches. And a tall, spidery man in black is waving a cricket bat above them.
His name is SHERLOCK HOLMES.
STAMFORD
What in the name of God is going on?
MORGUE ATTENDANT
He's beating up the dead people, Dr Stamford.
And, true enough, as they stand there, the tall man laughs
out loud and smacks one corpse in the belly with the cricket bat.
WATSON
Bloody hell!
STAMFORD
Get that door open.
MORGUE ATTENDANT
He's locked it from the inside. I tried to stop him, but he smacked me one
and then said if I kept bothering him he'd do an experiment. On me privates, like.
The morgue attendant dissolves into tears, as the others
look up at the lunatic in the dissecting room.
The tall man puts his bat aside and hunches over the body,
peering at the place where he struck.
His eyes narrow. He studies the
area intently.
And then snaps upright, walks to the door, unlocks it, and
greets Stamford with a brilliant smile.
HOLMES
Stamford, old man!
Good to see you. Come in, come in.
I was attempting to conduct an experiment.
WATSON
With a cricket bat?
Holmes looks Watson up and down, as if studying a small turd
placed in his path, and then turns his attention back to Stamford.
HOLMES
It is, you see, extremely important imperative that I know
how long after death the body can produce a bruise. These things matter.
WATSON
So you were slapping corpses with a cricket bat for science.
HOLMES, dismissive
Yes, yes, of course.
Stamford turns to Watson.
STAMFORD
Dr John Watson, I'd like you to meet Sherlock Holmes. He's looking for someone to share an
apartment with.
Watson sags.
WATSON
Good God.
INT. ST BART'S - STAIRS
They head up the stairs.
Holmes, tall and quick, leading the way.
HOLMES
Back from Afghanistan, then?
I trust your recuperation wasn't too distressing.
Watson glares at Stamford.
Stamford puts his hands up, like; how would I have told him?
WATSON
How did you know that?
HOLMES
Doctor, yet clearly military. Your face is darker than your wrists, yet not
the rich tint of a man fresh from the tropics.
Your face is haggard, you are somewhat undernourished, and you hold your
left arm in a stiff manner. Where else
could an army doctor gain and lose a tan, and take an obvious battle injury?
Holmes crests the stairs and turns to grin at Watson with intellectual
triumph.
HOLMES
Plus, I think you've had the shits recently.
WATSON
You sound like a magazine article I just read.
HOLMES
In the Strand?
WATSON
Yes, actually.
HOLMES
I should think so too.
I wrote it.
Watson turns to Stamford.
WATSON
If I give you my service revolver, will you please shoot me
in the head?
###
PLEASE NOTE: THE ABOVE MESSAGE WAS RECEIVED FROM THE
INTERNET.
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