Reboot, Remake, Recycle Imagine a character being so firmly engrained in popular culture, that you could be sued over the particulars of his emotions. This is what Netflix is facing, as the Conan Doyle Estate is taking legal action, because they feel Henry Cavill, in Enola Holmes, portrays the ‘warmer’ side of the detective that is present in Doyle’s final 10 stories – of which they still have copyright over in the US. This protectiveness of the fictional creation is perhaps not surprising; after all, Guinness World Records have listed Sherlock Holmes as the most portrayed literary human character in film and television history. Doyle’s estate argues that Sherlock evolves as a character over the course of the original stories, but is that also true of the many adaptations made over the last century?
“The approaches taken by 21st century adaptations have been more ambitious, deviating more from Doyle’s stories.” One of the first on-screen appearances of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective was in a series of films starring Basil Rathborne as the lead, and for many, Rathborne is the embodiment of Holmes: dynamic and exciting, yet intelligent and aristocratic. Perhaps 53
RAZZ writer Erin Zammitt tracks the changing faces of Sherlock Holmes and examines how far Sherlock has come since his creation.
because the first film was released only twelve years after the last canonical work by Doyle, Rathborne became so synonymous with Holmes that it arguably defined the rest of his career. The same can be said for Jeremy Brett, who occupied 221B Baker Street from the mid-1980s for a decade, in a TV series for Granada. Brett was praised for his accurate and nuanced portrayal of Sherlock’s complexity, with humour and charm effortlessly balanced with arrogance and impatience. As masterful as his performance was, Brett’s obsessive, manic personality meant that he went to extreme lengths to truly become Holmes, to the detriment of both his physical and mental health. The approaches taken by 21st century adaptations have been more ambitious, deviating more from Doyle’s stories. For example, Guy Ritchie’s 2009 film Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. (and its 2011 sequel) takes the Victorian setting and adds dazzling effects and elaborate fight scenes, with Downey Jr. giving Holmes a unique physicality and rugged swagger. There’s also the long-running TV series Elementary, where the action takes place in contemporary New York City, giving the duo of Watson and Holmes a whole new dynamic as Jonny Lee Miller dons the metaphorical deerstalker and is joined by Lucy Liu as Watson. With 154 episodes over 7 seasons, Miller takes the title of the actor to have played Sherlock Holmes the most.