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Liz Lu
Writing 39 B
Professor Haas
22
nd
May 2014
Narrator Changes, but Conventions Remain
In his book The Reader and the Detective Story, Scholar George Dove categorizes a
number of conventions that shared by detective fictions, especially Conan Doyles Sherlock
Holmes. One thing he points out is that in reading a detective story, [readers] compulsion to see
how the story turns out is much stronger than in other fiction (18). In the Sherlock Holmes
series, Conan Doyle responses to readers desire of acknowledging through Holmes didactical
speeches every time after he has examined the crime scene. However, the primary audience those
speeches addressed to is John Watson, who represents the original audiences, Victorian Era
middle classes gentlemen. Being different from the time that detective stories just started to
flourish, greater variety is found in modern audience. People from different age groups, and
different cultural backgrounds may not all form empathy with Watson and accept his subjective
worship toward Holmes. However, this problem has been resolved while Sherlock Holmes going
to the film industry. Directors tend to depicture Holmes pure mental process to make the
narrative more objective and convincible. These changes are seen from both BBCs series
Sherlock, which is a contemporary adaptation of Conan Doyles original texts, and the Sherlock
Holmes Movie directed by Guy Ritchie and casted by Robert Downey Jr., an American actor
who is remarked by his screen image as Iron Man. However even with the multimedia updates
for modern audiences, some conventions still hold the ground firmly. They are intellectuality
which featured by sharp and detailed examinations of crime scenes from BBC Sherlocks
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perspective that invite audience to make their own conduction, and also the recreational value
that confirmed by Robert Downey Jr.s mental pre-examination of fighting scenes.
By examining crime scenes through Holmes eyes, audiences are invited to investigate
cases with Holmes more directly. However, it is still hard for them to compete with Holmes
because his thinking process is too quick for audiences to catch up, so the magic trick will not be
spoiled until Holmes explains his scientific deduction. In Conan Doyles original Holmes series,
John Watson plays an important role as the narrator of the stories. It is ironic that most of the
crime scenes in that detective story are observed through a non-detectives eyes. According to
the scholar Leroy Panek, the fragmentary pieces of the evidence are intentionally provided by
Conan Doyle because by hiding key information he was inviting readers to make the wrong
guesses heightened the surprise at the end of the story (94). While Sherlock Holmes walks out
from the book to the big screen, the narrator of stories inevitably changes from Watson to the
camera. Even though the newfound method of telling stories could not simply replace the
Watson perspective that established for one hundred and forty years, cameras could objectively
demonstrate several peoples perspective within a same story and enrich the expression of
emotion of characters. The first crime scene that investigated together by Holmes and Watson in
the BBC Sherlock is from the episode A Study of Pink which is based on the novel A Study in
Scarlet. In the episode, police are confused by serial suicide cases which are apparently related
with each other. Holmes assumes they are all murders but no evidence could confirm his
hypothesis, until a clever victim intentionally leaves her phone with the murderer. By tracking
the missing phone, Holmes finds the killer and makes him to confess. While Holmes examines
the crime scene, director uses an eye-line-match editing technique. Basically, the camera shot
form Homes perspective to demonstrate the process when he investigates the crime scene. At 24:
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30 the camera gives a shot to Holmes eyes when he is gazing the victim and then quickly cut to
extreme close-up shots of the victims body parts with Holmes annotations on the side. Although
he does not say any word, his focuses which demonstrated by a series of extreme close-up shots,
implies the significance of the evidence that he examines. It is quite difference from the novel
where audience often receive raw evidence that coarsely perceived by Watson. However directly
providing key information that examined through Holmes eyes could not spoils the surprise
when Holmes explains his magic trick latterly. It is because the camera perfectly imitates
Holmes thinking process by quickly changing objects. Even though the audiences could have a
full look of what Holmes has seen but they still have no time to make further inference upon
them. Unlike reading a novel, the TV audiences could not easily watch again and again the part
when Holmes examines crime scenes. As a result, the director creates an illusion that even
though we audiences are provided with same evidences and same time as Holmes has, we still
fail to catch up with his brains functioning. This direct comparison effectively idolize Holmess
deductive ability and approves that even without the Watson perspective convention, the BBC
Sherlock still preserves or even enhances the Conan Doyles original purpose of legendizing
Sherlock Holmes.
Another convention from Conan Doyle that saved by modern adaptions is the recreational
value which updated by Holmes fighting shows that preceded by his comprehensive
assessments of the situation. Similarly adopting Holmes perspective of narrating, The Sherlock
Holmes: a game of shadows film which directed by Guy Ritchie in 2011, portrays a most violent
Sherlock Holmes through a great proportion of fight scenes. Having Robert John Downey, Jr.
who is credited by his pre-existing screen image as Ironman cast Sherlock Holmes, a lot of
people criticize that this movie endows Sherlock Holmes an extremely masculine character that
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even twists the detective story into a superhero film. However, if you read the fight senses in
deep with an understanding of the recreational convention of detective genre, you would
recognize directors intention to make Holmes adventure challenging but not dangerous.
Yielded by Scholar George N. Dove in his book The Reader and the Detective Story, that
detective genre generally follows a convention to provide readers an assurance of solution that
makes the story intense but not stressing (7). Like expecting a happy ending at the end of a
Disney movie, audiences are promised by Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes safety during his
adventure. In the movie, starting from 27:20 to 28:04, Holmes practices a fight with a Cossack
assassinator purely in his mind. Unusually, the director adopts a mix of real-time action and slow
motion for Holmes practice of the fight and the real fight happens after. The slow motion refers
an effect used in filmmaking, though which time seems to be slow down. Sound films are usually
shot at a frame rate of 24 per second. With slow motion effect, the number of frames exposed in
each second is increased and the action appears to move slower than normal. In the mental
practice, you could see the assassinators dagger extremely approaches Holmess throat and hear
the metal rings while it across the whole screen. However, at the same time Holmes calmly
explains his defense strategies, and amusingly compares them with cooking techniques. Two
different sound resources are taken in this scene. The metal ring is happens onscreen, but editors
use postsynchronization dubbing to add it latterly in order to make it more screaking and
seems more dangerous. On the other hand, Holmess explanation is a voice over, through
which we could see the speaker in the screen is not actually speaking. Directors often use these
sound tracks to emphasize characters current behaviors. The compression of the dangerous
situation and Holmess calm attitude persuades the audiences of Holmess overwhelming
confidence. So under the help of sounds tracks, the visualization of Holmes thinking process,
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gives the audiences an implication that they can always count on Holmes and his superb
deductions. It confirms with Conan Doyle expectation that his audiences could lay back and
enjoy Holmes adventure without being frightened. During an interview of the Sherlock Holmes
movie, the director Guy Ritchie said when he uses the slow motion technique, time becomes
relative rather than absolute. In other words, once Im shooting at you, adrenaline plays games
with you in your mind as to how long an experience takes. When people are in danger, human
bodies release adrenaline to turn people to an instinctual survival model, by which everything
around becomes slower, and brains lost some consciousness. That is why people report dizzying
when their bodies are in danger. It is this presence of danger makes Sherlock Holmes story more
close to adventure genre. However, by an adventure tendency, I am not mean it becomes an
super hero film. It could be interpreted as that the movie brings Sherlock Holmes out of the
genres parodic stage, where the conventions of the genre have become well-known and
predictable to a revisionist stage, where the establish conventions could be twisted.
Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes series is the father of todays most detective stories, but
when we adapted it to the film industry, some conventions like Watsons importance as a
narrator is inevitably changed. However, most conventions like intellectuality and recreational
value stay the same to confirm with Conan Doyles original intention of inviting audience to
participant and enjoy the adventure with Holmes. And they are achieved by a more direct
depicting of Holmes, in both his psychological activity and physiological expression.








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Work Cited
Dove, George N. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1997. Print.
Panek, Leroy. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1987. Print.
Murphy, Mekado. Guy Ritchie Discusses a Scene From Sherlock Holmes: A Game of
Shadows The New York Times. 15 Dec. 2011. Web. 18 May. 2014.
<http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/guy-ritchie-discusses-a-scene-from-
sherlock-holmes-a-game-of-shadows/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 >