Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I just finished watching the original BBC version of THE SINGING DETECTIVE on DVD, the first time I’ve seen it since the mid-‘80s. I remain absolutely humbled by the brilliance of Dennis Potter’s work as a writer, but I’m not 100% sold on Jon Amiel’s direction of the material. He’s good, and he made the most of a low budget, but he doesn’t seem to have the verbal poetic tendencies needed to pull off material this tricky. He didn’t ruin the original by any means... he just didn’t quite sell it.
I love Keith Gordon’s films so far. I think he’s a natural, intuitive filmmaker who has proven quite effective with adaptations, like MOTHER NIGHT, which may be the single great film to be produced from a Vonnegut novel. At any rate, our old friend Uncapie weighed in tonight with a short review of the new film based on Dennis Potter’s own screenplay:
I remember seeing the original six-part, mini-series of Dennis Potter's, "The Singing Detective," in 1986 and found every episode to be more interesting than the next. The complex set of characters and psychological twists and turns in the series held your attention like a cliffhanger ending in a Republic serial. You wanted more. The audience sympathized with the psoriasis ridden writer, "Philip Marlow" wonderfully portrayed by Michael Gambon, exorcising his own personal demons. The new film seems to lack the depth of the series. Granted, six hours is a lot to condense into a two hour film, but whereas you got to know the characters and the plot being peeled away like an onion through layers, this movie hands you everything on the platter at once. The movie version is transplanted to the 1950's where we have the same writer inflicted with the same disease, in a hospital reflecting on his life and his work. He's know as "Dan Dark" this time out and Robert Downey, jr. does a convincing job portraying the tortured soul; a part at which he's had a lot of experience with in his past. 50's rock and roll music is substituted for the 40's tunes in the series and a subplot centering on the "Brain Drain" of atomic scientists is the theme. The musical numbers are creative and fun to watch. Rather than have Downey sing his own songs, he lip-synchs to some of the popular tunes of that time period and its effective. The actors are all incredibly talented from Robin Wright Penn to an almost unrecognizable Mel Gibson in a cameo. Though Katie Holmes who plays "Nurse Mills" looks exactly and sounds like Joanna Whalley who played the same part made me wonder what the casting director was thinking. Overall, I felt that the movie was all "deja-vu." It lost some of its more interesting characters and subtlities in this version. Its like the producers cloned the tv series and didn't include all the ingredients. Its as if they wanted their version to be superior to the original by claiming their remake is more flashier with big name actors. That may be, but if there's no depth to the plot, who cares? That was proven with "Attack Of the Clones" and more recently, "The Matrix Reloaded." But, then again, Louie B. Mayer said, "You can smear feces on celluloid and the public will still go see it." I felt that the movie, though enjoyable, was lacking something. Similar to a nicely designed, but empty box of chocolates. Its great to look at on the outside, but there's nothing inside but wrappers. If you're interested in the production value, excellent performances and dance numbers, watch the film version. If you're interested in plot, depth of character, as well as oustanding acting, I recommend the tv series.
Uncapie
Yikes. I gotta get a look at this one myself. I can’t believe it’s bad. I won’t believe it. *puts fingers in his ears* Nah-nah-nah-nah, I’m-not-listening-to-Uncapie...
"Moriarty" out.
