Sir Henry, an over-confident actor, a son of a political heavy-weight of the stalinist years (the father was one of the authors of the Stalin's Anthem of the Soviet Union and an ideological watchdog), and a man disliked by many today -- bungled his slapstick part badly. Not only had he zero knowledge of real northern americans, but obviously did not care much about that passing role in a not so big a film (maybe; the later success of the series was incredible in the USSR and it remains very popular to this day). He does not manage irony. Laid two fingers thick his distortion becomes grotesque.
The man who did his comic number perfectly, however - in the eyes of a Russian viewer - is Vitaly Solomin as Watson. This is what a quintessential Englishman looks like. Solomin "plays with his face" very much, his delayed reactions are as delightful as his moustache. If you ask me, the pinnacle of that performance is Solomin's Watson hurling smoke grenade (or whaterver it is properly called) into the window of Irene Adler's home. He pauses, head in shoulders, then slaps his hands to clean off any traces of dust from that dangerous object, straightens, and keeping a military spine upright, yells "Fire!" with only lower jaw moving down.
I can be very critical about the rest of the series, but to me Watson is impeccable because to my Russian mind the degree of irony he mixed in his performance is just right.
Saying nothing of Watson is the second big, most glaring omission in your opinion of the Russian series.
Because - I perceive - none of that irony was read by you as the viewer.
This is probably where the difference lies. I appreciate much, say, Jeeves and Wooster series with Fry/Laurie, seen some of the more popular sitcoms (what was that with John Cleeves as a hotellier whose misfortunes peak above Everest), love some of the adaptations of the 19th century classics - take "The Way We Live Now", full of the same irony based on firm realism, the actors just stretch what is natural to become so enjoyably comic, and so putting the viewer into a special detached observer's mood, that of being perennially amused by human fauna around him.
Somehow I can see that in our Russian Watson, less successfully in other characters of the series - and it looks like the feeling did not get conveyed lost maybe in translation or manybe in some sort of forest of cultural cross-codes.
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Date: 2008-09-04 05:08 pm (UTC)The man who did his comic number perfectly, however - in the eyes of a Russian viewer - is Vitaly Solomin as Watson.
This is what a quintessential Englishman looks like. Solomin "plays with his face" very much, his delayed reactions are as delightful as his moustache. If you ask me, the pinnacle of that performance is Solomin's Watson hurling smoke grenade (or whaterver it is properly called) into the window of Irene Adler's home. He pauses, head in shoulders, then slaps his hands to clean off any traces of dust from that dangerous object, straightens, and keeping a military spine upright, yells "Fire!" with only lower jaw moving down.
I can be very critical about the rest of the series, but to me Watson is impeccable because to my Russian mind the degree of irony he mixed in his performance is just right.
Saying nothing of Watson is the second big, most glaring omission in your opinion of the Russian series.
Because - I perceive - none of that irony was read by you as the viewer.
This is probably where the difference lies. I appreciate much, say, Jeeves and Wooster series with Fry/Laurie, seen some of the more popular sitcoms (what was that with John Cleeves as a hotellier whose misfortunes peak above Everest), love some of the adaptations of the 19th century classics - take "The Way We Live Now", full of the same irony based on firm realism, the actors just stretch what is natural to become so enjoyably comic, and so putting the viewer into a special detached observer's mood, that of being perennially amused by human fauna around him.
Somehow I can see that in our Russian Watson, less successfully in other characters of the series - and it looks like the feeling did not get conveyed lost maybe in translation or manybe in some sort of forest of cultural cross-codes.