Agracadabra!
Aug. 18th, 2008 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wytchcroftThe Agra Treasure - Len-Film 1982
Part One: Adapatation - Character - Setting and Narrative.
Directed and written by Igor Maslennikov
Starring Vassily Lianov, Vitali Solomin
The Agra Treasure is an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Sign of Four, first published in Lippincott's Magazine as 'The Sign of the Four - or The Problem of the Sholtos' in 1890. The novel itself, with a shortened title, was then published in book form in October of that year as part of the 'Standard Library of Spencer Blackett' collection.
The book received slight reviews in the UK and US but this was more attention than the previous A Study in Scarlet had received. The story was popular enough that Greenhough Smith commissioned Doyle for a series of Holmes stories in the Strand magazine thus establishing the careers of the great detective and his author.
The first cinematic adaptation would appear to be Maurice Elvey's starring Ellie Norwood from 1923.
There have been many other versions since - but despite this The Sign of Four is much less well known than The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Retitled as The Agra Treasure / The treasure of Agra the novel was filmed in Russia in 1982 for LenFilm and starring Vassily Livanov as Holmes. The adaptation was well received as part of a popular series and Livanov's Holmes still has a following today.
The adaptation itself is relatively straight forward using much of Doyle's original dialogue and filmed so as to be faithful to the spirit and letter of the original. However - within the main narrative is a sup-plot involving Irene Adler and using aspects of A Scandal in Bohemia. Purists may dislike the muddying of chronology - but it certainly does not hamper the flow of the filmic narrative itself.
As with the Weintraub production of 1983 starring Ian Richardson all the character names are retained, whereas in the Grenada version of four years later the names of the Four themselves are changed - giving them the name Singh and therefore making them of the Sikh Religion.
Before describing the LenFilm production in detail,it should be noted that the copy available for me to view was very poor visually - I am awaiting the opportunity to watch a higher quality print - and this article will be revised or followed up accordingly.
In comparison to the Hound, Agra opens more darkly with a rain soaked and shadowy Baker Street. However - it is far from the notorious opening of the novel, in which Holmes reaches for the cocaine and Watson argues vehemently with the indolent detective.
If this presents the viewer with a sanitized version of Holmes - it also spares us the now common cliche of the drug-addled Detective. Instead, in their comfortable lodgings Holmes and Watson discuss the effect of Irene Adler and the nature of Sherlock's feelings. That Irene Adler has HAD an effect is noted dryly,
"I successfully failed the case" is how Holmes describes it.
The action is then interrupted by the arrival of Miss Mary Morstan. There is a very humorous response from Watson as he reacts to the appearance of the young woman. Solomin who plays Watson is very adept at shifting his mood and expression from dogged serious enquiry to sudden light relief.
The camera makes the most of these switches - Watson is fairly energetic when attempting to fathom a clue of circle an argument - and so the simple device of jump cutting to a close up of his face jolts both the audience and Watson and enhances Solomin's comedic expressions.
Personally I have never found Solomin to overplay the comedy and therefore such editing techniques do not strike me (as a viewer) as crude or un-necessary.
A western viewer will discover in Agra much less of the tub-thumping humour found in Len-Film's Hound.
What is interesting is the visual introduction of Miss Morstan - since the joke is on Watson (and his reaction) Morstan is portrayed by Yekaterina Zinchenko as a serious but otherwise quite ordinary young woman.
Her desire to retain Watson for the case is simply that she has been told she may bring two friends to her meeting with the mysterious Sholto. In both the Richardson and Brett versions (where the actresses used were, at the time, well known and in-vogue,) Morstan is filmed and photographed to maximise the glamour (a misty lens - diffused lighting) and the reaction to her is meant to be shared by the audience.
The camera also establishes the power dynamic between Holmes and Watson - if Watson is energetic, Holmes is still - and seated. The set of their apartments allows Holmes to have a room above Watson's - and for this to be seen on screen; as Holmes and Watson stand on the stairs, Watson's position is necessarily lower. It is visual short-hand and it also provides an extra three dimensional degree without having to move the camera.
With the case underway the camera moves into the outside world. The London of LenFilm's production is very detailed - postboxes and Police uniforms - but there is also the bustle of life and the energy of the crowd missing from the earlier Hound adaption. Some of this may be visual cliche - the Policeman in question guards a theatre - an unlikely situation in those times but one familiar from many Holmes productions down the years.
Every Holmes presentation must try to balance what is fresh with what is expected - the use of such visuals is to be expected, after all Holmes is famous for conjuring distinct but predictable things; the pipe, the fog, the violin, the slipper, the rush of a hansome cab etc. *
All of this the LenFilm delivers.
And so, Holmes and Watson are thus conveyed through the leafy suburbs of London to an eerily accurate Norwood, and the strange Mr Sholto, introduced by Doyle in the novel using a style reminiscent of Poe.
"A small man with a very high head, a bristle of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp... He writhed his hands together as he stood, and his features were in a perpetual jerk... Nature had given him a pendulous lip and a line of yellow and irregular teeth."
It is indeed typical to link man and animal in Victorian and early Edwardian literature.
A man may be brave as a bear, cunning as a fox - etc. Villains were very often simian in appearance (if not in fact - again see Poe's Murders at the Rue Morgue) and shuffling of gait - yet just as likely to have large heads denoting superior intellect, (a trait carried down into the super-hero comics of today - and joked about in the film Unbreakable.).
Simultaneously conjuring the fear of the bestial and the threat of evil intelligence - gives immediate insight into the fears of the emerging, literate, English middle-class. Doyle retains such imagery in his writings, from the beginning of Holmes' career unto the end; compare the description of Sholto to that of Moriarty mid-way and on to Professor Presbury in The Creeping Man.
But here in the Russian version is where the difference in performance styles between Agra and Hound can really be seen. Sholto is a 'grotesque' and has often been played so - combining the weird with the humorous. However, despite the opportunity for a theatrical presentation, the actor here (Viktor Proskurin) mostly eschews these traits - in favour of a low toned performance much like Livanov's.
His hair is dyed and his dress is eccentric, but not excessively so - and the camera does not dwell on him. There is a moment of unintentional humour as Holmes and Sholto effectively engage in a smoking contest - and, as ever, Livanov is given an oversized pipe far removed those used in the stories. As a signifier it is somewhat redundant... but not unusually so. Such things are not merely the province of Holmes either; Columbo is forced to wear his coat at the silliest of times - Maigret wears a hat when French etiquette would have demanded its removal - and Holmes has a large pipe and a Deerstalker hat.
It is a measure of the films atmospheric success that these unnecessary elements do not jar the viewer too much - the game is afoot and the viewer is held. And this despite the fact that a great deal of the exposition is narrated to us - rather than witnessed. Most likely the budget could not stretch to showing too many scenes from Miss Morstan and Mr Sholto's stories, but the 'fireside' chat - often coupled with the telling of a ghost story is another common element of the presentation of Victorian drama.
In the UK this would be tagged as 'Christmasy', and on television has become something of a tradition,
the recent Christopher Lee (himself a Holmes actor) 'ghost story' presentations being one example - but Holmes adaptations are most often screened during the winter. The idea of a cosy story during the long hours has become welded to the notion of 'Heritage' - the fictitious 'chocolate box' recreation of a by-gone age and the nostalgia that evokes.
Such sentimentalism was common to the reviewers of Holmes even in Conan Doyle's day, under-cutting the complexities to be found within the stories themselves.
Again, it shoud be noted that almost all recreations of Holmes for television and cinema have had to find an audience pleasing balance between the two. The use of distorted angles and reflected images in the Grenada Holmes was one attempt to go to render the 'darker' sub-text of Holmes. In the case of Len-Film it is in the heavy use of chiaroscuro and the intimate camera positions - an effective strategy in scenes such as those at the Sholto residence in Norwood - and later the murder house itself.
*These are of course the clues to Holmes himself...
Starring Vassily Lianov, Vitali Solomin
The Agra Treasure is an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Sign of Four, first published in Lippincott's Magazine as 'The Sign of the Four - or The Problem of the Sholtos' in 1890. The novel itself, with a shortened title, was then published in book form in October of that year as part of the 'Standard Library of Spencer Blackett' collection.
The book received slight reviews in the UK and US but this was more attention than the previous A Study in Scarlet had received. The story was popular enough that Greenhough Smith commissioned Doyle for a series of Holmes stories in the Strand magazine thus establishing the careers of the great detective and his author.
The first cinematic adaptation would appear to be Maurice Elvey's starring Ellie Norwood from 1923.
There have been many other versions since - but despite this The Sign of Four is much less well known than The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Retitled as The Agra Treasure / The treasure of Agra the novel was filmed in Russia in 1982 for LenFilm and starring Vassily Livanov as Holmes. The adaptation was well received as part of a popular series and Livanov's Holmes still has a following today.
The adaptation itself is relatively straight forward using much of Doyle's original dialogue and filmed so as to be faithful to the spirit and letter of the original. However - within the main narrative is a sup-plot involving Irene Adler and using aspects of A Scandal in Bohemia. Purists may dislike the muddying of chronology - but it certainly does not hamper the flow of the filmic narrative itself.
As with the Weintraub production of 1983 starring Ian Richardson all the character names are retained, whereas in the Grenada version of four years later the names of the Four themselves are changed - giving them the name Singh and therefore making them of the Sikh Religion.
Before describing the LenFilm production in detail,it should be noted that the copy available for me to view was very poor visually - I am awaiting the opportunity to watch a higher quality print - and this article will be revised or followed up accordingly.
In comparison to the Hound, Agra opens more darkly with a rain soaked and shadowy Baker Street. However - it is far from the notorious opening of the novel, in which Holmes reaches for the cocaine and Watson argues vehemently with the indolent detective.
If this presents the viewer with a sanitized version of Holmes - it also spares us the now common cliche of the drug-addled Detective. Instead, in their comfortable lodgings Holmes and Watson discuss the effect of Irene Adler and the nature of Sherlock's feelings. That Irene Adler has HAD an effect is noted dryly,
"I successfully failed the case" is how Holmes describes it.
The action is then interrupted by the arrival of Miss Mary Morstan. There is a very humorous response from Watson as he reacts to the appearance of the young woman. Solomin who plays Watson is very adept at shifting his mood and expression from dogged serious enquiry to sudden light relief.
The camera makes the most of these switches - Watson is fairly energetic when attempting to fathom a clue of circle an argument - and so the simple device of jump cutting to a close up of his face jolts both the audience and Watson and enhances Solomin's comedic expressions.
Personally I have never found Solomin to overplay the comedy and therefore such editing techniques do not strike me (as a viewer) as crude or un-necessary.
A western viewer will discover in Agra much less of the tub-thumping humour found in Len-Film's Hound.
What is interesting is the visual introduction of Miss Morstan - since the joke is on Watson (and his reaction) Morstan is portrayed by Yekaterina Zinchenko as a serious but otherwise quite ordinary young woman.
Her desire to retain Watson for the case is simply that she has been told she may bring two friends to her meeting with the mysterious Sholto. In both the Richardson and Brett versions (where the actresses used were, at the time, well known and in-vogue,) Morstan is filmed and photographed to maximise the glamour (a misty lens - diffused lighting) and the reaction to her is meant to be shared by the audience.
The camera also establishes the power dynamic between Holmes and Watson - if Watson is energetic, Holmes is still - and seated. The set of their apartments allows Holmes to have a room above Watson's - and for this to be seen on screen; as Holmes and Watson stand on the stairs, Watson's position is necessarily lower. It is visual short-hand and it also provides an extra three dimensional degree without having to move the camera.
With the case underway the camera moves into the outside world. The London of LenFilm's production is very detailed - postboxes and Police uniforms - but there is also the bustle of life and the energy of the crowd missing from the earlier Hound adaption. Some of this may be visual cliche - the Policeman in question guards a theatre - an unlikely situation in those times but one familiar from many Holmes productions down the years.
Every Holmes presentation must try to balance what is fresh with what is expected - the use of such visuals is to be expected, after all Holmes is famous for conjuring distinct but predictable things; the pipe, the fog, the violin, the slipper, the rush of a hansome cab etc. *
All of this the LenFilm delivers.
And so, Holmes and Watson are thus conveyed through the leafy suburbs of London to an eerily accurate Norwood, and the strange Mr Sholto, introduced by Doyle in the novel using a style reminiscent of Poe.
"A small man with a very high head, a bristle of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp... He writhed his hands together as he stood, and his features were in a perpetual jerk... Nature had given him a pendulous lip and a line of yellow and irregular teeth."
It is indeed typical to link man and animal in Victorian and early Edwardian literature.
A man may be brave as a bear, cunning as a fox - etc. Villains were very often simian in appearance (if not in fact - again see Poe's Murders at the Rue Morgue) and shuffling of gait - yet just as likely to have large heads denoting superior intellect, (a trait carried down into the super-hero comics of today - and joked about in the film Unbreakable.).
Simultaneously conjuring the fear of the bestial and the threat of evil intelligence - gives immediate insight into the fears of the emerging, literate, English middle-class. Doyle retains such imagery in his writings, from the beginning of Holmes' career unto the end; compare the description of Sholto to that of Moriarty mid-way and on to Professor Presbury in The Creeping Man.
But here in the Russian version is where the difference in performance styles between Agra and Hound can really be seen. Sholto is a 'grotesque' and has often been played so - combining the weird with the humorous. However, despite the opportunity for a theatrical presentation, the actor here (Viktor Proskurin) mostly eschews these traits - in favour of a low toned performance much like Livanov's.
His hair is dyed and his dress is eccentric, but not excessively so - and the camera does not dwell on him. There is a moment of unintentional humour as Holmes and Sholto effectively engage in a smoking contest - and, as ever, Livanov is given an oversized pipe far removed those used in the stories. As a signifier it is somewhat redundant... but not unusually so. Such things are not merely the province of Holmes either; Columbo is forced to wear his coat at the silliest of times - Maigret wears a hat when French etiquette would have demanded its removal - and Holmes has a large pipe and a Deerstalker hat.
It is a measure of the films atmospheric success that these unnecessary elements do not jar the viewer too much - the game is afoot and the viewer is held. And this despite the fact that a great deal of the exposition is narrated to us - rather than witnessed. Most likely the budget could not stretch to showing too many scenes from Miss Morstan and Mr Sholto's stories, but the 'fireside' chat - often coupled with the telling of a ghost story is another common element of the presentation of Victorian drama.
In the UK this would be tagged as 'Christmasy', and on television has become something of a tradition,
the recent Christopher Lee (himself a Holmes actor) 'ghost story' presentations being one example - but Holmes adaptations are most often screened during the winter. The idea of a cosy story during the long hours has become welded to the notion of 'Heritage' - the fictitious 'chocolate box' recreation of a by-gone age and the nostalgia that evokes.
Such sentimentalism was common to the reviewers of Holmes even in Conan Doyle's day, under-cutting the complexities to be found within the stories themselves.
Again, it shoud be noted that almost all recreations of Holmes for television and cinema have had to find an audience pleasing balance between the two. The use of distorted angles and reflected images in the Grenada Holmes was one attempt to go to render the 'darker' sub-text of Holmes. In the case of Len-Film it is in the heavy use of chiaroscuro and the intimate camera positions - an effective strategy in scenes such as those at the Sholto residence in Norwood - and later the murder house itself.
End of pt 1.
Part Two will examine Vassily Lianov - and the making of a Victorian Gentleman...*These are of course the clues to Holmes himself...
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 08:25 pm (UTC)Ha ha ha! - cough! -
Quite so.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 08:14 pm (UTC)Actually, when I recently watched this part again (very recently, probably 2 or 3 weeks ago), I unexpectedly - you might remember my criticism of the Hound - liked it.
It _is_ atmospheric, you rightly mention chiaroscuro, it's much more subdued in tone, and it indeed does not jar. There is no grotesque, and humour is mild.
It might also have something to do with a viewer's expectations. The Hound, an undisputable pinnacle of the Canon texts, one has most probably read as a child, when imagination is more vivid and the brain naturally translates words into intermal images. I remember how irritating some of the TV adaptations of Russian classics looked to me when I was a schoolboy. Foreign backgrounds populated by strangers with incongruous voices and weird gestures: no, it cannot be that book which I had read and SAW, sometimes as flashes, sometimes as long scenes in wonderful detail, as the text directed my inner gaze.
So shooting another version of the Hound would be a much bigger challenge than shooting the Sign of Four. Expecting less, and probably remembering less of its melodramatic and lush victorian story, the viewer then suddenly finds out the film is better than his expectations, and takes a liking to it.
It might be you are right thinking that some of the exotic escapades of the Four somewhere on a tropical island were more difficult to film in the times of the USSR. But for me the first scenes and the story as told by Sholto are perfectly allright and true to the book. And Sholto _is_ sufficiently "strange" to recognize an opium addict etc. etc.
"Agra" is probably the "truest" film of the Russian series in the sense that it shows some Russian visualization of the Conan Doyle timeless pair with most fidelity. I will not be able to point any serious distortions or exaggerations, probably.
So when you continue your review and something strikes you as unusual, tell us, you'll be speaking of the parts when Holmes and Watson are not quite as the English would imagine them.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 08:23 pm (UTC)I am hoping that part two;
the construction of a Victorian Gentleman and an exploration of Livanov's portrayal of Holmes,
will be of interest to you particularly:)
ordinary young woman...
Date: 2008-09-15 12:14 am (UTC)To my mind - Miss Mary Morstan in that film - true Englishwoman) "English rose"=) fathomless eyes, wheat hair, delicate blush...
And i cant understand, - why glamours women for Watson?=)
ok, this view at Russia;)
Re: ordinary young woman...
Date: 2008-09-15 12:52 am (UTC)if you watch Sign of Four with Brett/Hardwicke,
Jenny Seagrove (Mary Morstan) filmed with so much 'glow',
almost too much!:)
But that was the 1980s British TV! Very superficial at times!:)
Re: ordinary young woman...
Date: 2008-09-15 01:40 am (UTC)Re: ordinary young woman...
Date: 2008-09-15 12:53 am (UTC)Re: THANK YOU for reading
Date: 2008-09-15 01:45 am (UTC)Качественный блог
Date: 2011-06-05 01:27 am (UTC)Все прикольно сделано!
Date: 2011-07-11 07:10 am (UTC)