The Case Study of Sherlock Holmes (2009) - Scholarly Commons ...

Blackwood‟s redheaded assistant, and, to the observant, each of its workstations begins
to reveal a part of the mystery. The combustible victim was drenched with gasoline
instead of rain, reacting to the backfire of his weapon, the copper bathtub instigated a
chemical reaction from the bath salts and while a hook suspended the noose that hanged
Lord Blackwood, the villain was under the influence of a strong narcotic, making his
pulse undetectable. Upon observing the laboratory‟s smorgasbord of clues, Sherlock
Holmes would have surely solved the mystery instantly; Sherrinford, as you might
imagine our hero is actually called, however, took a little longer. Nevertheless, by the
end of the film he got his man. Coincidently, or perhaps not, the death of Lord
Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes (2009) mirrors that of Stapleton‟s in The Hound of the
Baskervilles. Both Blackwood and Stapleton meet rather ironic ends, for both of their
deaths, in some way, reflect the supernatural tale that they told. Stapleton presumably
dies upon the moor, sinking into the Grimpen Mire and Blackwood is hanged, rather
dramatically, from the middle of a half built London Bridge. Therefore, in each
narrative, magic is used to entertain and science is used to explain. However, Ritchie‟s
Sherlock Holmes, unlike The Hound of the Baskervilles, overlooked Sherrinford‟s
potential as both the consultant and the conjurer of Baker Street. The contradiction that
is, in essence, the magical effect of Mr Sherlock Holmes.
The magical effect that Watson spoke of in The Sign of Four, published in 1890, stems
from Holmes‟s logical distaste of all things associated with such a fanciful notion.
Sherlock Holmes, as we know from the 1891 short story, The Adventure of the Red-
Headed League (1891/2001c), is a man who lives by Gustav Flaubert‟s old axiom:
“l‟homme c‟est rien – l‟oeuvre c‟est tout”, “man is nothing, his work is everything”.
Sherlock Holmes (2009) attempted to capture the socially disconnected machinations of
Holmes‟s mind through having him spout loosely adapted canonical phrases such as:
“There is nothing of interest, for me, out there, on earth, at all”, and upon seeing the
film‟s femme fatale, Irene Adler: “This mustn‟t register on an emotional level.” Watson
similarly takes part: “You‟re not human.” All instances go undeveloped and simply
leave poor Sherrinford looking oddly eccentric rather then logically detached. The film
disregards the depth in which Holmes‟s profession has become his person. In the canon,
Holmes is depicted as a machine. Considering he is his work and, according to Watson
in first novel, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887, has “brought detection as near an
exact science as it ever will be brought in this world”, Holmes must be the physical
embodiment of scientific reason for which all others, in this instance Blackwood, fall
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