Sherlock Holmes and London Landscapes

This is the last post for this blog devoted to Sherlock Holmes and landscape, seeing as I have explored all Sherlock episodes as well as the two Sherlock Holmes films for ways that landscape has been both shown and used in these two very different adaptations. In this post, I wish to consolidate what I have learnt from this blog, and an area of further thought relating to things that I have studied throughout my Inspirational Landscapes module.

Previously, when watching films or TV dramas, I can honestly say that I haven’t really taken the landscape into account. I’m normally too absorbed into the narrative that it’s merely a backdrop to me! Learning about the different aspects of landscape throughout my Geography degree in terms of the processes working upon it, how the landscape was formed to begin with and so on gave me a one-sided view upon the natural world. I only really saw it as a series of layers with different processes and influences working on them, creating a specific landform or area. However, after taking the module on Inspirational Landscapes, I can now see landscapes in many other ways, and how there are in fact other landscapes present in the world rather than just the natural one. For example, there’s an underlying cultural landscape wherever you look: cities have a number of cultures mixed together; farming in South-East Asia has certain cultural aspects that influence the landscape. Indeed, I touched upon this briefly when in the post about the Sherlock Holmes films, and how Robert Downey Jr uses the market-cum-circus cultural landscape to create his disguise. It’s amazing how the wider picture can be created from many numbers of layers, and how easy it is to forget that these layers exist.

Going back to my main point, I have learnt a lot of things about how landscape has been used in films just by doing this blog on Sherlock Holmes. BBC Sherlock gained the reputation of transforming the way London is shown on screen by showing places in a new light. London is filled with many ugly concrete buildings that tourists don’t tend to see, but they’ve been recreated with the use of clever filters and lighting. For example, Battersea Power Station was used in ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ for the confrontation scene between Dr Watson and Irene Adler, and the inside is shown with grey filters to make it look a lot more interesting. The power station is a bit of a blot on the Southbank landscape, but has been greatly improved. Also, the use of the ‘underground London’ landscape was very interesting, as shown in ‘The Blind Banker’. Contrasted against the CGI-heavily Sherlock Holmes films, I have gained a different take on how these landscapes have been used. From this study of landscape in film, I can say that these skills are transferrable when watching films in the future. I watched ‘Third Star’ a few nights ago, which I have never previously seen before and I really enjoyed it, despite how sad it was at the end. But I felt like I learnt more about the significance of the storyline from looking at the landscape. The group were doing a road trip to a bay in Wales because it was significant, and I was able to see how significant it was to the main character. I’m trying to not give too much away to people who haven’t seen it, but I do recommend it. So that’s what I’ve learnt from writing up this blog.

One thing that I do want to mention is something that I have noticed whilst rewatching the episodes of Sherlock, is that the inside of 221B Baker Street gradually gets messier throughout the episode, therefore as the case progresses. This is more noticeable in the TV series than in the films as there are more scenes based in 221B, and this can be related to the ideas of home and boundaries. The screenshots below help to explain this explicitly, and these have been taken from ‘The Blind Banker’, ‘The Great Game’, and ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’.

‘The Blind Banker’

‘The Great Game’

‘A Scandal in Belgravia’

I am aware that in the books the inside of 221B Baker Street is renowned for being very messy, as it’s the way that Holmes works best in. However, I’ve noticed from watching these episodes that the flat goes through cycles of cleanliness and messiness as cases come and go. This shows that 221B is more than a home to Holmes and Watson, and is increasingly an office; an extension of the laboratory they both work in at St Bart’s. An example of this is in ‘The Great Game’, where Holmes uses both St Bart’s and his ‘private laboratory to solve the first case. Likewise, in ‘The Blind Banker’, the messy mood-board of notes on the wall of the flat indicates that this is more of an office than a place to live, and is a way of bringing the outside in. To Watson, the 221B Baker Street is increasingly like a home to him as he gradually moves his belongings in, shown in many episodes by simply taking charge of domestic situations. An example of this would be in ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’, where the flat is tidy due to there being no explicit case and because it’s Christmas.

The use of the flat as both a home and an office also relates to the idea of boundaries, in the way that Holmes’ has no boundaries to his work as a consulting detective, though his main boundary is within the London boroughs. The boundary between home and work also blurs throughout most episode, as stated above. These are not physical barriers; rather they are placed in the wider landscape by the viewer’s emotions and understandings of each case. This shows that there are more things to think about when studying a TV drama or a film in terms of landscape, especially when the viewer feels a connection between themselves and the visual meaning. There’s a lot more to film than the narrative, the action and the landscape in which it’s all placed in.

To conclude, I have learnt a great deal of things from doing this blog, and I hope that you have too. There’s now a great deal more to look at the next time you watch Sherlock or the Sherlock Holmes films, and I hope that this as helped influence you to look at this yourselves next time. I hope that I have pointed out new things to look at in terms of small details that add to the film, whilst still appreciating the wider picture that film in this new era of cinema creates. Thanks for reading!

I know that the last post on the two Sherlock Holmes was very long, so I promise this one to be a lot shorter! This post has come from a request by thebellatristarchive to do a comparison of ‘A Study in Pink’ and the unaired pilot, which I hadn’t previously thought of doing before as I’d previously not seen it. So last night I watched it on YouTube, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed it, but ‘A Study in Pink’ is so much better compared to the pilot! I found some bits of the dialogue really cheesy, and things felt a bit disjointed for me. You may disagree and say that the pilot was the best episode of Sherlock ever, but to me it was a bit weird and didn’t have the feeling that you’re being sucked into the story like the other episodes as so easy in doing. But, I digress. Let’s talk about landscape!

The reason that this post won’t be very long is that there aren’t many uses of landscape in the pilot. There was more of a focus on the storyline for me, and the locations just weren’t as important compared to ‘A Study in Pink’. There were fewer shots of London landmarks to fill up a few seconds of the episode, which I think leads to the disjointed feeling. It’s difficult as the viewer to ‘place yourself’ into the landscape of action, because you have no idea where you actually are! In the subsequent episodes, I felt like I was in that landscape with Holmes and Watson, whether they were on the tors in Dartmoor or walking across Trafalgar Square. There’s less of an emphasis on the fetished picture of modern London, with little or no use of ‘scenery porn’ – emphasis on backgrounds with great detail and lighting) (TVTropes, 2012). There are, however, examples of the use of locations to set the scene. For example, a shot of the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus was used at the beginning of the scene to introduced John Watson, as well as a regular shot of the Baker Street road sign to begin the scene where Watson sees 221B for the first time.

The latter is the same for all episodes, as it’s a generic shot for Sherlock, but the location of Piccadilly Circus wasn’t used in ‘A Study in Pink’. There’s also a journey to the case in Brixton whereby Holmes and Watson are in a taxi, which uses landscape in the same way as the subsequent episodes, shown below.

The ways in which cinematic landscapes have been used in the pilot aren’t as refined as how they have been used in the subsequent episodes. There’s less of a focus on putting the viewer in a landscape and setting the scene, and more with the narrative, therefore to me it feels a lot less significant and memorable than ‘A Study in Pink’. However, this can help stop the narrative from getting lost in a series of landscape shots, which is linked to Aikten and Zonn’s (1994) idea that modern society can passively observe only a few landscapes in a single film, but they are actively constructed as they’re viewed. This means that the storyline is naturally put into the forefront of the film, and the landscapes used have little significance.

One thing that I do wish to mention is the weird shot of Holmes on top of a building, looking a little bit like a vampire. I must admit, I had to watch that part of the scene several times to 1) stop laughing at how ridiculous it was, and 2) to understand what the hell it was trying to portray. After much deliberation, I believe this was either Watson’s vision of Holmes running from the scene and searching for clues, or it relates possibly to the books.

Seeing as I haven’t read the books yet, I’m taking this as a vision. Holmes is on a tall, gothic building, which to me symbolises importance or being at a substantial height in order to search for things. This shows Holmes possibly as a hero-figure, using his intelligence to ‘find the baddie’. This is another way that film is an escape from reality, linked to Hopkins’ (1994) idea of the creation of a cinematic landscape and how it becomes a misrepresentation of reality through the medium of film. Crang (1998) goes further by saying that films allow new spaces of observation, creating impossible visions that contrast with previous ways of seeing a city, or indeed any landscape. This shows that this vision of Holmes on this building can symbolise many different things in the narrative, depending on if you see this as a vision at all.

Well, I promised you it was a short entry this time! I did enjoy the pilot, seeing as it’s so different to ‘A Study in Pink’, and I really do like the storyline line. I do prefer the released version, mainly for the fact that it flows a lot better than the pilot and really sucks you into the narrative, rather than darting around and making little sense. My last post will be on the ‘landscape’ of 221B Baker Street in Sherlock, and how the flat changes through each episode.

References

Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (1994) ‘Re-presenting the place pastiche’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Crang, M (1998) Cultural Geography London: Routledge

Hopkins, J (1994) ‘A Mapping of Cinematic Places: Icons, Ideology and the Power of (mis)Representation’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

TVTropes.org (2012) ‘Sherlock’ (online) www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki/php/Series/Sherlock (accessed 8/2/2012)

Seeing as this blog is to be a comparison between two different adaptations, it’s probably a good idea to start focusing on the second of these adaptations: Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows. I have chosen to do a comparison between the two in terms of landscape as they have been used in different ways to portray the London landscape. BBC Sherlock has based the narratives against a modern city landscape; the films have used Victorian London as a landscape for action, using it in most cases merely as a backdrop.  Due to this, I’ve chosen to combine the two films together to make a more substantial post. Just a word of warning, my screenshots of the second film aren’t very good due to the poor quality version I got. They’re sort of clear though!

Whilst BBC Sherlock was predominantly marketed to a British audience of all age groups, (though they clearly didn’t anticipate the massive worldwide appeal when ‘A Study in Pink’ was shown two years ago) the Sherlock Holmes films are more towards a teenage to middle age audience, with the possibility of these films being the first experience of the characters. It’s also very Hollywood-esque, with a completely new take on the main characters but still being based around the environment and era in the stories. Directed by Guy Ritchie, who is world-renowned for action films, there’s indeed a violent twist to this film, with many action sequences and fight scenes, and evidence of Holmes using his intelligence to think of the best method to fight his opponent rather than to solve using it wholly to solve crimes. The narrative for both films is set away from the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, though the storyline for Game of Shadows is based on ‘The Final Problem’. The first film’s storyline is a nod towards Victorian crime and suspicion, with the protagonist Lord Blackwood portrayed as an aristocratic serial killer who dabbles with spiritualism and the occult. However, the main point I wish to make is naturally upon landscape, which makes use of a ‘Victorian London’, largely built around remaining Victorian relicts in Liverpool and London, as well as a heavy use of CGI. The London of these films is frequently darker when compared to BBC Sherlock, with the use of a warmer palette of yellows and purples, possibly to symbolise the smog and dirt associated with the time period (Williamson, 2012). The first film is solely based in London, with the second film using the city landscape of Paris as well as wild rural landscapes of Germany and France. But enough context, let’s get into looking into the use of landscape in more detail.

As with before, there have been uses of cinematic landscapes within the two films as scene changes and journeys, with some repetition of the same landscapes in both films and with BBC Sherlock. The beginning of the first film starts with an action chase, with Holmes and the police running towards the scene of a crime. This journey uses shots of London’s cobbled streets, large and grand Victorian buildings in the background, as well as a shot of St Paul’s Cathedral against a night landscape.

This has been done to contextualise the action in a landscape, and to naturally introduce the characters and the surroundings for the rest of the film. This is also the case with ‘introducing’ 221B Baker Street, with shots of the house becoming scene changes, in the same way that Sherlock has used the location of Baker Street for scene changes.

There are also examples of shots of the cityscape as a scene change, which helps to contextualise the narrative within a location for the viewer. Some cityscapes also show Tower Bridge in the foreground, which is a pivotal landscape I will touch upon later on.

Other locations that have also been used for scene changes are The Grand Hotel on Piccadilly Circus and Royal Hospital for Veterans, which have been created to aid the storyline and may not exist.

This can be seen as by Pike (2010) as a way that recent films have clichéd the Victorian era by not developing on proper historical fact, therefore sobering authenticity. However, films are a medium allowing for escaping reality; therefore some aspects of history will inevitably be exaggerated or missed out to aid narrative. In the second film, there’s a shift away from London for much of the narrative and a greater presence in Paris and the French/German border area. Shots of the Tour d’Effiel, Hotel de Triomphe and general cityscape shots of the Parisian landscape have been used as scene changes.

Journeys are also methods of showing a landscape, and are seen quite regularly in both Sherlock Holmes films. The second film uses a scene portraying Holmes and Watson’s journey to Paris by using the backdrop of the White Cliffs of Dover whilst on the boat to symbolise a move away from England.

Its use can also be seen in the context of being a typical English landscape, which is symbolic to many people.

In the first film, however, there’s more emphasis on the use of landscape within the numerous fight and chase scenes that take place. An example of this would be the chase sequence whereby Holmes and Watson are fighting two of Lord Blackwood’s accomplices, one of which Holmes chases across parts of London. Back alleyways and market places have been used to add to the chase. I quite like the use of the upside-down shot by the way, hence why I’ve got screenshots of it.

This chase eventually finds its end in a shipyard, where Blackwood’s accomplice is defeated. The use of landscape in a chase can make the viewer more spatially aware of the film and its key location, this is key in the use of landscape of journeys.

Also, using the shipyard as a place of action and the possible end to a main character is different. Shipbuilding was a very important Victorian career, and yards were once prominent along the Thames’ embankment. Using this landscape keeps in with the idea of this being a Victorian story at heart, and can be linked to Aitken and Zonn’s (1994) idea that the descriptive and narrative rhythm of film works continually to transform place into spaces as landscapes are decentred to accommodate action and spectacle. The shipyard is used as a landscape of action in this film, where in reality nothing like that would’ve happened.

Another example is in the second film, where Holmes, Watson and the gypsies are travelling towards the German/French border in a very rural landscape on horseback. This has elements of a Western film to it, with the lone rangers are shown against a dramatic wilderness.

This has helped to symbolise a journey, with the use of different shots of a familiar landscape being used repeatedly to show movement in a narrative (Hopkins, 1994).

There are also examples in both of these films where there are pivotal landscapes for action. In the first film, the construction of Tower Bridge and its proximity to the Clock Tower at the Houses of Parliament is the key location at the end of the film (in reality, however, Tower Bridge is two miles down the Thames from Clock Tower. But this is film, nothing has to link back to reality). Below are some shots of the end scene which uses the backdrop of the Victorian cityscape on the construction of Tower Bridge as a place of action.

This is a creative use of CGI, and actually looks very realistic in these scenes. Along with the immediate landscape, the sky can also give viewers a clue as to what to expect next. The incoming storm, with the violent cloud formations and dark sky, can suggest a dark, sad or dramatic ending to the scene. This is similar to the way Film Noir uses cities as a way of creating tension in urban backdrops, with the subtle role of creating a nightmare atmosphere (Ford, 1994). During this scene, Holmes has confrontations with Irene Adler and Lord Blackwood concerning different things, and the use of a nightmare landscape could relate to the narrative. The first film definitely follows the stories in terms of its depiction of London as a foggy landscape of mysterious goings-on in hidden realms. The city in the books is a riot of meanings, significance and chaos, which the first film has managed to show well (Crang, 1998).

In contrast, the second film uses rural landscapes as pivotal to the narrative, which is a definite change from the first film. The location of the French/German border saw a dramatic scene where Holmes, Watson and a group of gypsies are being shot at by soldiers as they cross near the border. Below are some screenshots of the action.

A lot of this scene is done in slow-motion so that that the bullets can be seen to nearly miss the ‘heroes’ and instead hit the trees. Using a forest like this for a chase is a good use of location hunting, because trying to hit moving targets is difficult in a wooded area. It’s also quite dark, which adds to the suspense.

Another key landscape to the storyline is right at the end of the film at the Reichenbach Fall, Switzerland. This scene can be compared to BBC Sherlock by the different ways in which this part of the storyline has been portrayed. Whilst BBC Sherlock uses the location of the rooftop of St Bart’s Hospital for the ‘end’ of Holmes and Moriarty, Game of Shadows uses a CGI representation of the fall for where Holmes and Moriarty meet their end by pulling each other over the balcony.

Both of these are effective settings for this part of the story, and certainly add a depressing end to the adaptations.

Whilst there are many uses of landscape within the two Sherlock Holmes films, I’m not going to go through all of them but focus upon the use of the cultural landscape in a scene during the first film. As shown below in the sequence of screenshots, Holmes is using the marketplace and carnival to build up his disguise to find out about secret plans covertly. This disguise leaves him almost unrecognisable to Irene Adler, which allows Holmes to overhear important information from her.

Aitken and Zonn (1994) point out that landscapes portrayed in films aren’t necessarily physical, and spaces are used to reflect the prevailing cultural norms, ethical mores, societal structures and ideologies of a place or period of time. Steenberg (2011) notes that London is Holmes’ ‘magician’s assistant’, providing places to hide, disguises to adept and colourful city dwellers to blend in with. Steenberg also points out that ‘Holmes’ London may be a simulated Hollywood dream, but one that is certainly in keeping with the mischievous urbanity of the Holmes mythology’ (Steenberg, 2011: p126). This scene can give the viewer an idea of the Victorian market and the type of people that use and work in the market, against a backdrop of Holmes using it to build a disguise as a tramp. This further highlights the many uses a city landscape has within film and television, and how it can be in keeping with the original story.

That’s the Sherlock Holmes films now taken care of. I found that there were many instances where BBC Sherlock and the films use the same uses of landscape, hence why this might have fewer pints when compared to previous posts. It was also quite a difficult set of films to watch to look at landscape in relation to Geography, seeing as many examples have been created by CGI to show a Victorian London. Still, it was interesting to do, and I hope you can see the comparisons already between the two adaptations. Next time will be a comparison of the unaired pilot of Sherlock with ‘A Study in Pink’, as suggested by thebellatristarchive!

References
Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (1994) ‘Re-presenting the place pastiche’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Crang, M (1998) Cultural Geography London: Routledge

Ford, L ‘Sunshine and Shadow: Lighting and Colour in the Depiction of Cities on Film’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Hopkins, J (1994) ‘A Mapping of Cinematic Places: Icons, Ideology and the Power of (mis)Representation’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Pike, D.L (2010) ‘Afterimages of the Victorian City’ Journal of Victorian Culture 15 (2) pp254-267

Steenberg, L (2011) ‘Sherlock Holmes (2009): CGI recreation of Baker Street’ in Mitchell, N (2011) World Film Locations: London Bristol: Intellect Books

Williamson, J (2012) The Adventure of the Two Sherlocks www.culturalafterthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/the-two-sherlocks/ (accessed 8/02/12)

So, this is the final episode of series two, ‘The Reichenbach Fall’, and is coincidently the last episode to date of Sherlock. This episode is based on ‘The Final Problem’, and it follows Moriarty’s plan of destruction which involves the discrediting and suicide of Sherlock Holmes. The Reichenbach Falls was the location where Holmes and Moriarty fall to their deaths in the original story. This storyline comes off the greater media attention towards Holmes and Watson in the beginning of this episode, which Moriarty uses to his advantage to simultaneously steal the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London, opening the vault at the Bank of England and opening all the cells at Pentonville Prison. Moriarty manages to get away free from his trial by manipulating the emotions of everyone in the jury, threatening to kill them or their families. Moriarty then creates a series of cases for Holmes, similar to ‘The Great Game’, which results in the police eventually losing trust in Holmes, coupled with a negative media exposé claiming that Moriarty was created by Holmes and that he is in fact an actor. This plummeting media image and the loss of trust culminate in a confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty on St Bart’s Hospital rooftop, and the supposed suicide of both parties. This is a moving episode, ending on a cliffhanger that is likely to be resolved until 2013. There are a few instances where landscape has come into its own here as backdrop to action and as a character in some cases. There are also examples of cinematic space and landscape, which will be discussed below.

There are, again, examples of cinematic landscapes of the London cityscape throughout this episode, which is similar to previous episodes. As mentioned above, Moriarty’s master plan begins with the use of important public buildings in London as the backdrop of the action. These are displayed to the viewer as scene changes, shown below.

This helps to put the viewer into this landscape, and to show buildings which may be unfamiliar to global viewers. These are shot with a deep focus upon the targeted landmarks, which relates to Lukinbeal’s (2005) idea that landscape as place can be depicted in film in extreme wide shots, sometimes with a deep focus, using a bird’s eye view or high angle camera set up. All of these methods have been used in these series to depict landscape as place, helping to set the scene for viewers. Another example of cinematic landscapes shown in scene changes is a shot of Lady Justice, the bronze statue which tops the dome on the Old Bailey, which shows the transition of the narrative to Moriarty’s trial.

This is shown again later on against the cityscape at night, with the courts in the foreground, and is coupled with a daytime shot, showing transition of time into another day.

This can be linked to Natter’s (1994) idea of continuity cutting, whereby shot transitions are marked by matches-on-movement and matches-on-action that promote the illusion of a spatio-temporal continuum. There’s also another cityscape used later on in the episode, which mirrors previous uses of cityscape as a scene transition, as well as being used as a time transition, being two months after Moriarty was allowed to walk free from his crimes.

This helps to push the story along by jumping two months ahead for more action. St Bart’s has again been used as a location for scene change, as with previous episodes.

‘The Reichenbach Fall’ sees the return of Holmes and Watson to a familiar London landscape along with more journeys in cabs, meaning that there are examples of instances where landscapes have been used in reflections and moving shots to add perspective for these journeys and for narrative to continue. An example of this is the journey from 221B Baker Street to St Bart’s, which passes Trafalgar Square and the surrounding area.

Another example of this is the journey to the court, which again passes Trafalgar Square.

I have noticed that Trafalgar Square has been used a lot in Sherlock, especially in journeys. This is due to its central location of Baker Street, St Bart’s Hospital and New Scotland Yard, which are all key locations in the majority of the episodes. It’s also a key London landmark that many people can name. It is important to note that although Sherlock is a BBC-funded mini-series, it has been shared online by many and is readily available to download in high definition for free. This adds geography to the viewers of TV and film (Crang, 1998), where the internet has allowed for Sherlock to be distributed across the globe and communities of fans are connected via social-networking sites and blogs. Therefore, the landscapes used in scene changes and journeys in these episodes have another meaning to them, for they market London to a global tourist market in a unique way and helps to put viewers unfamiliar to some aspects of London’s landscape into perspective.

Another aspect to this episode that interests me is the use of the weather to convey emotions in particular scenes. I have personally not seen the use of weather at this level of detail in any television drama, but I think it adds an interesting perspective and is something that can be looked back on to show emotion. Rain and storminess has been used in scenes to show sadness and depression, and the skies across London during the majority of this episode are cloudy and grey. Although this may not be significant due to the wonderfully grey weather commonly experienced in London, it can show that this episode isn’t going to be a happy one. An example of this is at the beginning of the episode, where Watson is talking to his therapist for the first time in months.

Watson is clearly depressed from Holmes’ suicide, and the storm raging outside the window can help show this. This mirrors the rain starting to fall at the scene of Holmes’ suicide, where rain is mixing with blood on the pavement and can perhaps symbolise tears. It’s quite hard to take a screenshot of rain, but if you watch the scene back you can see it.

Rain can be used as a stereotype for sadness or disaster, which relates to Lukinbeal’s (2005) idea that landscapes used as metaphors can be built upon stereotypes around a particular topic. The topic in question here is sadness and loss of a main character, which is why rain has been used.

As in ‘The Blind Banker’, maps of the metropolitan area have been used in this episode in a sequence for a visual representation of Holmes’ deductions. In this case, Holmes is trying to locate an area where the children of a British ambassador have been hidden, based on a series of clues from their boarding school dormitory room. This is where Holmes enters his ‘mind palace’, to locate the kidnapped children, another ploy by Moriarty to lead to Holmes’ downfall.

This use of a mental map of London is similar to the use of the London A-Z in ‘The Blind Banker’, in that it adds a physical map to London, depicting it in a one-dimensional way. This can be related to Aitken and Zonn’s (1994) idea that places can be represented so as to cut against descriptive meaning and narrative flow, or that can be constructed within cinematic space to be used over and over again in a variety of circumstances. In this instance, the map of London is being ‘projected’ in an office in New Scotland Yard, and is darting around the screen as Holmes is making his deductions.

This episode uses many different landscapes compared to the public London landmarks, which are unknown to the majority of the public, and are used to add tension in some scenes. An example of this is the choice of the disused factories for the children to be hidden in.

These areas, which are situated in the suburbs of London within old industrial centres, are normally difficult to gain access to, and are also the last place the police may look for finding kidnapped children. They are also quite big buildings; hence they add tension within the episode as the police have to search a large number of rooms to find the children. Another example of this is the use of back alleyways during the chase between Holmes and Watson and the police later on in the episode, which eventually leads to Holmes’ downfall. These areas are away from the roads, meaning that Holmes and Watson can hide away whilst they think of a plan.

The use of these landscapes add tension to the narrative, coupled with the music and the situation that Holmes and Watson are in. It places the viewer in a mindset that they want Holmes and Watson to get away from the police, so there will always be an element of tension when a police car does pass by, or the fact that a police officer could be round the next corner. One thing that can be noted about the use of these examples of the unknown landscapes is that they add to the cinematic emotion that London can portray. Brundson (2004) notes that ‘the most evocative and compelling London might have nothing – in production terms – to do with London as a location at all. This is to see London in the cinema with a dramatic look’ (p60). This means that these locations may have not even been filmed in London, but they can add the feeling of actually being in the city with the use of clever production, certain props and lighting to add to the sense of the London landscape in this adaptation. One final use of an unusual or lesser-known location is the final scene with the standoff between Holmes and Moriarty, and the eventual suicides of both characters. St Bart’s is in a central location within the City of London, at a close proximity to St Paul’s, therefore allowing for an impressive backdrop for this scene to take place. The rooftop standoff is quite a long and poignant scene, and the cityscape works as an ideal backdrop for the action to happen upon. It’s also an easy place for both characters to gain access to, which is away from public landscapes to enable the entire ordeal to be carried out. This scene begins with a panning shot, of the rooftop, which places the viewer within the location and adds tension.

Additional shots of the cityscape are also used to be used as a backdrop to the location, as well as the shot of Holmes on the rooftop shown from a distance, which adds a scale to the narrative and the action that is about to unfold.

The use of rooftop locations for crime can develop the theme of isolation and separateness in the midst of the big city (Ford, 1994). It is this feeling which allows for the supposed suicides of Holmes and Moriarty to take place, with Holmes’ being more dramatic in effect.

So, that’s Sherlock over and done with. The next two posts will be based around the Sherlock Holmes films, directed by Guy Ritchie. Thanks again to everyone reading this, or at least liking the posts I’ve been making!

References

Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (1994) ‘Re-presenting the place pastiche’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Brunsdon, C (2004) ‘The Poignancy of Place: London and the Cinema’ Visual Culture in Britain 5 (1) pp59-73

Crang, M (1998) Cultural Geography London: Routledge

Ford, L ‘Sunshine and Shadow: Lighting and Colour in the Depiction of Cities on Film’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Lukinbeal, C (2005) ‘Cinematic Landscapes’ Journal of Cultural Geography 23 (1) pp3-22

Natter, W (1994) ‘The City as Cinematic Space: Modernism and Place in Berlin, Symphony of a City’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

So, onto the next episode, ‘The Hound of Baskerville’. If anyone’s interested, this is actually my least favourite episode as I find Russell Tovey’s posh accent very annoying and his character, Henry Knight, a pain in the backside and it stops the story from moving on for a lot of the time. This episode is based on the story, ‘The Hounds of the Baskervilles’, and is based around strange activities in a military base, named Baskerville. Henry Knight visits Holmes and Watson in Baker Street, asking them to investigate his father’s death twenty years previously from a ‘hound’. The story evolves into Holmes and Watson going down to Dartmoor and gaining access to the military base, and deducing that the ‘hound’ was in fact a secret military project, ‘H.O.U.N.D’, and Henry’s father was killed by one of the members of the project as he found out its secrets.

This is an interesting episode because it is away from the city of London completely, bar the first few minutes of the episode which are all in 221B Baker Street. Cities are depicted in film in various ways by film geographers, and are commonly depicted by as country versus city, with a loss of innocence in the city and the movement to the country to find happiness, as well as the ‘city as labyrinth’; an impersonal place where dreams are dashed and relationships fail – a place where bad things generally happen (Lukinbeal, 2005). This episode doesn’t necessarily use the country versus city idea to find happiness, but it brings a different kind of case for Holmes and Watson in a completely different landscape. McArthur (1997) sees the depictions of cities in films against wilderness, pastoral landscapes, agrarian landscapes, villages, rural towns and suburbs as a way of contrast. This is done clearly in ‘Hounds…’ by using a unique landscape such as Dartmoor against the other five episodes where the city landscape of London is a character to the narrative. In my opinion, I feel like that Dartmoor landscape is more of a character in this episode than compared to the way London is used. It’s such a stark contrast to the other episodes and it’s also so unique with the famous granite uplands and tors, and I would probably enjoy the episode more if Russell Tovey didn’t use that ridiculous posh accent!
The use of Dartmoor as a landscape for this episode can be related to Hopkins’ (1994) idea of scenography, whereby landscapes are used as a powerful agent of structuring the film experience, rather than just a mere passive backdrop to the action. Relating to this is Nietschmann’s (1993) theory of film depicting a strong sense of place. this can be done in four ways: the narrative told to allow the viewer to understand the various geographic scales negotiated, allowing the everyday complexities of place to be available to the viewer, the position of place in the foreground as a supporting character rather than as scenery and the placing narratives in places rather than simply focused on actions and events. This theory of film depicting a strong sense of place can possibly be related to more viewers than the use of the London landscape.  Dartmoor is a famous national park in Devon, and is a very popular holiday spot, therefore it can be related to more viewers than London, and is again a completely different landscape to use. In the audio commentary, Sue Vertue states that they weren’t originally going to use Dartmoor at first due to costs, but the landscape was so unique and dramatic than it made sense to (Sherlock Audio Commentary, 2012). It was also the basis for the original short story; therefore it’s a method of continuity from the Victorian story to the modern adaptation. An example of this is the shot of Holmes on top of a tor, which is a nod to previous adaptations as an illustration from numerous versions of the book.

This adds a sense of place to viewers, and is also a method of setting the characters into a new and unusual landscape when compared to the five other episodes. It’s also quite a dramatic set of shots of Benedict Cumberbatch on a windy tor, which makes some viewers happy.

As with the previous four episodes, I will now talk about the use of cinematic landscapes with scene changes and journeys, which give a completely different cinematic landscape when compared to shots of London. The opening shot of the episode is a good example of this, where the wooded misty landscape is faded in.

This could be seen as a bit confusing, because it’s a different start to an episode compared to the others and it immediately adds tension to the beginning. This is also seen later on, where Dartmoor is introduced with Holmes and Watson placed within the landscape. The shot of sunrise over the granite uplands is mirrored against the previous shot of Holmes and Watson leaving 221B Baker Street in a taxi brings in this contrast of city versus country.

Leaving the dirty mess of London where everyone is anonymous and a place where bad things are supposed to happen, compared to the idyllic and picturesque landscape of Dartmoor. This shot is in fact the beginning of a series of still shots of different parts of Dartmoor, which are displayed below, because I think they’re very pretty.

These help to place the viewer into this landscape which could be either alien or familiar to them, again depicting a strong sense of place. Also, showing the sunrise against the morning light in London shows a journey and a change in time, possibly symbolising a new day, where the assembling of a series of shots into a montage can give the impression of continuous movement (Hopkins, 1994). Another example of this is the shot of Baskerville as a scene change, which would again introduce the new scene and progresses the narrative.

A movement in time is also shown in this episode by a shot of sunset in Dartmoor, which shows the end of the day and another visit to Dewer’s Hollow.

There is also a fadeout of the village of Grimpen, where Holmes and Watson were staying for the duration of the case.

The fade out of the village landscape is one final look at the countryside, compared to other episodes where there has been a fade out of action.

Landscape has also been used as a backdrop to various journeys across Dartmoor made by Holmes and Watson, travelling to Grimpen, Baskerville and Henry Knight’s house. Compared to the other episodes, landscapes are shown explicitly instead of being through reflections in taxi windows. An example of this is a scene where Holmes and Watson are travelling to Baskerville for the first time, and are discussing a method of gaining access into the secure military base.

One thing that I did enjoy about this episode from the geographical perspective is the use of Dewer’s Hollow as a character in the narrative. The ‘hollow’ used in the episode was a natural rock formation, possibly created by fluvial erosion, as stated in the audio commentary. It chosen by the production team as it had a very spooky character, and was completely hidden away by trees from a distance, hence adding more mystery to the location (Sherlock Audio Commentary, 2012). The landscape was also ideal as it could collect mist and fog, which adds to the scary feel that this landscape is attempting. It is also placed within the narrative as being at a close proximity to Baskerville, again adding more tension and suggesting that there is something very mysterious about this area and that it shouldn’t be known about. Below are some shots of Dewer’s Hollow throughout this episode at varying points in the narrative.

Dewer’s Hollow can be seen as a character to the storyline in this episode, as it helps to create these emotions for the viewer and to immediately associate it with bad things. This use of Dewer’s Hollow can be related to Aitken and Zonn’s (1994) theory of landscape and the ‘geography of the mind’. This is where places that hold action within cinematic space are used metaphorically so as to legitimise the representation as a state of mind. Viewers can associate scene change shots of Dewer’s Hollow, or the walk through the wooded area, with fear and tension. This is further developed by Brigham and Marston (2002), who suggest that landscapes possess both a visible and invisible aspect, where a subtext coincides within the twenty-four frames that pass through our minds every second that we can’t observe so easily but is nevertheless powerful and important to comprehend. The emotions that we feel in a landscape in whatever medium, whether it be in film or by physically visiting this landscape, can vary from one spectator or viewer to another, and the use of Dewer’s Hollow as a character in this episode is one way of producing an emotion for viewers.

So that’s another episode done, and the next post will be ‘The Reichenbach Fall’, the final episode of Sherlock to date. 

References
Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (1994) ‘Re-presenting the place pastiche’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield
Brigham, A and Marston, S.A (2002) ‘On Location: Teaching the Western American Urban Landscape through Mi Vida Loca and Terminator 2’ in Cresswell, T and Dixon, D (eds) (2002) Engaging Film: Geographies of Mobility and Identity Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield
Hopkins, J (1994) ‘A Mapping of Cinematic Places: Icons, Ideology and the Power of (mis)Representation’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield
Lukinbeal, C (2005) ‘Cinematic Landscapes’ Journal of Cultural Geography 23 (1) pp3-22
McArthur, C (1997) ‘Chinese Boxes and Russian Dolls: tracking the elusive cinematic city’ in Calrke, D.B (ed) (1997) The Cinematic City London: Routledge
Nietschmann, B (1993) ‘Authentic, State and Virtual Geography in Film’ Wide Angle 15 (4) pp4-12
Sherlock Audio Commentary (2012) ‘The Hound of Baskerville’ Directed by Paul McGuigan. UK: BBC

So, now onto series two of Sherlock; this begins with ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’. Although it’s difficult to pick a favourite episode from these two mini-series, this is probably it, after ‘The Great Game’. I think the storyline is absolutely brilliant, and it’s nice to see the character of Irene Adler used properly for once in a Sherlock Holmes adaptation, as she has been played down numerous times. This episode is loosely based on the story of ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, which follows the confrontation with the dominatrix Irene Adler, who was brought to the attention of Holmes by Mycroft after being informed that Adler has comprising pictures of a member of the royal family and threatens to use them against the British government. Now, let’s look at the use of landscape in this episode. 

As promised, I’m going to focus on the end of ‘The Great Game’ as it coincides with the beginning scenes of ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’. The use of the pool was unusual, seeing as it’s a location that’s very much out of the way from the rest of London, so it’s very secluded. In my opinion, the pool was probably used because the water can built tension. In this shot the surface of the water isn’t very calm with many ripples, which can add suspense for the pending scene.

This feeling of suspense from the viewer is created, which adds further tension with the meeting of Moriarty. However, when looking at the aftermath of the confrontation at the beginning of ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’, where the surface is suddenly very calm, suggesting that all danger has been averted from Moriarty for now, and it also signals the end of the scene.

The use of the water surface of in the pool to create tension can be related to Aitken and Zonn’s (1994) idea that the descriptive and narrative rhythm of film works to transform place from a mere space into a landscape decentred to accommodate action and spectacle. Therefore, the pool becomes more than a backdrop; it becomes a character to increase tension and suspense in the scene with Moriarty and Holmes.

As before, I will now talk about the use of cinematic landscapes with scene changes and journeys. One example of this is close to the beginning after the pool scene, with a shot of disused docks and an abandoned car.

The location of this is, again, out of the way for many Londoners, hence why it was ideal for a car to be abandoned. This is ideal for a detective story as it adds a twist to the narrative, and creates suspense. Another example of this is a panning shot of Baker Street, which hasn’t really featured in many of the episodes so far.

This shows a new scene for narrative in the flat with Holmes and Watson, hence the use of a panning shot of Baker Street helps the viewers set themselves in a location. Another example is a stock shot of Buckingham Palace, which again cuts to a scene of Holmes and Watson in the Palace, introducing the main case at hand with Irene Adler.

St Bart’s Hospital was also used again as a scene change, which then cuts to Holmes in the laboratory attempting to x-ray Irene Adler’s phone. This shot fades in, which matches the fading out of the previous scene where Holmes wishes Adler a happy new year by text. This shows a transition of time from night-time to the day.

There’s also a shot of Clock Tower with Moriarty sending a text to Mycroft informing him that he knows what the plans are. The use of the Clock Tower as a mere backdrop isn’t really known, but it may just be because it’s a landmark of London and they had to put Moriarty somewhere in London!

From this, there are a number of examples of repetition of some locations to symbolise scene changes. This can be related back to Aitken and Zonn (1994), who state that spaces can be constructed and represented within cinematic space to be used over and over again in a variety of circumstances. Also, the repetitions of places helps ‘create a representational legacy that works to construct, and establish a cognitive map, a sense of place (Lukinbeal, 2005: p8). Locations such as Baker Street and St Bart’s are integral to the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the use of them being used over and over again can help legitimise new narratives and to help the narrative progress. For the majority of episodes, shots of Baker Street come before a scene in the flat, whereas shots of St Bart’s normally go into the laboratory.

The first case in ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ is based on the death of a man in an isolated valley in Wales, which comes under Holmes’ attention after a client comes to 221B Baker Street. The man broke down in this idyllic landscape and could see a walker in the valley, who was there one minute, and then disappeared the next, shown in the following screenshots.

Again, this is an isolated landscape which is away from the city and the action only happens in a small area of the wider landscape. This can be related to Jackson (1979), who states that the metaphor of landscape as theatre emphasises the visual and spectacle aspect of environment and a spectacle in the sense of a dramatic production with a well-defined space. The shots of this Welsh valley are indeed spectacular, and work as a good backdrop to the action of both the car backfiring in the foreground and the walker ‘disappearing’ in the background. The fact that the action only happened in two small sections of this wider landscape shows that in fact the places of action are more enclosed against this well-defined landscape of the Welsh valley. Action in film occurs in a small space against a wider landscape, and having shots of the wider landscape can help the viewer place this action in a wider context. Also, this landscape is used again in this episode where Holmes and Adler are superimposed against it, both figuring out what actually happened to the walker, which is a repetition of a familiar landscape.

One thing that I do wish to pick up on is the shots of the snow in London, against the backdrops of Baker Street and St Bart’s. This is obviously unrealistic and was added by CGI in post-production, but is an interesting way of showing Christmas, however rare it is for snow to appear in Central London that white so close to Christmas!

These scenes add a temporal scale to the story by changing the season, with a feeling that several months of their lives have gone past with the case of Irene Adler still hanging over everyone. Furthermore, it nods to an earlier adaptation of Sherlock Holmes based on ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ which uses snow and Christmas within one scene to show a temporal change (Sherlock Audio Commentary, 2012).

Finally, I will touch upon the use of Battersea Power Station as a landscape for a confrontation of Watson and Adler after she faked her death. Battersea Power Station has been used in many films and TV dramas as a desolate landscape, such as some episodes of Doctor Who, the film adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four and in the film High Treason. But it also has the charm of a disused power station that has been beautifully preserved, including all the machinery. The outside shot of this is used as a way of opening the scene and setting the viewer in a location.

The inside shots are used for the confrontation as a way to add suspense to the narrative, using the backdrop of the interior of Battersea Power Station as an unusual location with a different landscape.

This again can be related to an idea outlined by Aitken and Zonn (1994), where place becomes spectacle, a signifier of the film’s subject, and a metaphor for the state of mind of the protagonist. The use of the power station as a meeting place puts the viewer in suspense as to what can happen, and Adler uses it to talk to Watson without Holmes being able to find her. She is the protagonist in this landscape, hence why Battersea was possibly used.

That’s ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ over and done with. I hope you enjoyed this breakdown of landscape in this episode, which surely is one that’s a firm favourite with all fans as you see another side to Holmes with a possible love interest. Next will be ‘The Hounds of Baskerville’, which is almost completely away from London and has very interesting uses of landscape.

References
Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (1994) ‘Re-presenting the place pastiche’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield
Jackson, J.B (1979) ‘Landscape as Theater’ Landscape 23 (1) pp3-7
Lukinbeal, C (2005) ‘Cinematic Landscapes’ Journal of Cultural Geography 23 (1) pp3-22
Sherlock Audio Commentary (2012) ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ Directed by Paul McGuigan. UK: BBC

So, now to the final episode in series one of Sherlock, ‘The Great Game’, which was inspired by the short story, ‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans’, as well as touches of ‘The Five Orange Pips’. This episode focuses on two separate cases; the first being the search for the murder of a civil servant and missing missile plans from the Ministry of Defence. The second is based on a series of puzzles set by Moriarty, each one involving the possible detonation of bombs strapped to victims if Holmes and Watson didn’t solve each puzzle in time. This culminated in a frankly amazing cliffhanger, in which fans had to wait five months to see the end of it at the beginning of series two.

I will begin this analysis again with the use of cinematic landscapes through scene changes and progression again, because this episode does this so well. There are many examples of scene changes and the use of the London cityscape and iconic landmarks. One example is the use of St Bart’s Hospital again to cut to the laboratory and morgue scenes.

Another one is the use of a part of the River Thames near Battersea, which overlooks the main city area with St Pauls going from night to day, revealing the body of the security guard for the fourth puzzle, which will be looked at again in the next section.

The transition from night to daytime naturally shows the transition of time. This brings in the idea outlined by Hopkins (1994) where cinematic landscapes help to compress and expand space and time, and in this case this helps to push the narrative along. Another example would be Holmes’ use of the homeless network, which is used to find specific information for puzzle four. The location used was underneath Waterloo Bridge, which of course has a fantastic backdrop of the London Eye and the embankment.

This brings in the idea that I noted in the previous post for ‘The Blind Banker’, whereby there are unfamiliar landscapes used to show other parts of London that aren’t immediately obvious. Another way in which is this done is through the shot of the BT Tower at night immediately after a scene with Watson during the day, showing progression time.

One location that was used quite a lot for the fourth puzzle was the Hickman Gallery, in which there are many shots of the outside when Holmes and Watson entered the gallery to solve the fourth puzzle.

There are also examples of scene progression and journeys, which I have noted already from ‘The Blind Banker’. An example of this is in taxi journey with Holmes and Watson back to 221B Baker Street, which has a shot of Trafalgar Square whilst they are moving.

There is also a conversation within the taxi which helps the narrative progress, which is again used later on in the episode where Holmes and Watson are heading towards Victoria Embankment. Although the actual location isn’t very obvious, using the progression of the taxi journey in the reflection of the windows shows movement both spatially and temporally.

The locations of the bombs and clues for the Moriarty case are, in my opinion, quite significant as they help the narrative progress, and they also add tension to the overall story. The locations used have clearly been thought out very well to add mystery, especially as many of the clues have been put in very isolated locations. The victim in the first puzzle is a woman, who is in a car park with a bomb vest strapped to her.

The use of the car park as the place where a bomb could go off is naturally very dangerous, as it’s surrounded by people, but then again the people passing this car are completely oblivious to this. The second puzzle is similar to this, as the victim is placed on Piccadilly Circus.

In the audio commentary, Mark Gatiss said that although filming in this location was difficult, there were many shots that can be used from all the angles in the area, and it was a unique way of not forcing the ‘London-ness’ of the story (Sherlock Audio Commentary, 2009). The use of both of these very public locations is interesting, and can be seen as brings in Peirce’s (1955) idea of icon, index and signal. The two above locations can be seen as icon, as they represent what viewers visually experience in a city in the everyday material world, as well as being an index as it is has a causal connection to the material world. It can also be related to the ‘transference of reality’ theory outlined by Hopkins (1994), whereby the spectacle on screen must vaguely resemble the spectacle of everyday life for the viewer to enter the cinematic world that has been created. This can also be related to Ford’s (1994) idea that the use of real settings can lend a documentary quality to dramas that could take advantage of the public’s familiarity.

Other locations that have been used relate to using unknown landscapes that are away from the public eye. An example of this is the use of the River Thames, which was used in two of the five puzzles. The second puzzle uses as an abandoned office area in Deptford for the dumping of a car and a supposed murder, and again for the fourth case with the dumping of the security guard’s body on the foreshore.

In the audio commentary, Mark Gatiss notes that the Thames foreshore is a very Victorian territory, especially when considering its use in certain dramas as well as real-life cases of murders or suicides. It can therefore be seen as another metaphor for the whole concept of Sherlock, using Victorian stories against modernity (Sherlock Audio Commentary, 2009). When focusing on the locations used for the puzzles in Moriarty’s game with Holmes, it’s possible to see how the city has been used as a metaphor in the wider picture of the game and how London has been used as a backdrop to it. Lapsley (1997) states that this metaphor is ‘a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired by its creators, a process outrunning understanding and control, a process whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery’ (Lapsley, 1997: p186). Whilst this above quote relates to the way directors use the cityscape, it can equally be used against Moriarty’s game and the use of different landscapes within the narrative.

Another part to the puzzles which I find quite funny in a way is the inclusion of stars when Holmes and Watson are near London Bridge, coming into contact with the homeless network.

If you live in a city, or even a town with a lot of street lights, it’s virtually impossible to stargaze because of all the light pollution. I have a personal experience of this, as I’ve lived in London until very recently where I’ve moved to the countryside, and found that the night-time is very dark! The night I saw in London normally had an orange/white hue to it from all the street lights, which of course hides the stars. But this little inclusion of stars (clearly acting as a clue for the fourth puzzle), is another reflection to the cinematic world and cinematic place. Horton (2003) states that all landscapes in cinema are ‘reel’, meaning they can be true life or completely fanciful. The use of imaginary landscapes - or simply adding something to a real life landscape to help the narrative - can create a cinematic space. It’s something that isn’t real at all, and in fact is ‘reel’. Lukinbeal (2005) develops this further by suggesting that there the cultural politics of cinematic spaces have two themes. First, is the belief that cinema should strive to produce an accurate reflection of the world. Second, landscape, nature and cinema are all cultural texts represented in the built environment, and should all have some elements of real life attached to them. The inclusion of stars is simply an example of the escape from reality that we all strive for, and even though it’s argued that landscapes in cinema should at least be real, there should still be some kind of imaginary landscape used to help with the escapism that viewers strive for. Picking up on these stars being wholly unrealistic can expand on this debate of what is real and what is imaginary in cinema, and is an important and interesting issue.

But, I digress. That’s series one over and done with, landscapes have been analysed to death. I was going to mention the end scene with the pool, but I think I may include that in the next post on the ‘Scandal in Belgravia’, as it can be used as comparison. Thanks to my three followers on this blog and people from my main blog for reading these beginning entries, it’s nice to see that a few people are interested in this different viewpoint of Sherlock.

References

Ford, L (1994) ‘Sunshine and Shadow: Lighting and Colour in the Depiction of Cities on Film in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Hopkins, J (1994) ‘A Mapping of Cinematic Places: Icons, Ideology and the Power of (mis)Representation’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Horton, A (2003) ‘Reel Landscapes: Cinematic Environments Documented and Created’ in Robertson, I and Richards, P (eds) (2003) Studying Cultural Landscapes London: Arnold

Lapsley, R (1997) ‘Mainly in Cities at Night: Some Notes on Cities and Film’ in Clarke, D.B (ed) (1997) The Cinematic City London: Routledge

Lukinbeal, C (2005) ‘Cinematic Landscapes’ Journal of Cultural Geography 23 (1) pp3-22

Peirce, C.S (1955) Philosophical Writings of Peirce, edited by J Buchler New York: Dover

Sherlock Audio Commentary (2009) ‘The Great Game’ Directed by Paul McGuigan UK: BBC

As promised, here is a breakdown on ‘The Blind Banker’, an episode based around the story of ‘The Sign of Four’. Code ciphering is prominent throughout, with Holmes and Watson investigating murders of a banker and a reporter, which eventually is found out to be caused by the Black Lotus crime syndicate, a Chinese secret organisation that both the banker and the reporter were working for by smuggling priceless Chinese artefacts into the UK. ‘The Blind Banker’ is built around tension and suspense, which culminates in the last scene with the possible death of Dr John Watson. The ideas of landscape and modernity are especially important in this episode, noted below.

This episode is arguably focussing on the use of modern London against a Victorian story. Well, all six Sherlock episodes are based around this idea, but ‘The Blind Banker’ makes it explicit. This can be seen from the inclusion of historic buildings in London in the swing of modern life, seen in the screenshot below of Mansion House in the background with London traffic and buses in the foreground.

Another example of this is the use of Tower 42 as the bank where the murdered banker worked at. Picking Tower 42 out of a wide range of glass buildings is unusual, especially when access to it can be difficult. However, it is in an ideal location as it is surrounded by a number of historic buildings in the City, and does look somewhat out of place at this moment. Indeed, the regeneration of the City is an interesting topic within Geography, especially in how it is represented within Sherlock and other types of media. Kaika (2010) states that the City’s rebranding with the building of new iconic buildings have generated a new relationship between architecture and urban place, adjusting to the changing world. There are now fewer boundaries for skyscrapers, hence more of them are being built to replace the old order of city elites in London. This is an interesting use of existing space, and it constantly changing the character of the City and finally bringing it into the 21^st century. The decision of using Tower 42 in this episode may have not been due to this point, but it does illustrate how the City is changing, and doing this through the medium of film brings wider access to this change (NB: I’m using City with a capital ‘c’ here because not many people realise that there is in fact a City of London borough, which is only around a square mile in size, but is where the most important actions occur in finance. Look it up on Wikipedia, it’s very interesting). Also, using Tower 42 also allows for certain filters to be used in the filming process. This can be seen in the screenshots in the next point about the changing scenes and the cinematic landscapes of London. The city is filmed in cool tones with plenty of glass, metal and concrete combined with cobbled streets and stone buildings. Grey filters have been used to create a clean and sleek feel, adding to the idea of modernity (Williamson, 2012). This also emphasises the lighting on many of the landscapes used, creating a blurry grey sky in the background with the buildings in the foreground at a sharper focus, seen in a few of the screenshots below. Tower 42 is below:

As mentioned in the previous post, there are many examples of a cinematic landscape throughout this episode, especially with using recognisable areas of London for scene changes. Such examples of these are shots of Blackfriars Bridge at both night and day. These have been used to show the progression throughout the day upon investigating the first murder.

Another location used like this is the outside of Liverpool Street Underground Station, which is at a close proximity to Tower 42.  Parts of the footage here are sped up, which suggests rapid change in time throughout the case.

This in turn can be related to Hopkins (1994) idea that the power of the film image is to blur boundaries of space and time, reproduction and simulation, and to obscure the traces of its own ideologically based production. This theory can also be related to the one geographical error in this episode, (I know, I’m being slightly anal about this) which is where Holmes and Watson find themselves on Shaftesbury Avenue heading to Chinatown, which is mysteriously across the road rather than being a quarter of a mile away (TVTropes.org). Another example of this is the frequent shots of St Bart’s Hospital, which is the location of the morgue and laboratory that Sherlock uses for many cases.

There is also a long shot of the Embankment and London Eye area to show the end of the scene and the progression to a new one.

All of the above examples show the use of certain London landmarks to show scene progression and change. This can be related to the iconography of London which is ‘historically formed…which…is always about location…also about national identity, and increasingly about the marketing of unique tourist destinations’ (Brunsdon, 2004: p64). The use of London landmarks within films has arguably increased tourism, and Sherlock may have added to this.

Another element of cinematic landscapes that ‘The Blind Banker’ portrays very well is the use of landscape as a scene progression. Recognisable areas of London are used as backdrops to parts of narrative that help the episode progress. I see this is a journey of two sorts: a journey from A to B with Holmes and Watson walking to a certain place, then as a narrative journey with the two companions talking over a plan or discussing findings as way of solving the case. An example of this would be the walk across Trafalgar Square, where Holmes and Watson are figuring out what the marks left in the banker’s office mean and plan to come in contact with a graffiti artist Holmes knows, shown below.

This is also done later on in the episode where they are both led from Charing Cross Bridge to an underground area occupied by the homeless. These are both examples of where well-known places of London are used as used as a backdrop for narrative progression. This episode also has examples of unknown areas of London to many people, which are used as a backdrop for tension and for the story to move along. An example of this is the graffitied tunnel area around the Charing Cross/Waterloo area, as well as a wall along the railway line which shows the code that Holmes and Watson eventually decipher.

Another example of this is towards the end of the episode, where Watson is captured by his date in an abandoned tunnel. This landscape was used as a way to add tension to this scene, as both characters have been kidnapped with a reliance on Holmes to solve the code and to find them in time. This particular scene has been used to construct a landscape separating spaces of light and dark in the city, where the urban realm is constructed through contrast of honest dealings above and the dirty underworld below, prominent in detective stories (Crang, 1998). This is particularly true when contrasted with Holmes’ journey in a cab, passing landmarks such as Clock Tower (the tower where Big Ben is housed, if you didn’t know. Because Big Ben is the biggest bell in Clock Tower, not the name of the tower itself).

One final point I wish to make about ‘The Blind Banker’ is the use of the London A-Z as the book used to cipher the code. If you don’t know what a London A-Z, it’s simply a book with maps of all areas within Greater London, and it is a very useful road atlas as well as the easiest way to get around the city for everyone. Maps are an important part of Geography, and are seen as a representation of a landscape. It is primarily a two-dimensional representation of London in its simplest form, and can also be seen as a piece of artwork, with a series of lines with many colours to represent roads and buildings. The A-Z is an integral part of the episode as it is ‘book everyone would own’, hence why it was used by the Black Lotus to create the code in the first place. Whilst many people are now using Google Maps on smartphones to get around the city, the episode shows the multiple uses that are still around for the London a-Z, and how it adds another dimension on the use of landscape in Sherlock.

So that’s ‘The Blind Banker’ done. As you can see, I found quite a few things that really stood out for me in this episode in terms of how landscape is used and represented.

References

Brunsdon, C (2004) ‘The Poignancy of Place: London and the Cinema’ Visual Culture in Britain 5 (1) pp59-73

Crang, M (1998) Cultural Geography London: Routledge

Hopkins, J (1994) ‘A Mapping of Cinematic Places: Icons, Ideology and the Power of (mis)Representation’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Kaika, M (2010) ‘Architecture and crisis: re-inventing the icon, re-imag (in) ing London and rebranding the City’ Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35 (4) pp 453-474

TVTropes.org (2012) ‘Sherlock’ (online) www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki/php/Series/Sherlock (accessed 8/2/2012)

Williamson, J (2012) ‘The Two Sherlocks’ (online) www.culturalafterthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/the-two-sherlocks/ (accessed 8/2/2012)

OK, so for the first few posts I thought it would be a good idea to look at each series of Sherlock in turn, then look at the 2 Guy Ritchie films, then begin to make comparisons and split my ideas into themes. Doing it this way will (hopefully) make it a lot easier in the long run. So, let us get started with Season 1 of Sherlock!

(NB: As I’m doing this for a project relating to a module in my Geography degree, there will be theories noted in here. Any quotes or ideas will be numbered and referenced like this:

‘Bloggs (1999) stated that…’, and so on.

This is purely so it shows that I’ve related back to the task in hand in using geographic ideas and theories and their relation to the wider world. Each blog post will end with a list of references used, if you so wish to read up on them at a later date.)

A Study in Pink

Based on the story of ‘A Study in Scarlet’, this episode quashed the theories that a modern Sherlock Holmes would never work, and is centred upon four seemingly separate suicides, which become linked as the story unfolds. It is also where Sherlock Holmes meets his companion, John Watson, an army doctor retired from the War in Afghanistan and in need of a job and a place to live to move on from his traumatic experiences of war. So, now to move onto the landscape used in this episode.

Within ‘A Study in Pink’, there are many examples of landscape being used as a mis-en-scène, meaning ‘staging in action’, referring to the constituent elements that compose a shot and create a specific screen space (Packham, 2004). This uses the landscape as an incidental background as an expressive component of the narrative. An example of this is the introduction of Mycroft Holmes to both the viewers and Dr John Watson, shown below. The screen space created from this warehouse portrays a scary scene: it’s eerie, tense, out of the way, secretive. In the audio commentary, Mark Gatiss states that this introduction was done as a red herring to convince viewers that he’s actually Moriarty, using this eerie landscape of a warehouse to portray Mycroft as ‘Sherlock’s arch-enemy’, and warning Watson to stay away from Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Audio Commentary, 2009).

Another example of this is later on in the episode, where a chase is taking place throughout the Central London area of Soho. Holmes and Watson are chasing a suspected black cab (an iconic landmark of London) with the ‘killer taxi driver’. The fact that the chase is in Soho is significant, as this area is full of many side streets and back alleyways to create a maze-like urban landscape. This is shown the superimposed map in some shots to show viewers the paths that both Sherlock and John are using, and the cab driver, shown below (the green line is Watson and Holmes’ route, the red line is the cab driver’s route).

This creates a sense of reality to this story, by using real landscapes almost as a documentary film would to make this essentially more realistic (Aitken and Zonn, 1994), with real settings lending a sort of documentary quality to dramas that could take advantage of the public’s familiarity of modern London (Ford, 1994). These examples show how landscape has been used as a character to the narrative of ‘A Study in Pink’, bringing in the idea that Geography is part of this adaptation of Sherlock Holmes from the use of these two urban landscapes as characters in separate parts of this episode.

Another way in which landscape is used in ‘A Study in Pink’ is through simple shots of changing scene. This is used in many films as continuation of a narrative or going into a new scene by setting the location. This is also used for the viewer to engage with the cinematic landscape by having elements of the cinematic world (through the use of unusual camera angles and speeding up certain parts of shots) and combining it vaguely with the spectacle of everyday life (Hopkins, 1994). They are also used as a technique of continuity cutting, whereby shot transitions are marked by matches on movement and matches on action that promote the illusion of a spatio-temporal continuum (Natter, 1994) There are many examples of this in ‘A Study in Pink’, as well as in the rest of the Sherlock episodes and in the two films. One of which is right at the beginning of the episode, displaying the cityscape of the City of London, including the landmarks of St Pauls, The Gherkin and Tower 42, shown below:

This shot sets the scene and the location after the very action-packed beginning depicting the war in Afghanistan. The use of a wide angle cityscape shot can link city to films in three processes, as noted by Peirce’s (1955) theory of icon, index and symbol in film geography. The projected image is an iconic sign, as it represents what viewers visually experience as a city in the everyday material world, an index because it has a causal connection to the material world, and a symbol from any one a number of socially constructed conventions, such as adventure, mystery or progress.  Another example would be further along in the episode, where a long shot of Baker Street is used as a transition from one scene to another. This is primarily used to show the taxi moving away from 221B Baker Street to the location of a suicide, shown here:

This shows how different landmarks and areas of London have been used as a backdrop, and how landscape is utilised to set the scene for viewers, especially for people who haven’t been to London before.

One thing that should be noted from the above point, which will be picked up on subsequent blog posts, is the use of London as a cinematic landscape, defined as a ‘filmic representation of an actual or imagined environment viewed by a spectator’ (Hopkins, 1994: p49). This idea was introduced by Jackson (1979), who stated that the metaphor for landscape as theatre is a useful analogy because it emphasises the visual and spectacle aspect of environment and a spectacle in the sense of a dramatic production with a well-defined space. The development of post-modernist society has meant that cinematic images now signify events that aren’t passively observed but are actively reconstructed as they are viewed, creating an impression of reality through a rapid succession of iconic images (Aitken and Zonn, 1994). The main human geographical ideas of place and space can be re-imagined through film, whereby landscapes are adapted to include action and spectacle, losing touch with reality, time and space.  It also concerns itself with the construction and narrative of films and the portrayal of spaces, places, people, morals and values, but only as a means of understanding the geographical experiences of film and the possible ramifications of the geography beyond the cinema, television set or laptop screen (Hopkins, 1994). This concept will be built upon through subsequent blog posts, and is an important theory in the use of landscapes in film, and the feelings and messages they can portray on the viewer. It is also useful way of bringing in Geography into film!

Up next: The Blind Banker. Hope you have enjoyed reading this, and that you will enjoy the next one too!

(This seems to not look brilliant on dashboards, so this might be best viewed on the actual Tumblr page to avoid all the random html)

References

Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (1994) ‘Re-presenting the place pastiche’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Ford, L (1994) ‘Sunshine and Shadow: Lighting and Colour in the Depiction of Cities on Film in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Hopkins, J (1994) ‘A Mapping of Cinematic Places: Icons, Ideology and the Power of (mis)Representation’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Jackson, J.B (1979) ‘Landscape as Theater’ Landscape 23 (1) pp3-7

Natter, W ‘The City as Cinematic Space: Modernism and Place in Berlin, Symphony of a City’ in Aitken, S.C and Zonn, L.E (eds) (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield

Packham, R.S ‘Landscape in Film’ in Duncan, J.S, Johnson, N.C, and Schein, R.H (eds) (2004) A Companion to Cultural Geography Oxford: Blackwell

Peirce, C.S (1955) Philosophical Writings of Peirce, edited by J Buchler New York: Dover

Sherlock Audio Commentary (2009) ‘A Study in Pink’ Directed by Paul McGuigan UK: BBC