Sherlock Holmes-Exam Question 2
The genre of this film is a hybrid genre. It is mixture of an action/adventure and an Historical. You can tell this because of the setting and the mise-en-scene. It is set in Victorian London, with the main characters of Sherlock Holmes delightfully remastered and remade. The books in which they feature were of course written in the times of Queen Victoria, her era and the Edwardian era. A carriage is shown with men looking serious, cocking guns. This gives me a sense of camaraderie and adventure.These men are obviously looking for trouble. The tracking shot emphasises the urgency of getting to the place they need to go as soon as possible.
The setting is dark and dreary and the camera is sepia tinted. It is to show dark and dreary London was in these times as London was lit by gas lights. The film creates the spectacle of the world of Victorian London in 1891 through its location shots of St Paul's Cathedral. The crow is also very ominous and crows are normal linked to death and suffering. The effect of this is to create a dark underworld. The camera changed to handheld to show a man running which we later to find out to be Holmes.
A twang of a banjo starts playing as the movie begins but that slowly turns to a build up of music with loud drums. This is designed to build up the tension. This gives the signal to the audience that possibly action is coming. Holmes's pounding footsteps blend in with the orchestral soundtrack and the drums. The drums are there to reflect how urgent the chase is, and how urgent it is to locate the villain and liberate the victim.
The underground chamber in which Holmes enters seems to be set for a ritual killing, because we see a raised altar which is perfect size for a human body. We also see the victims hand being moved as if controlled to a perfectly carved knife, which obviously serves a greater purpose than, for example, cutting vegetables. If you look closely, you can see that the knife does not have a sharp edge, but a very sharp point. The knife is meant for stabbing or spearing something.
We encounter people dressed in period clothes like Holmes, Watson and Lestrade who all wear bowler hats and long black overcoats and are the most prominent in the scene. Tweed jackets also feature and a waist jacket is shown when Watson takes off his coat. We can tell this is in the early Edwardian era or earlier by the fact that the police is being drawn to the scene by horse and carriage. The police also wear the classic hats that people normally associate with English police.
Some characters were clearly dangerous thugs which was clear by the fact that they immediately attacked Watson as soon as he appeared before them. They also had no hesitation when trying to shoot Holmes. The shooter's face and the rest of the thugs was kept in shadow to signify the anonymity of the thugs and to give tension to the situation that . They also had no hesitation into doing questionable things like biting Watson's leg. They don't want Watson or Holmes to get past them and to the hooded man who turns out to be Lord Blackwood.
Sherlock Holmes (2009)-Opening Scene Part 1, 2 and 3
