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| Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Robin Wright Penn,
Katie Holmes, Adrien Brody, Jon Polito, Carla Gugino, Mel Gibson Directed by: Keith Gordon |
Theatrical Release: 2003
DVD Release: 2004
Released by: Paramount Dolby
Digital 5.1
Widescreen (anamorphic) |
| Singing in the Beginning  Is the original BBC The
Singing Detective better than the remake? It is certainly dourer. Though the new
version lifted many scenes, lines, and ideas from its predecessor, the miniseries had a
lot more time in which to explore the story. There is more of a murder mystery in the
original, and a lot less wackiness. Or maybe it is just a British style of wackiness --
you know, dry wit and all that wry style.
Screenwriter Dennis Potter repeatedly denied that The
Singing Detective was autobiographical, but that seems obviously false. In fact, the
author had psoriatic arthropathy that left him hospitalized and used the story as a forum
to rail against the medical and literary communities that he felt had betrayed him.
Lead actor Michael Gambon does a good job as novelist
Philip Marlow and his hallucinatory investigator counterpart. While Robert Downey Jr. has
a private room in the newer film, Gambon gets an entire ward with which to interact. The
story is complex, multi-layered, and more ambitious than almost anything else tried on TV.
Is it, as a blurb on the box claims, "the greatest production in the history of
television"? Hardly. It is often self-indulgent and frustrating; sort of a precursor
to the Twin Peaks narrative style.
On DVD, The Singing Detective's image is dull and
faded, and its sound is weak mono, but what else can you expect from a 1986 production?
The director and producer provide commentary for the entire six-part series, and there are
three archive clips about the production of the show, including a show on Potter himself.
Which version is better? It depends on what you are looking
for, but both are definitely worth checking out.
...Josh Barber
joshb@hometheatersound.com |
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Robert Downey Jr. is a sick man, both physically and
mentally -- in this film, anyway. Here his name is Dan Dark and he is just a character in
a film. Or maybe two characters. Or, then again, maybe just one. Dark is a novelist who
has been stricken with a severe case of psoriatic arthropathy that has scarred him, curled
his hands into useless balls, and left him hospitalized. It’s truly the heartbreak of
psoriasis.
As the hospital personnel tend to Dark's illness, the staff
psychiatrist tries to unravel the psychological Gordian Knot that has made the writer such
a bitter man. Looking to escape the pain of his life, Dark imagines (or perhaps
hallucinates) that he is a 1950s-era private investigator, hired to look into a woman's
murder. A 1950s-era private investigator who randomly breaks into song.
As the title implies, The Singing Detective is (at
least partially) a musical, but the story is a lot less straightforward than most films of
this type. At its heart, The Singing Detective is an odd trip through one man's
psyche and the lingering remnants of childhood torment and adult betrayal.
The image quality is good, with decent colors for the most
part. In a few scenes things look a little washed out, though not enough to distract. The
quality seems to vary between the "real" and "imaginary" worlds, which
suggests that the changes are intentional: muted, subdued colors in the modern day, and
vibrant tones in the world of the novel.
The soundtrack mirrors the picture quality -- rather
front-loaded and quiet in the more mundane scenes, but fully engaged during the big
musical numbers. Downey Jr. mostly performs mumbling quietly through clenched teeth. He is
often harder to hear than the rest of the cast, but that is a function of the actor, not
your DVD player.
Extras are extremely light. We get quite a good commentary
from director Keith Gordon, but little else. Gordon is obviously very enthusiastic about
the film, and offers plenty of information about the filming process. He gives viewers a
nice blend of specifics about what they are seeing onscreen, along with tangential
anecdotes. Other than the commentary, the only extra features are three trailers,
including one for a strange MTV production of Wuthering Heights.
Many folks are saying that this new version of The
Singing Detective does not compare to the original BBC production. Watching this one
first, I found it a nicely surreal experience that stands just fine on its own. |
