the irony of science in holmes

Rating: 5/10 (5 January 2010)

My partner's favorite part of the movie was the relationship between Holmes and Watson, how they just knew what the other was thinking and how they worked together so well it was mostly tacit (even when fighting!). I also liked the cinematography of Holmes' mental thought, when he modeled out solutions or his course of action, but this is just a cinematic pleasure.
The more interesting questions have to do with Holmes' character, as I imagine is the case with the books. Despite the backlash from the book-fans of Holmes, one thing is certainly the same in book or movie: the scientific attitude of Holmes, the use of reason to demystify appearances in the investigation of a case (ah, the human sciences were tightly interwoven with forensics at their origins!). Everything 'magical' is explained away by Holmes by the end of the movie, except the second-order cinematic ironies...this is another point my partner made: why the repeated death by hanging scene of Lord Blackwood at the end? Is that not the magic of fictionality? It appears the scientific character of Holmes has an ironic structure at heart: after all, the story is not true!