Sherlock Holmes : A Study in Pink

Are you a reader of Sherlock Holmes novel ? WOW GREAT, this part must be something interesting for you (hopefully). Well, like what I do before, I have to do an analysis of a movie, and the movie is Sherlock Holmes : A Study in Pink. This is a serial movie, I've just watched it in my Movie Interpretation class and like I said before here , I don't master in doing analysis but I will try to show you my analysis, finally comment or criticism are welcome and here it is the analysis . . .

Narrative Elements Part 2 Analysis :

SHERLOCK HOLMES : A STUDY IN PINK

by Haniah Hamidah Sahid

INTRODUCTION

Sherlock Holmes : A Study in Pink is the first episode of Sherlock television series. It was broadcasted first time on 25 July 2010 on BBC. The story of A Study in Pink is based on the first Sherlock Holmes novel, that is A Study in Scarlet.

This movie has restricted narration where we, as the audience, do not know at all what happen next. Our understanding is only depending on the character’s understanding, so we look at the movie by using character’s point of view. The main characters whom I am  going to analyze are Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch), Dr. John H. Watson (Martin Freeman) and Jeff / the cabbie man (Philip Davis).

CHARACTER AND CHARACTERIZATION

Characterization is sum of all obervable qualities of a human being, everything knowable through careful scrunity. (Robert Mckee), while

Character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure – the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature. (Robert Mckee)

So, I conclude that the existance of characterization is coming first and then the character, and also they are contrast to each other, and character may change depends on the situation which is faced by the character (figure). Here these are the characterization and the character of Sherlock Holmes, John Watson and Jeff the cabbie man.

Name of characters	Characterization	Character
Sherlock Holmes	·           Sherlock has blue eyes, fair complexion, sharp nose and dark brown, wavy hair. ·          He is tall, muscular and well-built. ·          He speaks fast and direct. ·          He’s extremelly brilliant and smart. ·          He likes observing everything, then deducing it, and the way he thinking is so detail. ·          He is a professional consulting detective. ·          He enjoys his job like he enjoys something fun. ·          He is little bit anti social because he does not have any friend indeed.	In the beginning of story, Sherlock has very few friends, he thinks he only has enemies. Sally Donovan, a sergeant, calls him as a freak man. Yet, in the end of story he shows an attitude or a manner that actually everybody needs a friend. It is shown when he is telling to Detective Inspector Lestrade about the shooter of Jeff and  he is aware that the man is John, he is pretending shock and asking Lestrade to forget what he said, it is done by him to cover for John. Whether he is aware or not, he is doing something which means everybody needs a friend to help each other, John has helped him then he helps John back by covering for John.
Dr. John H.Watson	John has green eyes, tanned skin (according to Sherlock), round face and blonde hair. His hair is in army hair style. He has medium high (tall enough for an army but shorter if he’s compared to Sherlock) and he’s well-built. He’s not confident and depressed man. He is an ex-medical doctor recently returned from Afghanistan. He is a loyal person and smart. The way he walks is bad because his foot was shot.	In the beginning of story, John is described as a weak, depressed and not confident but after he met Sherlock and joined him in detecting of serial murder. He joined the latest crime in a woman who wears pink clothes, pink nail polish etc. Because of that, under his awarenes he has against his weakness, he can run without his TONGKAT. So, in the end of story he become stronger and brave, he brave to shoot Jeff who is going to kill Sherlock.
Jeff the the cabbie man	Jeff has greyish blue eyes, fair complexion, oval face, and fat body. He is short, mysterious, old, simple, cruel  but he loves his children so much. He is a cabbie man (taxi driver) and also an assassin.	Jeff keeps his sponsor (a person who gives him money for each person killed) secret, he really keeps it secret, but when he is under pressure (after he was shot) finally he tells the name of his sponsor ‘Moriarty’. It shows that he is loyal to his sponsor, but he changes when he is under pressure.

ATMOSPHERE

The atmosphere of Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Pink is thrilling and mysterious. It builds anxiety, concious, tense and scared senses to the audience. The audience is forced to think hard about the story. Guessing many times of what happen next to the story. Guessing how the characters are actually.

THEME

The theme of Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Pink is mysterious serial murder, because the story is about some crimes which have same ways in killing the victims : the victims eat pill, and this story is really unpredictable, we as the audience can guessing for many times who is the real assassin, we can guess the assassin is the brother of Sherlock, then we can twist our thought that the assassin is actually Sherlock, then we’ll be shocked when we know that the assassin is a cabbie, we will not suspect that the assassin is a cabbie. That’s why I think this movie is really mysterious.

REFLECTION

This movie is a movie which hard to understand because we really need to think. It has strong characters and characterizations. However it really has an uncommon story. I get some lessons from this movie that we need to think something deep and logically, then how perfect we are, we will need a friend, then how our condition is, we have to fight for that, we have to against our weakness and even though we are in a hard condition (e.g really  need money) we should not take bad way to get the money, although the reason is good (support the family) we should earn money by doing something right. This third project forces me to see the story deeper, how the characterizations are and how the characters are, the result is like on the second project, I understand the lesson material, that is narration part 2, those are about character and characterization, atmosphere and theme.

"What seems is not what is. People are not what they appear to be."

— Robert Mckee in Story, Structure and Character 

Vantage Point

Have you ever watched this movie? Yeaah, this movie released on 2008 and became box office. Anyway, it is often shown on the TV but I watch it again in my Movie Interpretation class, and the assignment is analyzing the narrative elements such as point of view, setting, and plot and plot structure. Today is the deadline of this assignment submission, even though I don't really master in doing analysis of this movie but I did the assignment, because beside I'm interested to do, doing this assignment is a MUST. I don't know whether my analysis is right or not, I'm gonna show you my analysis ... enjoy reading . . . feel free to leave a comment for this . . .

Narrative Elements Part 1 Analysis :

VANTAGE POINT

 by Haniah Hamidah Sahid

INTRODUCTION

Vantage Point is a movie which has type parallel storytelling of editorial technique. Parallel story telling is a type of editorial techniques which serves a movie by giving two events (characters also) or more happens in the same time which have correlation. It is proved by existance of many perspectives which were used. We have to look at the movie which is replied several times starting at 12:00 then it is continued by different stories depend on whom perspective. It is clear to claim that Vantage Point uses parallel storytelling in editorial technique, the events that happen in the same time are the activity that uses point of view of his/her, those include perspective of Rex Brooks, Thomas Barnes’, Enrique’s, Howard Lewis’, President Ashton’s,  and the terrorists’ (Javier’s, Sam’s and Kent Taylor’s).

POINT OF VIEW

This movie uses omniscient narration or point of view because we, as the audience, know everything in the movie. It can happen because we see the events by looking at each character’s point of view or perspective. Since this movie has many points of view, if the audience miss one of the point of view, they will still understand the story of the movie because we have other characters’ point of view which correlate to one another. This point of view gives effect of anxiety because we’ve known what will happen next but the characters haven’t, so there will be a sense of willingness to tell the characters about what is going to happen even though we cannot do that.  Although it also gives ‘mystery’ sense or a curiosity to the audience, it is not caused by restricted point of view, but because it is a action or thriller movie.

SETTING

The setting of Vantage Point is in Salamanca, Spain. The setting sets at noon (12:00 a.m) and on an event of International treaty about terrorism action. The condition there is so crowded that being provided many policeman to control the condition of  the public square besides to guide the U.S President.

PLOT AND PLOT STRUCTURE

A.   PLOT

 Every movie has a story absolutely – an introduction, climax, and a resolution, but beside that, of course every single movie has plot, and the structure is different from one movie to another movie, depends on the way of the director serves the movie. Yet, basically the plot of movie includes fabula and syuzhet. Fabula is the chronogical story of the character in the movie and we will not find any flashback here, so the story is just going on chronogically. If the movie is not shown chronogically, that means we should arrange the arrangement of the story by ourselves. While syuzhet is the way of the director orders the events in the movie, such as from climax suddenly flashback to the introduction, then back again to the climax to continue to the resolution. These are the fabula and the syuzhet of Vantage Point :

FABULA

Since it is a parallel storytelling, we should decide which one is the main character to follow his/her perspective in order to make the fabula (chronogical story). Here I chose Thomas Barnes as the main character, so I will follow his point of view to arrange the story chronogically and I make the diagram for the fabula, this is the diagram :

Explanation of the diagram :

1.       Thomas was asked to prepare himself to be an secret agent for President U.S then he recalled the memory of shooting tragedy that happened to Thomas Barnes last year.

2.       Thomas Barnes was preparing for becoming a secret agent for International treaty in Spain.

3.       Thomas Barnes controlled the situation and started being skeptic.

4.       Shooting happened then the situation on the Plaza Mayor was disordered.

5.       Coming Enrique and Thomas attacked him.

6.       There was a bomb in the hotel of President Ashton.

7.       Kent went to look for the shooter but actually to change his uniform.

8.       Thomas came to Howard to check his video camera then bombing happened in the podium.

9.       Thomas checked the recording on GNN, here Thomas knew that Kent disguised into a local police.

10.   Thomas chased Kent who were going to pick Javier up.

11.   Kent and Javier met Enrique in the underpass, here Enrique was killed by Javier, then Javier was killed by Thomas and Kent was killed when his car hit a wall.

12.   Came Veronica and Sam with President Ashton and their ambulance got an accident, here Veronica and Sam were killed.

13.   Thomas helped President Ashton.

SYUZHET

Since syuzhet is plot of the story which has the order of events in the movie, so the arrangement of the syuzhet is just the same as the director shows the movie for us. For Vantage Point, the story was started by the perspective of Rex Brooks, then after several minutes the story was dragged  back to at 12:00 and it’s continued by the perspective of Thomas Barnes, then back again at 12:00 with the Enrique’s perspective, then back at 12:00 with Howard Lewis’ perspective, after that back again in the time of 12:00 with the perspective of President Ashton and finally back again at 12:00 with the perspective of the terrorists included Javier, Sam and Kent Taylor, then the movie is continued by chronogical story without back again at 12:00 until finally the terrorists were killed and Thomas Barnes was succesfully helping and safing President Ashton.

B.    PLOT STRUCTURE

After having done with the fabula and the syzhet, it means we understand the story, and we will understand the plot structure also. Plot structure itself is the written form of the diagram that we have in the fabula analysis. So, here the plot structure is the whole story of the movie that uses one perspective, that is Thomas Barnes because I chose him as the main character of this story.

REFLECTION

This movie is a movie which has strong plot to tell the story. It’s not easy to be analyzed because there are many events happen in the same time following the characters’ perspective (parallel storytelling). However it is really interesting and challenging to be analyzed. By doing this project I am forced to be more critical in seeing every single details of the storry, the result is I understand the lesson material of Narration part 1, those are about point of view, setting and plot and plot structure.