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Jia Sun
Lynda Haas
Writing 39B
May 21, 2014
Convention Update: Sherlock and Romance
In the classic Conan Doyles stories, Sherlock Holmes is portrayed to have no romantic
relationship with any women. He is always focused on solving criminal cases and is less
sensitive to normal emotions. In the book, An Introduction to the Detective Story, Leroy Panek
illustrates this point that Doyle did not let Holmes get romantically involved in any stories. He
mentions that Doyle let the Holmes story moves away from the inexplicable realms hinted at by
Poes romanticism (81). Instead, Holmes is developed as a mathematically accurate
crime-solving machine (Panek 82). An example of this convention is from Conan Doyles
novel, The Sign of Four. After Miss Morstan stated her case and left 221B Baker Street, Watson
expresses his adoring feeling for her by saying What a very attractive woman! Compared to
Watsons excitement, Sherlock is calmer since he only concentrates on thinking about doubtful
points of that case. His answer about his feeling for Miss Morstan, I did not observe, makes
Watson call him an automaton, -a calculating- machine(375). However, this convention has
been twisted a little to adapt to the current society in recent years. In order to attract more and
more modern audience, the Sherlock story has been revised in the BBC series and film version of
Sherlock Holmes. Romantic element is blended into the great detective stories since todays
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audience tends to be more interested in the emotional life of the great detective.
A Scandal in Belgravia, the 4
th
episode of the BBC series of Sherlock Holmes,
introduces the unusual story between Irene Alder and Sherlock. Sherlock learns about Irene, the
dominatrix who has some compromising photographs of his client, when he is asked to get the
photos from her. When they first met in Irenes house, Irene wore her battle dress, which was
naked. Although this new element is mixed into the classic story, the directing team wisely
fuzzes up this updated convention. Neither Sherlock nor Irene exactly expresses love through
words. However, the sentiment between them can still be felt through looking at the actors eyes.
This technique gives the audience enough room to imagine about the relationship between
Sherlock and Irene, which makes the plot become more attractive. In Neil Genzlingers review of
the BBC series of Sherlock, Holmes and Watson, Back to Bantering, he asks: she gives
Holmes an eyeful in their first meeting, and he is smitten. Or is he? It is hard to define whether
Irene is special enough to Sherlock or not since he does not stop cracking the passcode of the
phone at the end.
The strange actions of Sherlock demonstrate that he is a little sentimental after he knows the
death of Irene Alder. He walks out the morgue silently and quickly when he recognizes the dead
body of Irene. Without saying a word, he just faces to the outside of the Bartholomews hospital.
The composition of this scene is specially made; therefore, the audience can only see his back
from the small window in the door. Sherlocks back is put on the right corner of the whole
screen, and all the rest is filled with black. It gives the audience the feeling that they are looking
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through the window and expresses the depressive mood to them. In addition, Sherlocks
composition for violin, which usually helps him to think, seems to contain his feeling of sadness;
maybe he even does not notice it. Mrs. Hudson takes away the food that Sherlock did not eat and
says that she has not heard this song before. At the beginning of this scene, the producer uses the
diegetic sound leads the audience into the scene and uses a full shot to shows Sherlocks back.
This time the composition of this scene is completely different from the morgue one. Sherlock is
putted in the middle of the whole screen, and the surroundings are all still life. The main purpose
of this specific composition is to let the audience pay more attention to the musical passage that
Sherlock is playing since it expresses a sense of sorrow. Compared to the previous two songs he
played, God Save the Queen and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, it is obvious for the
audience to feel the difference of his mood from the two kinds of sounds. Those clues not only
make the relationship of Sherlock and Irene become more vague to the audience, but also bring a
brand-new feeling to them when they are watching the intense detective stories.
From one reviewers words in Metacritic, it is clear to see the effect of Irene Alder, played
by Lara Pulver. He says: the portrayal of Irene Adler was iconic and unique. She is a dominatrix
in every sense of the word_ intellectually, physically, emotionally. Funny and deceitful at the
same time. I found myself falling for her. The special occupation and the unique relationship
with Holmes of Irene attract a lot of audience to pay attention to the story between them. Now,
looking back to the first episode of season 1, A Study in Pink, Watson asked if Sherlock was
interested in men or women since the idea of Sherlock having a relationship was a strange idea that
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Watson was curious about. Like Watson, the normal audience is also interested in finding out the
clue that Sherlock is falling in love with woman. Therefore, the director of the new two films of
Sherlock Holmes, Guy Ritchie, also uses some unique techniques to show the romance of
Sherlock.
Compared to the BBC series, the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Irene Alder in
the movie turns to be more dubious. In Roger Eberts review article for A Game of Shadows, he
describes Irene as the enigmatic figure in much romantic speculation about Holmes. Actually,
in the first part of the movie, Irene Alder is murdered by Professor Moriarty since he feels that
she cannot stop loving Sherlock. An example of the convention change in this film is the boat
scene in A Game of Shadows. After fighting with the agents of Professor Moriarty on the train,
Holmes and Watson go on the boat to Paris. At first, Sherlock explains that why they are going
to Paris since they need to find a fortuneteller in the Gypsy camp. Then, Watson finds a
handkerchief, which has with blood on it, in Holmes bag. Holmes grabs it and walks to the boat
fence. Without saying a word, he sniffs the handkerchief and then throws it into the air.
Combined with the image of the gradually disappearing train, one piece of exciting
background music (sound bridge) smoothly ends the fighting scene on the train and leads the
audience into the beginning of the boat scene. When Watson finds Irenes handkerchief, the
camera zooms in and gives the handkerchief an extreme close up shot. After that, a close up shot
shows the scene of Sherlock sniffing the handkerchief. This shot makes it possible for the
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audience to clearly see the sadness from Sherlocks eyes. At the same time, a piece of sad
musical passage played by viola comes with the scene. This diegetic sound also mixes with the
sound of the spoondrift; the manipulation of different kinds of sounds and the eyes, which filled
up with sorrow, express the sadness to the audience. The composition of the scene that Sherlock
throws the handkerchief away is also specially designed. The whole screen is separated into two
parts; the boat fence works as the dividing line. The left part is Holmes; the right part is the
flying handkerchief. Then, Sherlock turns back and returns to the seat. It gives the audience a
feeling that Sherlock uses the ten seconds to miss Irene as the most important part of his life, and
then goes back to his detective life.
In short, the main conventions of Sherlock Holmes stories do not change very much in the
new version, but the romantic element, which is added by nowadays people, brings fresh feelings
to the audience. The relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Irene Alder has been twisted to
become more dubious since most of the audience would like to see the emotional scenes.
Therefore, those directors make a little bit change of the classic convention to let it adapt to the
new worlds taste. Both the BBC series of Sherlock and the movie give the audience an
imaginary space to guess about the great detectives emotional world.

Work Cited:
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Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Sign of the Four. Seattle: Amazon Digital Services, 2013. Kindle
eBook. Online.
Panek, Leroy. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green
State University Popular Press, 1987. Print.
Genzlinger, Neil. Holmes and Watson, Back to Bantering. The New York Times. 4 May. 2012.
Web. 21 May 2014.
Sherlock: Season 2. Metacritic. User Reviews. 17 Sep 2013. Web. 21 May 2014.
Ebert, Roger. "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Movie Review (2011) | Roger Ebert." All
Content. 14 Dec. 2011. Web. 18 May 2014.