Performance and critique are both arts of interpretation. The two require a processing of otherness, and to take nothing and turn it into something. When repetition is added, inevitable variables will rise, which give such an exciting volatility to theater, live music, and performance art. In some ways, theremaking of motion picturescould be the equivalent to the acts of reinterpretation found in the aforementioned art forms. The industry’s current obsession with remaking is, of course, in no way fueled by the conceptual creativity that reinterpretation can bring to a work of art, but by the commercial prospect of nostalgic capital.
It’s a wonderful thing, then, when a remake is focused on the creative possibilities that revisionism can bring. Both the delivery and criticism of the 1972 and 2007 versions of Anthony Shaffer’s play,Sleuth, are a great example of how perception of a work that has been made in several occasions, changes through time. Both brilliant in their own way, despite coming from the same source material, these excellent films differ greatly from one another, and reveal how a great remake can be done.
What Is Sleuth About?
Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s illustrious 40-year Hollywood career (partially brought to life in the recent filmMank) found in its final film the brilliant, mysterious, hilarious, and sinister adaptation of Shaffer’s play,Sleuth. Shaffer also wrote the scripts forHitchcock’s underrated filmFrenzy, the classicfolk horror movieThe Wicker Man, and the old Hercule Poirot movieDeath on the Nile, butSleuthis undoubtedly his most stagelike. The story finds Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier), a famous writer of detective novels, inviting Milo Tindle (Michael Caine), his wife’s lover, to his luxurious manor.
What first starts as a proposition to take his wife off his hands in an elaborate insurance fraud turns out to be more than that, and so a dangerous game between both men begins. The film was a huge success, with two incredible actors exchanging witty barbs in their cat and mouse pursuit; Olivier and Caine exchange blow for blow, making the most out of every scene and finding an undeniable chemistry in their craft. Mankiewicz’s direction is outstanding as well; his attention to detail, construction of the story, its tension and ability to intertwine a very fine brand of humor, made of his final directorial effort a perfect example of what an experienced director can do for a stage production translated into motion picture.
35 years later, this brilliant work would get re-scripted by Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter, directed by Kenneth Branagh, and starringJude Law as Tindle, with the now olderMichael Caine taking on Olivier’s roleas the cuckolded husband, Wyke. Reception this time around was much different; the film was panned by most critics, who found everything that was beloved from the original play and first film adaptation taken away.
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This stripping down of the material is precisely what makes the 2007 version a piece of work worth revisiting, though. Branagh and Pinter’s approach to the play is truly original for its time, and despite “disrespecting” a lot of what made the story’s turns go, it has its own way of twisting and bending through its duration. Rather than a by-the-numbers remake, thisSleuthdoes something special; asRoger Ebert saidat the time, “The festival program was more accurate, describing it as ‘a fascinating transformation.’ So it is. Do not make the mistake of thinking that if you’ve seen the earlier play or film, you’ve got this one covered.”
The First Sleuth Is a Labyrinth of Amusement
The screenplay for Mankiewicz’s version was created by the writer himself, Anthony Shaffer. Understandably, it remains faithful to the play and its themes without many deviations. From the very start, there’s an urgency to set up Andrew Wyke’s archetypal figure as a crime writer, his social status, obsessions, and eccentricity. The main way to show this is through his manor, filled with toys, automata, costumes, all synonyms of his eccentricity, plus the visual imagery pertaining to what an upper-class home looks like that establishes his socioeconomic status.
His profession is highly emphasized and is a relevant part of his character. The obsession with ideas and plots, mysteries that run through labyrinthian complications and deviations, set up the proposition he eventually offers to Milo, as the development of it goes through the same game-like nature of his novels. Through it all,Olivier is absolutely hilarious.
It’s also via his prejudice that the character of Milo Tindle is contextualized. Son of an immigrant, a hairdresser, young, hip, he is everything Wyke finds offensive. Underneath shallow politeness, the novelist makes sharp, witty, and offensive remarks about Milo’s background, ethnicity, and class, to which the young hairdresser reacts and engages in a cunning game of verbal jousting.
Comedic moments are aplenty across the film; even at the film’s grimmest, Olivier and Caine make the most out of the absurdity of their characters, exaggerating on purpose some of their expressions to a point where it’s no longer kitschy or corny, but just plain weird and amusing. Despite the dark turn in the final act, the film is consistent in its tone, blending mysterywith dark comedy, never making it feel dramatic but rather bold and entertaining.
The Remake Is a Sexy Beast
Branagh’s version is no period drama; it’s set in a present that’s so modernistic, it almost seems futuristic. The first scenes show security footage from Andrew’s manor, detailing the arrival of Milo. This is featured prominently through the movie, and it takes a while before Caine and Law are seen full body in the frame. Seen from above, from below the waist, with details of their hands, and the back of their heads — these are the first images of the characters the audience gets, fitting with the film’s nearly postmodern style.
Bodies are favored over the manor, which here is drastically changed. It’s no classical English countryside mansion. No, the inside is brutalist and modern, sculptures and paintings appear to be brought out of an architecture magazine, contrasting heavily with the 1972 one. Warmth and sunlight are forgotten in this house, where Law and Caine coexist in a darkly lit space with remote-controlled, multicolored lighting, looking more like a club than the residence of a millionaire. All this modernism is properly set in the background of the film in favor of the actors, as this is part of Harold Pinter andKenneth Branagh’s interpretationof themes they felt were not being brought to light in the original.
Here, Wyke is no eccentric, game-obsessed classic Englishman — Caine’s version of the character is a person far more obsessed with control than he is in anything else. The vigilance and technology on display are a reflection of the man’s interior, just as the games and toys were for Olivier’s portrayal; he doesn’t want to play a game with Milo or teach him a lesson, he wishes to dominate him.
It makes sense, then, that Tindle is much softer and emotional. Caine’s original portrayal was marked by confidence and strength; Law is from the very beginning not only younger looking, but more fragile and insecure (here he is an actor and not a hairdresser, a wise choice). Domination and control are central to the development of the characters' relationship. While they are measuring each other’s intellect (though not to the same extent as the first film), the film concerns their brains less than it concerns their bodies.
The 2007 Sleuth Gets Weird
The 2007 filmfocuses on a notion that is taken for granted in the previous version: these are two men inside the same space engaging in something that is bringing them together, but something which is absent (the woman they both ‘want’). More than anything, here Andrew and Milo are measuring the physical distance between one another. Scenes like the elevator one detail agrowing homoerotic tensionwhich becomes more and more explicit as the film advances.
The third act here is absolutely changed; after Milo gets back at Andrew, instead of bringing upon another game and him being the one proposing something, it’s Wyke who illustrates the elephant in the room by focusing on a phrase used in the original. “You’re my kind of people”, he says. This is the core of what makes this version entirely its own. Both characters then forsake the women that finds them at quarrel, and begin an ambiguous conversation that appears to be flirting, which is of course never acknowledged. Again, though, it’s all about power (the explicit theme throughout Pinter’s stage plays).
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The story takes a weird path as both of them are not quite clear in what they want. Tindle being an actor makes everything even more ambiguous, and it’s never clear exactly what he wants, turning the tables on Wyke who seems to become completely naked, emotionally. At the end, he is a lonely old man, looking for company more than anything else. The film finishes just as the original, only that this time it’s not pride what makes Andrew do what he does to Milo, but unfulfilled and suppressed desire.
Both Versions of Sleuth Are Unique
Choosing to focus on what’s unsaid, cutting on running time, and violently shifting the film’s second half made Branagh’s vision way more divisive. It certainly takes away a lot of the fun and joyousness away from Shaffer’s play, making it closer to the almost experimental power grabs of Pinter’s work. The 1972 version is by far a more complete film in regard to direction and execution, and the acting is classically straightforward. The 2007 version is witty and unpredictable, but not exactly ‘fun.’ It is dark, rough around the edges, and paces its way with no hesitations towards confrontation.
While one film is about respect and what the exterior world of each of the men hold, the other concerns control and their innermost desires. The older one is a wide-open intellectual battle through the use of the physical world, while the newer film is a claustrophobic, slow-paced dance between two bodies filled with ambiguous inner sexuality. Each version shows how an adaptation can become its own source, and how remakes can be great.Sleuthmakes a brilliant case for artistic revisionism and the possibilities that creativity can bring to previously adapted work.
