The Seven Percent Solution

[poliphilo]

Judy has been recommending The Seven Percent Solution for years. Finally, to make sure I watched it she sent me a copy for my birthday.

It's fun. It's also the sort of not trying very hard studio movie that I mostly steer clear of.  There's a script with a clever premise- Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud- which takes the easy way out with damsels in distress and murdered nuns and oriental villains and steam trains. A lot of competent film artists turn up and do their jobs and Nicol Williamson- for whom this was a rare stab at a starring role- acts his socks off- and everyone goes home feeling they've had a good day at the office. It's OK. Most movies are OK. At no stage of the proceedings did anyone- unless it was Williamson- think, "This could be amazing- I could do amazing work in this."

And now a note about accents. Robert Duvall is in the movie. He plays Dr Watson. Apparently none of our 1001 excellent British character actors was available at the time of casting. Duvall's attempt at a cultivated English accent bleats and brays and foghorns. It's hideous. Taken syllable by syllable, these are sounds a posh Englishman of the 1890s might conceivably have made, but that's not the point. The point is the lack of fluency.  Duvall seems to pause before every word,  adjust his tonsils, then deliver it with earnest deliberation- as if he were doing "the rain in Spain" and Professor Higgins were poised to smack him for every mistake. The thing about accents is they're unconscious. No-one thinks very much about the noises they make. Better then to get an accent slightly wrong than appear to be labouring at it.

Comments

[oakmouse]

Duvall seems to pause before every word, adjust his tonsils, then deliver it with earnest deliberation- as if he were doing "the rain in Spain" and Professor Higgins were poised to smack him for every mistake.

*snort* Hee! That's a perfect description of what's wrong with his delivery.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Duvall is a very fine actor- but he's way outside his comfort zone here.

[internet-sampo.livejournal.com]

The 7% Solution is my favorite Freud movie. Although the Freud presented is historically inaccurate, I've always felt that the movie presented a side of Freud most movies ignored.

I actually dug up a list of my ranking of the Freud movies:
========
Freud Goes to the Oscars!

And the Oscar for Most Historically Accurate goes to –

Freud, starring Montgomery Cliff

And the Oscar for Best Visual Freud goes to –

Lovesick, starring Alex Guinness as Siggie

And the Oscar for Best Mystery goes to –

In the Still of the Night, starring Roy Scheider as a psychoanalysts trying to solve the murder of one of his patients by interpreting the dead man’s dreams.

And the Oscar for Best Identification with the Aggressor goes to –

Pink Floyd’s The Wall – “All you need to do is follow the worms.”

And the Oscar for Bill’s Favorite Freud goes to –

The Seven-percent Solution, starring Alan Arkin as a young Freud developing his theory, fighting anti-Semitism, and teaming up with Sherlock Holmes to solve a mystery!

And the Oscar for Best Artistic Design goes to –

Salvador Dali, who was the artistic director for the dream sequence in Hitchcock’s Spellbound!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've always thought Freud's skills as a tennis player and his ability with firearms have been unjustly overlooked.

[sovay]

There's a script with a clever premise- Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud- which takes the easy way out with damsels in distress and murdered nuns and oriental villains and steam trains.

Hey, Alan Arkin's performance makes me feel positively toward Freud, which is a great accomplishment. I think the movie deserves credit for that alone.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

As a lifelong Jungian (of sorts) I have ambiguous feelings towards Freud.

You're right, Arkin gives a winning performance. A Freud who clambers across moving trains and is handy with firearms is a Freud I can love.