Vid for Gardnerhill: Mr. Holmes: Beekeeper

[holmesticemods]

Title: Mr. Holmes: Beekeeper
Recipient: gardnerhill
Vidder: rachelindeed
Beta: sanguinity
Verse: Mr. Holmes
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes and full cast
Rating: G
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Mr. Holmes struggles to remember the griefs of yesteryear. What he finds, to his surprise, is hope for tomorrow.

"Mr. Holmes: Beekeeper" (Watch on YouTube)

Or watch on Youtube: Mr. Holmes: Beekeeper

Lyrics and music by Dessa

Here comes the beekeeper
With her pitcher full of smoke
She'll put us all to sleep
I hope it's dreamless and it's deep
Sweet Prometheus, come home
They took away our fire
And all that scarcity promotes
Is desperate men and tyrants

What fine design
What hands
What minds
The envy of Eden
Our tools and our reason
It's clear in the animals' eyes
We stand upright
Build fires at night
Made on the sixth day to rest on the seventh
And now we just try to survive

The surgeon and farmer meet
And each greets the other with a bow
They're kindred instruments, you know
The scalpel and the plow
And in the shadow of the mountain
We work when work abounds
And we wear out all our prayers when the work runs out

What fine design
What hands
What minds
The envy of Eden
Our tools and our reason
It's clear in the animals' eyes
We stand upright
Build fires at night
Made on the sixth day to rest on the seventh
And now we just try to survive

Comments

[mightymads]

It was lovely! Thank you for sharing!

[rachelindeed]

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed it :)

[gardnerhill]

OMG this is gorgeous. A poignant fandom, and an equally poignant song about the passage of time. The lines about the surgeon, coupled with the film's one look at Watson and the scene of 90something Holmes caressing the stone that represents "my friend John," are heartbreaking.

This has extra meaning now because my 95-year-old father passed away this year - a man who was reading Sherlock Holmes before Doyle died. It's a time to reflect on age and mortality, and what lives on afterward even as this film and this video do.

Brilliant work - as always.

[rachelindeed]

Thank you so much, gardnerhill, for your lovely response. I was just so happy when I saw that you had liked this vid, and that it resonated with you. And thanks also for giving me permission to create a work in this fandom, even though it wasn't specifically on your list. I knew that you loved a wide variety of Holmesian verses, and I'm so pleased that the poignancy of this one was meaningful for you. I found the movie surprisingly touching and good-hearted when I first saw it - I had been expecting it to be depressing, and I did not find it so. I appreciated the way that Holmes was able to make his peace with the past, and continue to grow and learn and become both kinder and wiser even in the final years of his life.

I knew early on that I wanted to try to make a vid for your gift, and I went searching for songs that sounded Holmesian to me. When I found "The Beekeeper" by Dessa, it seemed like a lovely match for this movie.

I'm so happy that the little sequence with John's character stood out to you. They offer so little footage of him in the film, but I was determined to include him and to show as best I could the sense of reconciliation, longing, and regret that Holmes comes to feel toward him by the end of the film. That tender gesture of remembrance and love with his hand against the stone is one of my favorite images from the film.

I'm very sorry for your loss, but also grateful for your father's long life and for everything he shared with you. Wishing you a very happy Holmestice and a new year full of good things <3 <3

[venusinthenight]

This was lovely.

[rachelindeed]

Thanks so much, I'm so glad you enjoyed it :)

[tei]

This is wonderful. This movie made me so sad that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to see bits of it again, but I’m glad I did <3

[rachelindeed]

Thank you so much! It was very kind of you to give it a try, and I'm really happy you enjoyed this - I was aiming for poignant and peaceful, rather than sad. I think the music helps :)

[elwinglyre]

Beautiful and brought a few tears to my eyes. Thank you!

[rachelindeed]

Thank you so much, what a lovely thing to say! I'm so glad you enjoyed it :)

[scfrankles]

Must admit I haven’t seen the film (I’ve read the original novel but I gather it’s somewhat different from the film) but I found this so poignant. It’s beautifully put together.

What a great choice of song. I particularly enjoyed the montages accompanying the sections when the piano plays on its own. Especially the bit at around the 0:10 mark, when Holmes turns round. I thought that smooth rotation fitted the music perfectly. Also the pause at 0:16 when we look straight into the character’s eyes, and the chord at 0:22 coinciding with Holmes poking the stick into Roger’s chest.

Some other moments that particularly struck me:

0:43 ‘They took away our fire’ - as Holmes gestures with a finger as he tries to recall a memory.

0:56 ‘What minds’ - while we’re looking at a distorted Holmes through the glass.

2:55 ‘What fine design’ - the ceiling shot moving into the shot of the flower.

3:20 - ‘And now we just try to survive’. Holmes and his housekeeper waiting together to see if Roger survives.

And it’s such a positive and peaceful sequence for the vid to play out on.

[rachelindeed]

I was so touched and delighted to see this lovely long comment when you posted it! Thank you so much <3 <3

Must admit I haven’t seen the film (I’ve read the original novel but I gather it’s somewhat different from the film) but I found this so poignant.

Ha ha, we are coming at this from opposite directions, then! I've (obviously) seen the film repeatedly, but have never read the book. I remember picking it up in a bookstore in Chicago years ago, reading the back cover, and thinking to myself: 'A story about an elderly Holmes who is losing his faculties, with NO WATSON?!?! This sounds very depressing, I would pay money NOT to read it.' So I put it right back on the shelf and have never regretted that decision. I was, consequently, surprised to find that the movie - despite dealing with serious and sad topics - is not depressing. It's charming and gentle, funny and sweet, observant of its characters' flaws but ultimately quite compassionate towards everyone. I liked it far more than I expected to.

I'm so glad you liked the song! When I first received my assignment this round, I knew I wanted to try vidding something, so I went searching for some music that sounded Holmesian. When I came across this song, it seemed such a perfect fit for the movie that I was amazed! I went so far as to ask gardnerhill - through the mods - for permission to create something for her in this fandom (which she hadn't specifically requested), because I didn't think it would match any pre-retirement version of Holmes half as well.

I particularly enjoyed the montages accompanying the sections when the piano plays on its own.

I'm so happy to hear that! In some ways they were difficult to compose, because I had no guidance from the lyrics. But because they're so wide-open, I learned that I could bring in all the subplots that didn't fit so well with the words, and drive my own storytelling during those musical intervals.

the bit at around the 0:10 mark, when Holmes turns round. I thought that smooth rotation fitted the music perfectly. Also the pause at 0:16 when we look straight into the character’s eyes

Those were two of the VERY LAST edits I made to the whole thing - I went through several rounds of beta-ing with Sang, and that first musical interlude was giving me fits. I overhauled it right down to the last minute, so it makes me especially happy that those last little changes were ones that improved the vid and stood out to you. It makes me feel like all my tinkering was worthwhile!

and the chord at 0:22 coinciding with Holmes poking the stick into Roger’s chest.

Ha ha, and that was one of the very FIRST edits I made, and it stayed unchanged through the whole process. I laughed when I first saw how it played with the music, and thought: yes! Let's make it clear from the start that this Holmes isn't all doom and gloom. He's playful, and affectionate, and doesn't take even his own drama too seriously all the time :)

Vidding, I am finding, is an interesting exercise in working in the margins. Something you don't want to use much of in fanvids are clips of people talking - it's generally distracting to see characters' lips moving but not be able to hear what they're saying. But of course, the majority of shots and scenes in any film or television show have dialogue happening in them, which makes them unusable to me. So, as a vidder, I have to wait for the talking to end, and find those little looks or gestures that happen before and after the words and which can convey the emotions and relationships. It's an interesting challenge!

[rachelindeed]

0:43 ‘They took away our fire’ - as Holmes gestures with a finger as he tries to recall a memory.

I really like that moment, too. It's one of the shots that I chose early and never changed.

0:56 ‘What minds’ - while we’re looking at a distorted Holmes through the glass.

I'm so glad that you liked that clip! I was searching for ways to visually convey Holmes's confusion without relying solely on shots of him looking confused :) I thought that image of his silhouette behind blurred glass was evocative. Similarly, there's a line about "our tools and our reason" where I use the image of a notebook covered in black dots. In the film, it's explained that Holmes inks a mark for each day that he notices he's forgotten something. It seemed a good image to show that his 'reason' was increasingly full of black holes, and that he was so self-aware about that process that he was actively, and somewhat morbidly, documenting it.

2:55 ‘What fine design’ - the ceiling shot moving into the shot of the flower.

I love that little parallel, too. I knew I wanted to focus on a flower for the 'fine design' line, in homage to ACD Holmes's Naval Treaty discussion about the rose, and I happened to notice that the pattern on that beautiful golden ceiling in the Diogenes Club was shaped rather like an iris. Human artistry imitating that of nature. I enjoyed that.

3:20 - ‘And now we just try to survive’. Holmes and his housekeeper waiting together to see if Roger survives.

Yes, I was so happy that the shot was long enough that the music faded down to one voice while the close-up moved to their joined hands. It worked out very nicely! If the vid has a theme, I think it's that human connection is what saves Holmes in the end, and that he finds his peace, not in the reparation of his imperfect reason, but rather by learning to reach out to those around him with greater awareness and kindness. That closing sequence focuses on his hands reaching out, and on the happy and idyllic retirement that finally comes within his reach.

I'm so happy that you enjoyed the vid, and thank you again for such generous and thoughtful comments!

[verdant_fire]

This is so lovely! It really captures the elegiac tone of the movie, and you did such a good job matching the music to the cuts and the choice of scenes, like the line about standing upright with Holmes struggling to do so. Very well done! <33

[rachelindeed]

Thank you so much <3 <3

'Elegiac' is the perfect word for the tone I was striving for, and I'm so glad that it came through successfully. The movie has very beautiful cinematography and locations, it was genuinely a pleasure to work with.

I'm so pleased you liked that match between the 'stand upright' lyric and Holmes's slow collapse as he grieves for what happened to Roger and admits how much he cared for and depended on him. His absence brings Holmes to his knees, and I was pleased that contrasting the lyric with the image seemed to highlight that emotion. It was one of those vidding moments where you cackle fiendishly and think: "Oh yeah, I've got it this time!" LOL.

Thank you so much for watching this, I'm so happy you enjoyed it!

[nottoolateforthegame]

I haven't seen the film, but now I want to!

[rachelindeed]

What a lovely thing to say, I'm very happy to hear it! I didn't watch the movie for a long time because I was expecting it to be depressing, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's poignant, certainly, and bittersweet. But it has a great cast, it reflects on questions of age, class, and the meaning of fiction in ways I found interesting, and it's centered in a very warm and charming performance by McKellan. He makes a lovely Holmes, he really does.

[starfishstar]

Lovely and moving!

[rachelindeed]

Thank you so much, I'm so happy you liked it! :)