Dr. Same and Mr. Similar

Once again, I've had occasion to marvel that many people consider Steven Moffat to be misogynist. This time it's because I watched his six episode 2007 series Jekyll, intended as a sequel of sorts to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I can understand why someone would come away from this thinking Moffat has a slightly embarrassing attitude about women but not that he harbours hatred for women. This is a story about a guy whose whole existence is defined by women. As a Jekyll and Hyde adaptation, this is one that casts its lot with the interpretation of Hyde as id, avoiding any explicit contemplations of morality. It's fun at times, more of a superhero story than a horror film, and has the same pattern as most of Moffat's Doctor Who seasons and Sherlock--the earlier, more grounded episodes are better, the later ones that give way to untethered emotive fantasy tend to have reaches that exceed their grasps.

James Nesbitt plays Doctor Jackman, this series' version of Doctor Jekyll--his Hyde, also played by James Nesbitt, is still called Hyde. In this reality, Robert Louis Stevenson's novella exists but is secretly based on a true story. One of the ongoing mysteries throughout the series is how Jackman can be related to Jekyll if Jekyll had no children. There're a lot of bait and switch clues that lead to an amusingly mundane explanation.

As far as Jackman knows, he was abandoned as a baby at a railway station in Belfast--thus explaining Jackman being Northern Irish. Nesbitt's good in the role, maybe a bit too zany as Hyde for my taste. He's certainly the nicest Hyde I've seen--this is a Hyde who's never killed anyone and although a scene in the first episode had what I thought was a prelude to a rape I think we're meant to believe he's never raped anyone. Everyone seems to think he's dangerous, though, which is why Jackman has himself strapped in and monitored by the first of the show's series of mother figures, a psychiatric nurse named Katherine (Michelle Ryan).

This show is filled with beautiful women that want to help Jackman take care of his rampant id, in one way or another. In addition to Katherine there's Jackman's wife, Claire (Gina Bellman), who seems to become a more prominent custodian of Jackman as the series progresses than she was intended to be at first; there's a lesbian couple who are detectives who are at first hired by Claire to follow Jackman but then want to help him pro bono; and then Jackman's possibly actual mother shows up. I guess if you consider turning all women into mother figures misogynistic then you might consider this misogynistic too. I think it's boring to think of all women as primarily mothers but not necessarily hateful unless you resent women who don't act like mothers. But just because this show is crammed with mother figures one shouldn't assume that that's how Moffat sees women in real life, especially since this might be part of a conscious statement on the nature of Hyde.

This seems to me another case of someone adapting Jekyll and Hyde to argue against the fundamental argument of the original novella. Jekyll in the novel is this repressed Victorian who's sold himself on the idea of a totally abstract morality and his Hyde is a result, the really real that's spoiling to come out around the edges of what society wants to be real. Moffat's point, which he has several characters explicitly state, is that Hyde is really a child who assumes the whole world revolves around him. The point of all the mother figures could have been to intentionally highlight the childish nature of Hyde, to emphasis the dynamic of this big kid who always has to be picked up after. Though Moffat kind of shoots himself in the foot by making the whole series revolve around Jackman/Hyde. Just like his Doctor Who or Sherlock, the story always seems to eventually focus on its protagonist. Here, it might have been nice to focus more on the people who were negatively affected by Hyde, which would complicate the final episodes where Hyde essentially becomes an unambiguous hero figure.

No, not an antihero. There's a term that gets misused a lot nowadays. Venom is not an antihero. Alex DeLarge is an antihero. The protagonist of Kind Hearts and Coronets is an antihero. Hyde in Jekyll, by contrast, becomes downright altruistic. Partly because the show gives him fewer and fewer opportunities to genuinely be an egregious miscreant. Instances where he does commit acts of extreme violence are always mitigated by the fact that his victims had been established as two dimensional assholes who had hurt or had tried to hurt Jackman/Hyde or someone innocent.

It turns out there's a standard issue, shadowy, super wealthy organisation that wants to get its hands on Hyde for medical research. They're much more ruthless than Hyde, believing the ends eventually will justify the means, which might have been this series' version of Victorian morality but so little time is spent on their motives. They mostly boil down to people in suits striding through fluorescent corridors discussing strategy on how to capture Hyde. In flashbacks to Jackman's first dates with Claire, he seems a bit shy, as though there was some thought of going the Nutty Professor route, but the show doesn't go very far with it. Jackman disapproves of Hyde smoking and drinking but there's no sense of a repression that's really had a detrimental influence on his life.

In the end, what exactly the show wants to do with Jackman and Hyde is left pretty vague, which may be the reason it was never picked up for a second season. Incredibly, by the end of the series Moffat had actually removed the conflict between the two to the point where they seem more of one mind than Oscar and Felix from The Odd Couple.

The Hyde Solution

Is it necessary for our well being to commit rape and murder? The vast majority of us would say no but Henry Jekyll takes it as read in the extraordinary 1980 BBC adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. With a great performance by David Hemmings in the title role and several wonderful supporting performances--including Diana Dors and Clive Swift--this adaptation's perspective on sex and society clearly and cleverly reflects the punk groundswell of its day.

It begins with Jekyll seemingly addressing us directly before we realise he's recording a monograph. He puts forth the familiar theory about human beings being composed of a good and evil duality but then he directly says, "If the twin sides of my nature could be separated then the unjust could go its own way without disgracing its more upright twin." What? So the idea isn't to get rid of evil so much as to make sure he can have his evil cake and eat it too. It brings the concept a little closer to Dorian Gray at heart--goodness is imputed to be an entirely superficial thing even by the most virtuous. So ingrained is the concept of an abstract morality governing all things that characters in this story don't even consider that it could be related to real actions or conditions. Jekyll figures he's going to be under the evil column anyway for the impossible to anticipate shifting goal post of "good" so he may as well see himself as a murderer.

This is the first one I've seen to directly connect this with Protestantism. When Utterson (Ian Bannen) speculates that Henry has some past sin or disgrace haunting him, Lanyon (Clive Swift) dismissively replies, "There speaks the voice of John Calvin."

I'm always happy to see Diana Dors, one of my favourite actresses, and I knew without having to look she'd be playing the brothel madam. We meet her ensconced behind a beautiful elevated desk like a judge. An appropriate impression because this version amusingly portrays Jekyll as a regular visitor already--he pays to have prostitutes beat him. Presumably for Original Naughtiness.

Jekyll and Hyde both talk about how the moral duality also might exist in women and this is reflected in Jekyll's fiancee, Ann Coggeshall (Lisa Harrow), who unlike the ciphers of earlier versions seems like a very good match for Henry. She's shocked by the suggestion of improprieties but also leads the men on one of the sadly enduring displays of Victorian hypocrisy, the slum tour.

This version combines the Suave Hyde with the Wolfman Hyde. Hemmings gets heavily made up as Jekyll so he can look younger and more handsome as Hyde but in the transition sequences, and when things start to go wrong, he gets more hair and weird teeth.

As in the novella, there's absolutely nothing to suggest that there's anything but a cosmetic difference between Jekyll and Hyde, Hyde merely representing Jekyll under the cloak of anonymity and, in this case, with better looks and a charm that comes with self-confidence and ease of manner. So his insistent belief that he has become two separate people seems especially mad, just as unvarnished as Boris Karloff's version in the Abbott and Costello movie but much more disturbing in this context.

This is a Hyde who preys on children, too, in ways much worse than trampling them. He takes one twelve or thirteen year old girl back to her hovel where she regularly sells her body, talks to her in a broad, amiable manner like a TV presenter before cheerfully telling her to undress. I had to wonder, were the makers of this film trying to say something about Jimmy Savile? In any case, they manage to say something much bigger about society with the casual revelation that Hyde is far from the first to abuse her in this way.

Another of Hyde's victims is Jekyll's housemaid played by Toyah Willcox with a nice, understated simmer. She can't read and Hyde tricks her into taking mescal--which is also a component of his potion in this film. Someone who commented on one of my earlier reviews, Evan S Ent, told me that the formula for mescaline is written on Jekyll's chalkboard in this version, which would explain why the first transformation sequence has the inverted colours and other camera effects associated with drug trips in other films. I suppose it's possible the whole film after that first dose is one long hallucination. I'd hope so, for a lot of people's sakes.

Twitter Sonnet #1107

A silver shadow traced a fabric bird.
A stencilled night behind the curtain sleeps.
The paint not dry the morning reads the word.
A nodding bowler boards the train it keeps.
The early metal pings for walking phones.
Across a marble street the blind've blinked.
Betimes the shuffling egg could make the bones.
Preserve a brain of grapes beneath the rink.
The ancient face remakes the new to back.
A timely flame appeared a cent'ry gone.
As punching cards dissolve to painted wrack.
A pigment gave a sun to canvas dawn.
A shiny mustard bullion fills the hold.
The endless columns do resemble gold.

It's a Strange World, Jekyll

Decades before she starred on Showtime's revival of Twin Peaks, Laura Dern appeared in another Showtime series, desperately trying to catch the eye of Henry Jekyll on Shelley Duvall's short lived anthology series, Nightmare Classics. With a teleplay by J. Michael Straczynski, this version of Jekyll and Hyde, like the Jack Palance version, takes a cue from The Nutty Professor but even more obviously. With an ending that's a bit too abrupt and a misguided conception of Hyde, the episode does have some nice performances from Dern and Anthony Andrews as well as some disappointing supporting performances. In comparison to other examples of the "shy Jekyll" and "suave Hyde" type, this one functions mainly in agreement with the original argument of the novella.

Andrews plays a shy and awkward Dr. Jekyll. Unable to muster the courage to return the earnest and obvious affections of Rebecca Laymon (Dern) he throws himself into his research. This neatly ties in with his repression leading to the creation of the psychopathic Hyde.

Makeup is minimal in this one but Andrews does a good job with his performance making Jekyll and Hyde seem like different people. Unfortunately, his decision to play Hyde as exceedingly stiff and aloof doesn't really make sense for a persona that's supposed to be without any restraint or inhibitions. He kind of comes off as a cross between Jeremy Irons and Klaus Nomi.

Rue McClanahan appears as the brothel owner with a broad French accent, her performance more suited for oversized comedy; she's a bit out of place here. Laura Dern has the seemingly effortless natural charm she's known for though it's a bit of a mystery why she's so attracted to Jekyll. She mentions admiring his work--it could've been an intriguing bit of irony if she loved him for the very work that's tied into his destructive repression. In this version, Jekyll speaks quite plainly of good and evil, something that causes a character to remark he seems more like a priest than a doctor. In this Straczynski might have been attempting to neatly wed the Nutty Professor premise with the novella's original idea of the destructive nature of artificial, imposed codes of moral conduct.

But after a climax that features an abrupt confrontation with quite of issues unresolved, nothing feels adequately fleshed out. The impression is of a two hour script with roughly half of it removed. But there are some nice elements in what there is.

Jekyll for God

Even by Victorian standards, the 2003 television adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is very conservative. Like The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, this version deliberately reframes the story to make a philosophical statement opposite to Robert Louis Stevenson's and it also takes a cue from Mary Reilly in its focus on the servant class. In this case, it does so to argue that some people are meant to be servants and others are meant to be aristocrats, that it's something possibly determined by inherited genetic traits. Other than the levels of violence portrayed, at the heart of this story is a perspective that might have been applauded by an ardent Victorian Royalist. It has lousy dialogue and a mediocrity in composition, editing, and music typically associated with TV movies but it also has some decent performances and some really pretty sets.

Early in the movie we get what seems like some really clumsily expository dialogue--Dr. Jekyll explaining how society celebrates carefully composed surface over the reality of human nature, which is partly the point of the novella. But this adaptation introduces the idea to make a point that this superficiality is really one of the best achievements of the human race and is fully necessary for a properly functioning society. I don't agree but I'll admit the movie makes some good points.

I knew David Warner would turn up in one of these eventually. He plays Sir Danvers here in an expanded role--in the novella he's just the MP whom Hyde randomly murders in the street. In many film versions, he becomes the father of Jekyll's fiancee--here he's the father of Sarah (Elodie Kendall) who would very much like to be Jekyll's fiancee but for unexplained reasons he always declines her attentions. This is also the first adaptation I've seen that actually focuses on Sir Danvers' career as a politician.

Warner plays the role as halfway to villainous. We're meant to recoil at the obvious hypocrisy of this guy who uses the poor as a publicity opportunity and he has a lot of dialogue about the importance of maintaining his reputation and avoiding scandal in order to keep his career. By the end of the movie, though, we're clearly meant to sympathise with him as we see that, yes, he's had an illegitimate child but he really has tried to help her and her mother. Obviously he couldn't help them if he didn't have his position and he couldn't have his position if it weren't for his reputation. But the movie's not as convincing when Danvers deliberately overlooks a rape in order to preserve his status--does letting the rapist continue, unfettered and unrepentant, really serve the greater good?

The rapist is Hyde, of course. John Hannah plays both Jekyll and Hyde, playing Jekyll a little more convincingly. Like the Jekyll in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, he doesn't believe in the "good and evil" moral dichotomy which the novella Jekyll subscribes to. Hannah's Jekyll believes in coexisting "high" and "base" personalities and directly rejects not only the idea of good and evil but of the existence of God. The movie could hardly more clearly set up its position as anti-Nietzschean/Byronic. He goes further by arguing that all people are biologically part of the same species, something Sir Danvers' wife (Mel Martin) scoffs at, pointing out there's a world of difference between her daughter, Sarah, and the girl serving peas at that moment, Mabel (Kellie Shirley).

Mabel is Jekyll's servant and essentially occupies the Mary Reilly role as she takes on more and more heroic qualities in the story and as an influence in Jekyll's life. She tells him about the grace of God and patiently indoctrinates him on the idea of good and evil. And just in case you think this is the movie refuting the idea that roles are biologically determined part of the movie's climax is a revelation that Mabel has at least one very distinguished parent. Mabel is definitely no Rey.

Meanwhile, another of Jekyll's servants, a boy named Ned (Jack Blumenau), gets wind of Jekyll's opinions on human equality and it inspires him to blackmail Jekyll when he learns he and Hyde are one and the same. This is what happens when people get ideas above their station!

Integral to the movie's unselfconsciously misanthropic idea is that liberated people naturally want to hurt people for no reason. Part of the point of the novella is that repression by a superficial morality inspires a contrary impulse to transgress. The point of this TV movie is that this superficial morality is all that stops us from killing and raping one another.

There's no change in appearance between Jekyll and Hyde in this version but in this case people actually do recognise Hyde as Jekyll. Which removes the idea of Jekyll glorying in the license of anonymity. He basically takes a potion that makes him into an asshole. Like the Abbott and Costello version, this is a Jekyll who takes the drug seemingly with the idea, he won't quite admit to himself, that Hyde will dispose of his enemies. Despite a lot of scenes where Jekyll hallucinates actually having dialogue with Hyde--Hyde screams in pain at the mention of God at one point--the main difference between the two seems to be levels of cowardice. Yet we're supposed to take it as a good thing Sir Danvers wanted Jekyll to marry his daughter? Incredibly enough, I think that was the idea.

Twitter Sonnet #1106

Discarded warnings make a good return.
Imploring eyes belong to lily pads.
For sev'ral hundred years we must relearn.
The spirit's purse concedes so much for fads.
In veins of quartz a string of words descends.
The watchful rock replaced the plaster wall.
In dragon woods a lantern late ascends.
A living house contains a changing hall.
A temple sunk between tomato hills.
The sails are slack, siesta turns around.
For burning tracks and time and turning mills.
The pond conducts its power over ground.
A weathered boot conducts itself away.
There's breakfast served throughout the night and day.

That Rascal Hyde!

Why would I watch the 1986 animated TV movie version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? I don't plan on watching every adaptation. Though I might end up doing that. But I guess I was in the mood for cheesy 80s animation and that's just what I got. From Australia's Burbank Films, a studio that has produced cheap animated adaptations of literary classics since the early 80s, it's not as bad as you might expect. The style looks like Hanna-Barbera but it's better animated, still a cut well below what was out of Japan at the time, though. In terms of story, I think it's instructive if you want an idea of the haziest conception of Jekyll and Hyde in the popular imagination.

There's no playing around with how much Jekyll (Max Meldrum) is in Hyde (David Nettheim) or how much Hyde is in Jekyll, or how much the events of the story support or contradict Jekyll's idea of each person containing a good and evil side. Jekyll does talk about this and his colleagues do scoff at him as usual but Hyde is portrayed as essentially a lucky thug who's taken up residence in Jekyll's home. Expect that they occupy the same body, he's basically exactly what Utterson assumes he is in the book--a bad fellow who forces Jekyll to put him his will. The film isn't very clear on the subject but it seems, after the first time Jekyll takes the potion, Hyde just manifests on his own and switches back by drinking the potion in order to hide from authorities.

He seems basically modelled on Peg Leg Pete and his first transformation is accompanied by synthesised bass guitar with a rock beat. I had to grin, after all the other adaptations I've watched lately, to see Hyde as a run of the mill 80s cartoon villain.

Obviously it's meant for children who probably wouldn't appreciate the subtleties of conversations about duty and the liberation of amorality. Oddly, this simple version of the story got me thinking about what a basically frightening idea it is, losing control of one's own life so completely. This in spite of a pretty garish colour palette.

Fanny Obsourne Loves Henry Jekyll

And then there's the pure sensual pleasure of transgressing all ethics and morality. 1981's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (apparently the director's preferred title though it was released in France as Docteur Jekyll et les femmes) is Jekyll and Hyde by way of the Marquis de Sade. Essentially an S&M fantasy, it's also a meditation on societal hypocrisy, handsomely photographed, and featuring magnetic performances from Udo Kier and Marina Pierro. Patrick Magee also stars in this, his final feature film role before he died the following year. As the title suggests, the film also has a provocative reconfiguration of perspective to include participation from its female characters in the discussion on morality.

With the exception of the film's first scene, in which Hyde not merely tramples but attempts to rape a young girl, the entire film takes place indoors. In Jekyll's enormous, labyrinthine mansion, the candles and lamps are never lit but the lighting makes it seem as though every room has a skylight through which sunlight is constantly streaming, night and day.

The effect is to give a simultaneously warm painted quality and eerie iciness to the events. It underlines the sense of unreality, leading one to suspect that the house is meant to be taken as a metaphor for a whole country or culture. Hyde's assault of the young girl is juxtaposed with another girl (Magali Noaro) dancing ballet for Jekyll's assembled guests. Her elderly caretakers fuss and coo over the girl's appearance, telling her not to exaggerate when she complains her shoes are too tight. When she falls onto a bed, exhausted, her mother (Catherine Coste) and Lady Osbourne (Rita Maiden) carefully place her feet, instead of her head, on the pillow and then cover her with a lace veil "to keep away flies".

The dancer is the daughter of Enfield (Eugene Braun Munk), the man who first tells Utterson about Hyde in the novella. He and Utterson have very small roles here. Patrick Magee plays General Carew, normally the father of Jekyll's fiancee in previous films but here apparently unrelated to her. He has a younger daughter, Charlotte (Agnes Daems), who's so turned on by the murders Hyde begins to commit that when Hyde does get around to the room she shares with her father she comes out of hiding half naked, bending over a table and caressing a sewing machine, her father's apoplectic reaction apparently adding to her stimulation.

The General's punishment of her afterwards suggests he also unconsciously derives some pleasure from things he shouldn't. It's hard to imagine this character in the hands of any other actor; Magee's weird fervour is both over the top and completely credible.

This is the only Jekyll and Hyde I've seen, outside the versions where the two characters are of different sexes, where Jekyll and Hyde are played by different actors. For once it would be believable that no-one recognises them as the same person but since few seem to survive getting a clear look at Hyde it's kind of a wasted opportunity. Gerard Zalcberg presents an eyebrow-less, almost Nosferatu-ish Hyde while Udo Kier, who was adorable when he was young, plays Jekyll as a sweet and sensitive doctor and suitor. Passionately making out with his fiancee, Fanny Osbourne (Marina Pierro), you believe the two are really in love, something that becomes important for the climax of the film. This is one version where Jekyll's fiancee is certainly willing to understand his obsession.

In this version, Jekyll is developing a "transcendental chemistry"--as in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, this isn't a Jekyll concerned so much with making people purely good but with transcending all ideas of good and evil. Unlike the Hammer film, though, this version seems to revel in the idea as men and women find themselves liberated from the stiflingly shallow morality of society. Where The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll only argued against the potential sadism of such an outlook, Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne also includes the masochism.

The actress playing the child dancer is clearly not a child. This, like the mise-en-scene, emphasises the fantasy aspect of the film. The point in its criticism of social hypocrisy is clearly not an advocacy of real unrestrained mayhem but an encouragement to allow oneself to entertain thoughts and feelings society adheres to with mindless fear. It fits in with a general trend in 70s and 80s fiction to vicariously revel in the experiences of a traditionally villainous character--it's a very pretty example, too.

Twitter Sonnet #1104

A careful card complains in potted ink.
Tremendous blooms appeared beyond the plant.
Collected troops amass within the sink.
A dish deserves a plate and legs a pant.
A tall and placid cube of water drank.
The swimmer grins to find a bounded drop.
A bubble wake rewards the fish who sank.
Attained, a floor compels the sleep to stop.
A broken turtle shoe has shown a fate.
An ankle deep in turns decides the toe.
A march collides with stumbling, steely gait.
The stripe of pants portrays a legging show.
Impossible, the diff'rent brow could tell.
A changling leech, confirmed in potion hell.

Hyde the Vicious Charmer

Jack Palance makes an exceptionally fearsome, charming, and loathsome Hyde in 1968's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. With a cast that also includes Denholm Elliot and Leo Genn, it's one of the more impressive productions, with great production design. Its biggest flaw, and it is a pervasive one, is that it was shot on videotape instead of film, though at times this makes it even creepier.

Seemingly influenced by The Nutty Professor and perhaps, to a lesser extent, The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, the primary difference between Jekyll and Hyde in this film is inhibition. Unlike the novella and film versions prior to The Two Faces, this is a Hyde who is intensely charming--everyone at the music hall loves him. He even jumps on stage to perform a bit, much to the crowd's delight.

Poor Dr. Jekyll is shy and awkward by contrast--no fiancee for him in this film--Lanyon (Leo Genn) even remarks on Jekyll's lack of experience with women. I wonder if this movie was an influence on Jim Carrey's film version of The Mask--the Hyde makeup here even calls it to mind.

Unlike the suave dandy from The Two Faces, this Hyde is a boisterous, hearty rogue. There's a prostitute character in this one, a descendent of the one in the 1920, 1931, and 1941 versions, in this case named Gwyn (Billie Whitelaw). Unlike the versions played by Miriam Hopkins and Ingrid Bergman, it's clear that Gwyn is attracted to him and it makes sense when they move in together. When he does assault her and her initial defiance turns into a frightened denial, it feels much more disturbingly credible.

He's quite vicious with men, too, and few Hydes come off as so zealously sadistic. One of the more effective moments comes when Hyde corners a victim and a full body shot of Hyde snap zooms onto his face after he smashes a globe with his cane.

The cane is important in this version, too, though it's for yet another reason--in this case it's a cane sword, a rather thick one that looks like it would be pretty effective as a cudgel even without the blade. We see Hyde taking fencing lessons, a surprisingly disciplined endeavour for him, emphasising again the concept here is mainly about boldness.

Denholm Elliot plays the Utterson character, for absolutely no apparent reason renamed Devlin. There's certainly nothing devilish about him and Elliot exudes warmth, sympathy, and determination as only he can when he tries to advise Jekyll. Though this is another version that misses that key bit of characterisation from the novella, that Utterson is more tolerant than Jekyll.

Jekyll starts off with the idea to separate the good and evil in people into pure components but after his first taste of life as Hyde he comes more around to the Two Faces Jekyll's point of view of might makes right and living amorally, though it doesn't get deeply enough into the philosophical argument for flaws in it to be obtrusive. Palance does a good job as Jekyll, adding a stiffness to his manner that communicates his shyness. But its in his fantastically malevolent Hyde where he really shines.