The Singing Detective (1986)

Nice effects though.

Great Film overall

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The Singing Detective is one of those great works that inspire something deep within the viewer, leaving them both shaken and elated by the spectacle they have just witnessed. Few cinematic works can inspire such a feeling, let alone a work for television; and it is this sense of genius that elevates this work above the comparatively "okay" likes of say, Cracker, Brideshead Revisited, and Prime Suspect et al. This is down to the fact that The Singing Detective is a work far greater than anything else; a microcosm of life, love, anger, defeat, consciousness and the sub-conscious. It deals with the intricate realms of fantasy and reality, the written, the understood and the real. If this sounds complicated then we're on the right track, because this is one of Dennis Potter's most detailed narrative constructs. The story chronicles a writer's decent into personal hell, as well as a decent into a book being written in his own imagination and a book written many years before; with his past, present and future all jostling for our attention throughout the epic, six-hours-plus running-time.It is a testament to Potter's ability as a screenwriter that the whole thing zips along so quickly, with the multi-layered story never pausing for a moment; constantly being carried along at every step by the combined genius of Potter's characters, the skillful and visually rich direction of Jon Amiel and that towering central performance from the brilliant Michael Gambon. The writing is truly ecstatic, with Potter obviously relishing every chance he gets to play with both the musical and detective-movie clichés - bringing to mind both Casablanca and Potter's own-classic Pennies From Heaven - whilst the dialog of Gambon's inner-monologues have more in common with the profane poetry of 60's playwrights that anything you'd expect to hear on BBC 2. The story also has obvious political overtones, with Potter using the hospital setting of the present sequences to double as an allegory of 80's Britain under the tyrannical leadership of Margaret Thatcher (bringing to mind the Elvis Costello song Tramp the Dirt Down and those other hospital set political parables, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Britannia Hospital).The story is also somewhat semi-autobiographical from Potter's point of view, with the writer, at this point in time, suffering from the same psoriatic-arthritis that Gambon's character Marlow has (creating that devastating, iconic image of the paralytic Marlow languishing half-naked in bed, being greased by a young Joanne Whally). There are also the much deeper autobiographical aspects with the young Marlow's childhood in the shady and evergreen Forest of Dean, in which the pastoral setting gives way to some truly shocking moments; recalling similar childhood traumas from such diverse examples as Iain Bank's Complicity and Rob Reiner's film Stand by Me. However, within this mire of bitterness, surrealism, bouts of lip-synced cabaret and phantasmagorical shoot-outs, there is also a great deal of humour. Anyone who has seen one of Potter's early TV plays or, for that matter, later classics like Karaoke and Cold Lazarus will know of his depth and range as both a humorist and a satirist; and it is this darkly acerbic wit that underlines the central narrative strands of The Singing Detective.Some would argue that this is the best that television has to offer, though I would politely disagree. The Singing Detective is a work of art too good to be considered simply for television. Now, thanks to the magic of DVD we have the chance to experience Potter's classic in its definitive unabridged, unedited, uninterrupted from. A truly great piece of work.

All I can say about this movie is that it is the best -- from the screenplay to the cinematography to the choreography to the acting -- this movie is the best! It's got it all -- from irony to bathos.Knowing nothing of the plot, it was just a bit hard to get into. But by the time I had watched 15 minutes, I was hooked. It took me a while (all right, over an hour) to understand the flashbacks and the surrealism (come to think of it, that element is rather similar to what the Coen Brothers did in their masterpiece Barton Fink) but when I did sort out the real from the surreal and the present from the past, I was overcome with admiration.It's visually gorgeous; the music is luscious; the pacing is perfect ... The Singing Detective is glorious, a splendiferous accomplishment.See it ASAP!

Dennis Potter's "Singing Detective" in its 1986 TV production, surpasses standard definitions of dramatic entertainment. It amazingly integrates cultural fragments and memories with unequaled acting performance(Michael Gambon), giving full-dimensional life and impact to a form pioneered by Joyce, but with a soul and involvement of the senses far beyond "Ulysses".Although it has a plus 6 hour running time, we are left with a desire to continue sharing the company of this incredibly complex man. No other book, movie, etc. has so completely affected me as a work of art.The visuals of this production perfectly match the "mindworld" of Marlow as he struggles with agonizing disease, childhood memories and the birth pangs of artistic creation.

Although my comments could belong under the 2003 film version, I choose rather to make the comparison here because the film, more than anything else, gives reinforcement to the view that there are reasons this original miniseries is 6 hours long. In the original, there really isn't a wasted minute of it's 6-hour running time. The complexity of this man's situation requires that the story reveals several different conflicts in his life simultaneously, and how they relate and resolve through psychiatry, The Singing Detective writing, his relationships (past and present), and the music that had become so important in his life. For the film version, because most of this can't be explored in such a short amount of time, most of these elements aren't included. As a result, the film is light and detached... and forgettable.Apart from that. as another reviewer here pointed out, the acting and casting is MUCH MUCH better in this original despite the lack of famous handsome Hollywood faces (the 2003 film features Mel Gibson sporting a bald head piece to look like a 'nerdy' psychiatrist!). I'm not an easy critic, but this version is in my top five of all time (movies, not TV- it feels more like a movie that TV to me). 10 of 10