Most helpful customer reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Deserved Praise - A Masterpiece, April 28 2004
Like all great masterpieces of television and film, "The Singing Detective" is not simple, one-dimensional, or thin-plotted. It is vastly complicated and often strange with it's several interwoven stories that reach monumental heights of suspense and intrigue. I say this because I have read too many reviews from people who stopped watching after the first or second episodes. For my part, I barely understood anything at all until nearly half way through the series when all the pieces started coming together. As you get further along more is revealed to you, and thus the more rewarding each episode becomes. It is sad that American movies and television have sapped not only the intellectual substance right out of it's audience, but apparently the patience as well. Of course it is strange and confusing...it is a detective story! You aren't supposed to understand everything from the first frame. So, for anyone who can sit still for more than twenty minutes without computer generated monkeys attacking exploding trucks or whatever makes it's way to the theatres these days, I strongly recommend spending a few days immersed in this fascinating mini-series.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Potter and Lynch?, Mar 16 2004
I often see Dennis Potter's work compared to David Lynch's, so I'll weigh in: Dennis Potter was the artist that David Lynch wants to be when he grows up. Potter knew how to bring bizarre and even grotesque elements into the service of his story in a way that Lynch tried to do in "Twin Peaks," with uneven results. In Potter's work, every jarring image and odd tangent has a job to do. When you see, for example, an entire hospital ward break into a minstrel version of "Dem Bones," you can assume it reflects the protagonist's view of the British health care system. (Plus, it's hilarious.) If Lynch meant for us to learn something from the backwards-talking midget in "Twin Peaks," well, it went over my head. Potter's screenplay for "The Singing Detective" is funny, unsettling, heartbreaking, sweet and maddening, often all at once. "The Singing Detective" may not play well in Fort Wayne: it's true, this isn't "Touched By An Angel." (Neither is it "Irreversible," by the way: you have to be pretty thin-skinned (so to speak) to find this material genuinely offensive.) But if you believe that art can be both shocking and thrilling, can provoke as it evokes, can and should take outrageous risks in order to take us someplace completely new, then you've got to find a way to see this series. If you love words, if you appreciate originality, if you want to see acting that ranges from excellent to relevatory, then rent or borrow "The Singing Detective." Once you've seen it, you'll want to own it.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Absolutely Brilliant Adaptation Of Potter's Screenplay!, Jul 7 2001
I'm hesitant to call this a musical, though that's precisely what it is. Dennis Potter wrote several musicals over the years, using different eras of music. This one is, by far, the best! The music here is from the 1940s. The drama, however, is actually a contemporary one. A (failed?) mystery writer named Philip Marlowe is hospitalized with a severe case of psoriasis...more corrrectly, psoriatic arthropathy (which Potter also suffered from). He has this one great novel in his past, though..."The Singing Detective." Marlowe's illness is terribly severe, and throughout the film we join his delirium as he relives events from his childhood, falls into a fascinating fantasy based on his novel, and comes back (from time to time) to the events currently happening in the hospital. These three streams are brilliantly intertwined, and the resulting story is absolutely THE BEST THING *EVER* TO HIT TELEVISION! This is *not* hype or exaggeration! The other reviewers are completely correct in making this same claim. If you've never seen this one...well, it's your loss....Dennis Potter died a few years ago from pancreatic cancer. He was simply a GREAT writer. He wrote *many* screenplays...dramas for both TV and film, as well as the "musicals" noted above. He also wrote novels. His best, I think, are brilliantly detailed studies of a mind either gradually breaking down, or gradually coming back from some kind of breakdown. "The Singing Detective" falls into the latter category. That alone would be enough to recommend this video...but the fact that it's *also* a "musical" is what makes it utterly remarkable! I honestly don't think I have the words to be able to say just how it transcends to the level of something almost divinely inspired. At the risk of saying it one too many times, folks, this one is TRULY GREAT! If you're able to find it, there's an interview with Dennis Potter that was originally broadcast on the Bravo channel shortly before his death. He was quite sick at the time, and he took occasional sips from his flask of pain medication during the interview. He talks some therein of "The Singing Detective." Yes, Marlowe shares the diagnosis of psoriatic arthropathy...but, he's an entirely different personality than Potter himself. Based on truth...expanding into the realm of the literary. It's an interesting insight into the brilliance of Potter as a writer. Meanwhile, "The Singing Detective" is something you really *must* see! *VERY* HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
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