Like a Face in Dreams

[akirlu]

Spotted on Pinterest, this rather striking portrait of Sherlock Holmes created by morphing together photos of multiple actors who played the role, including Basil Rathbone, Robert Downey Jr., Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jeremy Brett. I find the fusion strangely compelling and while I think it most nearly resembles Rathbone, it keeps tantalizing me with a sort of facial familiarity that I can't quite place. Faces in dreams are often like that for me, almost-familiar, but layered or substituted in such a way that on waking I usually can't trace who the face belonged to -- although, in a rare breakthrough the other morning I was able to piece together the fact that my dreams had cast Lee Pace as Cory Doctorow. Don't ask me, I can't explain it either. But this dream-face Holmes, who is he reminding me of? Apparently a couple of the commenters on the Tumblr in question think it's Richard Armitage, but while I can see their point, I don't think that's it. Nearest I can come is the young Sean Penn crossed with some half-recollected leading man from the late 1930s.

So, does this fabulist Holmes remind you of anyone? Do you see faces clearly when you dream?

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

The Holmes is sort of amorphously handsome, but doesn't ring any bells.

I see faces very clearly when I dream.

[off_coloratura]

Chaplin? Scott Cohen?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Chaplin is about right!

[txanne.livejournal.com]

No, not Armitage. There's definitely a 1920s-30s vibe, but none of the specific matinee idols I googled for were it.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I'm having the same familiarity vibe, but a modern one. (I thought about Leslie Howard, but that wasn't quite right either.) He strikes me like a Fiennes brother that never was.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I never seen faces clearly when I dream, now that I think about it.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

As something of a Holmesian of reasonably long standing -- I was a co-founder of the BSI scion society The Trained Cormorants ( I think "of Los Angeles County" was added decades later), in the mid-1940s -- I recoil in horror. This is the portrait of a handsome young man, but... ummm... no, not Sherlock Holmes or anyone closely related to him.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Yes, the face is too pretty to be actual Holmes. Looks like a pretty, young actor in a role they didn't take (e.g., Matthew McConaughey as a brunette), or maybe RDJ playing Chaplin. A glamorous head shot from the '30s, say.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I see Holmes as considerably beakier. More like Basil Rathbone than this picture is.

This looks like a handsome dreamboat who's not to be trusted. Could be Henry Crawford or someone like that.