Normally, we see a movie on Christmas Day (don’t all good Jews?). This year, we decided to be different and see one the day before as well. As the color of the holiday is red, we opted for Sweeney Todd. Actually, we opted to see the movie because of our love of movie musicals.
Now, I had seen the original Sweeney Todd when it played the Ahmanson Theatre during its original touring company with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury, so I’ve always loved this musical. I’ve also been reading up on the production, including an excellent article in the New York Times that provided a discussion with Stephen Sondheim, the composer, on the changes made. So I was expecting a lot of changes from the original stage production.
So what did I think of the show? Very well done, and an excellent transformation from stage to film. This is not a film of the stage production: that’s been done. This is a transformation. It is 95% sung through, but significant songs have been removed or trimmed from the original. I can’t think of one song that is 100% intact. The Ballad of Sweeney Todd is gone — it remains only as underscoring. The purpose of the chorus has been replaced with visuals. But with all the cutting, the story remains.
The motif of the musical is blood. From the opening credits to the end, there is blood. It gushes, it spurts, it drips, it drizzles. But it is clearly stagecraft. This isn’t the horror movie where you see the guts spewing out and the muscles and viscera. The blood is lubrication for the mood of the piece. And that mood is evil and madness.
ETA: I forgot to mention when I originally posted this about the cinematography. Tim Burton, as usual, does his wonderful job of color and framing. The motif is dark and grey in most scenes, except when there is the blood, stark in its redness. There are a few light scenes, such as the “By The Sea” number, where the surroundings are bright, but Todd and Lovett stand out in their darkness. There is also camera movement and angles, especially in the opening transition from the dock to Fleet Street, which make one dizzy. This is something the original musical could not pull off; the original musical (not the recent revival) had a very Victorian Ironworks motif surrounding the stage. With these changes, Burton moved the focus from the hierarchy of society to the descent of the individual.
Sweeney Todd reminds me of a classic horror movie. Forget the drek they pass off as horror today. Go back to the 1930s and 1940s. The story in its madness and descent is pure horror, and I do predict that one day this will be a classic horror movie.
So, what about the singing. The leads do OK, although I found Helena Bonham Carter’s voice a bit thin. The others do sufficient: the movie focuses much more on the deft wordmanship of Sondheim, and not the vocal quality. As noted above, they made the proper decision to retain the primary sung through aspects of the show. Contrast this with something like Rent, where they abandoned the sung through aspect, and it actually hurt the movie.
Some other observations:
- They drastically reduced Toby’s role from the play. I haven’t yet decided if this is a good thing.
- Alan Rickman is such a wonderfully evil villian. However, they had the same actor that played Wormtail as the Beadle, and that just was distracting for me. I can see a whole vein of Snape/Wormtail slash. Ohh, Ick.
- This certainly won’t win an Oscar for original score or original song… because there was nothing new from the stage production. I applaud the producers for not feeling they had to add something to a perfect piece.
- However, they should have retained the Ballad of Sweeney Todd, but used it only over the closing credits. It would have been great there.
- Watching the closing credits, I noticed the titles were done by “The Thing”. I always wondered where he had gone after the Addams Family ended.
Did Sweeney Todd deserve an “R” rating? Perhaps. There’s blood and gore, but is it any worse than the action flicks we see today? I think not, and a PG-13 would have sufficed.
We do still plan on seeing a movie tomorrow. The leading candidate is Persepolis, a black-and-white animated coming-of-age story of a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution. ETA: However, Persepolis is only at one theatre in the area, so we might have to go with a second choice. nsshere is pushing for Juno a movie about a teen faced with an unplanned pregnancy who an unusual decision regarding her unborn child. That’s at more theatres. Another possibility is Enchanted, but that’s been out a while, and we might wait for DVD. So hopefully we can make the noon showing of Persepolis.
P.S.: With this review, I must note the death of Michael Kidd, award-winning choreographer of shows such as “Finian’s Rainbow,” “Guys and Dolls”‘ and “Can-Can” and Hollywood musicals like “The Band Wagon” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”. Mr. Kidd won five Tony Awards: for “Finian’s Rainbow” in 1947, “Guys and Dolls” in 1951, “Can-Can” in 1954, “Li’l Abner” in 1957 and “Destry Rides Again” in 1960. In 1996 he received a special Academy Award “in recognition of his services to the art of dance in the art of the screen.”