| Thursday, December 06, 2007 |
| The name is Todd |
Guest blogged by Joe Mallon
The musicals of Stephen Sondheim are particularly complex, both thematically and musically, making them difficult at best to film. The last really successful movie of a Sondheim musical was "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" in 1966. Videos of several stage productions are available, making movies unnecessary, especially since Sondheim's fan base is ardent but hardly Webberian in number.
Flying in the face of all that is Tim Burton, who's directed a version of one of Sondheim's masterworks, "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street". Perfect marriage of director and content, no? "Sweeney Todd" is a tale of revenge served piping hot - a barber wrongly imprisoned so a judge can steal his beautiful wife - and the path that revenge takes into the prepared meat pie business.
One of the most difficult parts in moving a musical to film is casting. In order for the movie to have a chance of making money, the producers (speaking of movie musicals...) have to cast stars. Unfortunately, not all stars can sing. Sadly, that's the case with "Sweeney Todd". Neither of its leads, Johnny Depp & Helena Bonham Carter, can sing very well. Not for nothing is "Sweeney Todd" produced by opera companies. It requires a lot of range, and neither actor can do much better than speak-singing, a la Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady". In days of old, that would have been no problem. Just call Marni Nixon, and Natalie Wood sounds terrific! In the modern world, though, authenticity is all. If the actor isn't doing his own singing, the whole enterprise is a fraud, treating singing like stunt work. "Do your own stunts, or you're a wimp!" In this case, the audience suffers for that bravado.
Most musicals also call for over-the-top, reach-for-the-back-seats acting, especially a role as, well, meaty as Sweeney Todd. Depp chooses a naturalistic style that would work well for a straight film, but grates against the dark humor in the story that makes palatable Sweeney's change from a wronged man into a psychopath. As a result, Sweeney becomes unsympathetic at the time the audience should most be in his corner.
That time is "A Little Priest", a duet between Sweeney and his benefactor Mrs. Lovett (Carter) in which they discuss the best way to dispose of the folks of various occupations whom Sweeney has pledged to dispatch on the road to revenge. While the subject matter is horrific, the song is very funny. Carter seems to get that, but Depp is so busy "brooding over wrongs what happened ages ago" that he looks no different during the song from any other time in the film. From then on, Sweeney seems more like Jason or Michael Myers, never cracking a smile, just killing.
There are other differences between the musical & the movie, but they pale in comparison. The reduction of the counterpoint love story would be a tragedy if the actors playing Anthony & Johanna weren't so bland. Timothy Spall swans around as the Beadle in a part better played as a pompous buffoon. As for Sacha Baron Cohen, as a singer, he's a great Kazakh Journalist.
Sondheim has said he wrote "Sweeney Todd" to see if audiences in the jaded '70s could still be scared. Burton has taken up that challenge for the '00s, spilling oceans of blood. I'ts not for the faint of heart or stomach. The art direction is, as expected, spot-on, revealing a London grimy and gray to the core. There's a lot of red (guess which shade), but no orange to speak of. Depp & Carter are pale white with rouged eyes throughout, dressed in Victorian rags. It's the best Goth movie of the year, maybe ever. As for me, I'll curl up with the original Broadway soundtrack and a nice meat pie. |
posted by 125records @ 4:52 PM  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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As I expected and feared, it sounds as if this movie does absolutely everything I'd hoped it wouldn't. (Now I'm not sure if I arrayed all those negatives to proper effect...)
For example: to me, the idea that Todd's killings should be presented with "oceans of blood" is completely wrong: while we're certainly supposed to be appalled at his actions, the question the libretto brings to mind is whether the judge's crimes aren't far more morally heinous...that's hard to do with bodies being shoved in your face. I'd say also it might cut into the dark humor of the whole thing. Of course, I've never seen any staged production of the show - I only know the soundtrack (the version w/Len Cariou as Todd).
And as I said when I first heard of the casting: Depp is so insubstantial, physically, it's hard to imagine him conveying the gravitas of the Todd character. You'd want a much more present physicality, I'd think.
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As I expected and feared, it sounds as if this movie does absolutely everything I'd hoped it wouldn't. (Now I'm not sure if I arrayed all those negatives to proper effect...)
For example: to me, the idea that Todd's killings should be presented with "oceans of blood" is completely wrong: while we're certainly supposed to be appalled at his actions, the question the libretto brings to mind is whether the judge's crimes aren't far more morally heinous...that's hard to do with bodies being shoved in your face. I'd say also it might cut into the dark humor of the whole thing. Of course, I've never seen any staged production of the show - I only know the soundtrack (the version w/Len Cariou as Todd).
And as I said when I first heard of the casting: Depp is so insubstantial, physically, it's hard to imagine him conveying the gravitas of the Todd character. You'd want a much more present physicality, I'd think.