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Sweeney Todd (2007 movie)
Summary: LOVE.
Slightly longer summary, with the caveat that I have only listened to the score a few times and watched the DVD of the George Hearn/Angela Lansbury version. I love the show, but from more of a distance than people who are longtime Sondheim and/or Sweeney fans:
Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman singing do not make me want to shoot myself and are actually good at times, though you definitely notice the difference between them and the people who play Anthony, Johanna and Toby. All three of the former have some trouble with the high notes, though they deal mostly by fading away instead of wavering or squeaking.
I am amazed that the movie is only a little over two hours. It moves very quickly and I never felt like I was being shuffled from plot point to plot point via horrific exposition, like I do for many book-to-movie adaptations (*cough*GoldenCompass*cough*). I was very satisfied with what they cut and what they kept, though I do miss the factory whistle.
Tim Burton also remembers that this is a movie; I think it is one of the better or the best adaptations from Broadway to film that I've seen, but again, I'm speaking very much as an amateur watching. For purposes of comparison, I love the Chicago adaptation but not as much as this because it takes away Velma's voice, and while I like Rent, I like it because it is basically the show on film (it's hard for me to compare others like West Side Story, My Fair Lady and etc., since I've only seen the film versions).
Spoilers
I love how the movie is distinctly Tim Burton while also remaining Sondheim; though I missed the Angela Lansbury and George Hearn versions of Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are interesting as well. Carter's Lovett is much more tragic and less out-right funny, though "A Little Priest" remains hilarious, and I LOVE how they did "By the Sea," which had me in stitches.
Burton cut pretty much all the chorus pieces; there's a little bit around "God, That's Good" with the beggar woman/Lucy singing, but other than that, the movie's all the character pieces. I sort of miss "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," but I think it was the right thing to do for the movie. The only thing I'd argue with is that the final "forgive and forget" that Sweeney sings to Mrs. Lovett before tossing her into the oven is less significant because we didn't get the choruses of "never forgive, never forget" earlier.
Oh, the other bit that had me wondering was if people would pick up on the beggar woman being an important character, as she gets to sing and seems completely inconsequential. I think if someone were really paying attention, it might give something away, but I went with a friend who didn't know Sweeney, and he didn't notice, so good!
I felt most of Anthony and Johanna's numbers were cut, particularly Johanna's. "Green Finch and Linnet Bird," "Johanna" and reprises, and "No Place Like London" are still there, but I don't think they ever sing together. It'd be a little weird, except I don't care about all about the two of them, and I think I actually liked Johanna better in the movie because she trilled less.
I wish I knew more about music and more of the score to notice if leitmotifs and whatnot were cut and how it affected things. I did notice that Lucy sings "beadle beadle beadle" to the tune of the mad masquerade music in the film, and my ear is still not good enough to know if her singing to Anthony was a play on "Poor Thing" or "The Barber and His Wife." I am guessing it was.
Character wise, cutting Anthony and Johanna's duets made them both seem much less gormless, which is an improvement to me. They're not as funny, but they're also on screen less -- I sort of miss the lampooning of your usual soprano/tenor leads, but not that much. It also made Johanna ten times more interesting to me. She's set up from the start as a tragic figure, and she's never portrayed as silly, unlike in the musical. Yoon, if you're reading and interested, I think Anthony and Johanna in the movie do much less vibrato, which I so did not protest. Johanna's voice is very thin and high and delicate, but in a way that sounds like she could have a powerful voice if she let it out, unlike Helena Bonham Carter, whose thin-ness sounds more like she is not trained.
Anthony is still boring to me, though casting Johanna and Anthony younger again makes them seem less gormless and more just young and stupid (as opposed to the DVD, where the close-ups make it so you can tell Anthony's actor is older). I am also sad that Anthony gets to sing a lot more than Johanna, but I feel Johanna outacts him even while completely silent. Also, Johanna looked perfect -- tiny and peaked and bird-like, while Anthony was a little too pretty for me. The one thing I really missed was Johanna's hilarious line in the end about being married. Well, that and Johanna going mad. And Johanna shooting the constable.
Er, anyway. I have spent much text on them, but they're actually very sidelined in the movie.
I adore the casting of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Of course, I was predisposed to. And thankfully, their singing did not make me want to strangle something. I think Johnny Depp tried too hard to get the notes right, so some of Sweeney's songs aren't as properly growly as I feel they should be, but I loved "Epiphany," which was growly and angry and creepy. Ditto with Carter; I think some of her songs could have had more character, but oh well.
I didn't think Alan Rickman was slimy enough as Judge Turpin, especially compared to the very stylized versions of Sweeney, Mrs. Lovett, Johanna and the beadle (bwahaha! Peter Pettigrew is the Beadle, you have no idea how much this amused me!). I wanted something just a little more over the top to match the rest of the film.
Toby's played by a kid in this; I am not sure if this is how it usually is, since the DVD I saw had Toby played by a man (right?). This Toby's more a bright kid than a simple man, but that made the final scene creepy in a different way -- I don't think he goes mad, but I liked the juxtaposition of a kid slitting Sweeney's throat. It's a more straightforward type of creepy, but still creepy.
Sacha Baron Cohen as Pirelli is awesome.
As for the visuals, all I can say is GUH.
(I briefly thought while watching that Tim Burton should film Cain Saga/Godchild, but then my head exploded.)
Even though the blood is deliberately fake-looking, I still winced at all the gushing. I love love love love love the stylization. I love the color palette and the way Depp and Carter look like broken Victorian dolls with their white-powdered skin and shadowed eyes. I love how it allows Burton to play his best visual joke ever with "By the Sea" (I don't think I've ever been that startled to see a blue sky before).
I love all the windows and cages -- Johanna behind hers and Sweeney behind his in the garret, Johanna's bird cages echoed later in Mrs. Lovett's shop. I love how demented Mrs. Lovett's dresses are. I love the way the garret transforms from the warm, sunny alcove in Sweeney's memories to the faded and broken-down room with the creepy doll looking like a dead baby in the covered crib to the stripped-down and utilitarian barber shop. I love the sequence of Sweeney building the chair. I love how his razors are one of the only untarnished, shiny things in the movie. I love all the mirrors and the cracked reflections, slivers of faces seen in the razor blades, spiderweb fractures across Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett's mad eyes.
So, has anyone else posted on this? I am dying to read more commentary, particularly from people who know Sondheim better than me!
Slightly longer summary, with the caveat that I have only listened to the score a few times and watched the DVD of the George Hearn/Angela Lansbury version. I love the show, but from more of a distance than people who are longtime Sondheim and/or Sweeney fans:
Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman singing do not make me want to shoot myself and are actually good at times, though you definitely notice the difference between them and the people who play Anthony, Johanna and Toby. All three of the former have some trouble with the high notes, though they deal mostly by fading away instead of wavering or squeaking.
I am amazed that the movie is only a little over two hours. It moves very quickly and I never felt like I was being shuffled from plot point to plot point via horrific exposition, like I do for many book-to-movie adaptations (*cough*GoldenCompass*cough*). I was very satisfied with what they cut and what they kept, though I do miss the factory whistle.
Tim Burton also remembers that this is a movie; I think it is one of the better or the best adaptations from Broadway to film that I've seen, but again, I'm speaking very much as an amateur watching. For purposes of comparison, I love the Chicago adaptation but not as much as this because it takes away Velma's voice, and while I like Rent, I like it because it is basically the show on film (it's hard for me to compare others like West Side Story, My Fair Lady and etc., since I've only seen the film versions).
Spoilers
I love how the movie is distinctly Tim Burton while also remaining Sondheim; though I missed the Angela Lansbury and George Hearn versions of Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are interesting as well. Carter's Lovett is much more tragic and less out-right funny, though "A Little Priest" remains hilarious, and I LOVE how they did "By the Sea," which had me in stitches.
Burton cut pretty much all the chorus pieces; there's a little bit around "God, That's Good" with the beggar woman/Lucy singing, but other than that, the movie's all the character pieces. I sort of miss "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," but I think it was the right thing to do for the movie. The only thing I'd argue with is that the final "forgive and forget" that Sweeney sings to Mrs. Lovett before tossing her into the oven is less significant because we didn't get the choruses of "never forgive, never forget" earlier.
Oh, the other bit that had me wondering was if people would pick up on the beggar woman being an important character, as she gets to sing and seems completely inconsequential. I think if someone were really paying attention, it might give something away, but I went with a friend who didn't know Sweeney, and he didn't notice, so good!
I felt most of Anthony and Johanna's numbers were cut, particularly Johanna's. "Green Finch and Linnet Bird," "Johanna" and reprises, and "No Place Like London" are still there, but I don't think they ever sing together. It'd be a little weird, except I don't care about all about the two of them, and I think I actually liked Johanna better in the movie because she trilled less.
I wish I knew more about music and more of the score to notice if leitmotifs and whatnot were cut and how it affected things. I did notice that Lucy sings "beadle beadle beadle" to the tune of the mad masquerade music in the film, and my ear is still not good enough to know if her singing to Anthony was a play on "Poor Thing" or "The Barber and His Wife." I am guessing it was.
Character wise, cutting Anthony and Johanna's duets made them both seem much less gormless, which is an improvement to me. They're not as funny, but they're also on screen less -- I sort of miss the lampooning of your usual soprano/tenor leads, but not that much. It also made Johanna ten times more interesting to me. She's set up from the start as a tragic figure, and she's never portrayed as silly, unlike in the musical. Yoon, if you're reading and interested, I think Anthony and Johanna in the movie do much less vibrato, which I so did not protest. Johanna's voice is very thin and high and delicate, but in a way that sounds like she could have a powerful voice if she let it out, unlike Helena Bonham Carter, whose thin-ness sounds more like she is not trained.
Anthony is still boring to me, though casting Johanna and Anthony younger again makes them seem less gormless and more just young and stupid (as opposed to the DVD, where the close-ups make it so you can tell Anthony's actor is older). I am also sad that Anthony gets to sing a lot more than Johanna, but I feel Johanna outacts him even while completely silent. Also, Johanna looked perfect -- tiny and peaked and bird-like, while Anthony was a little too pretty for me. The one thing I really missed was Johanna's hilarious line in the end about being married. Well, that and Johanna going mad. And Johanna shooting the constable.
Er, anyway. I have spent much text on them, but they're actually very sidelined in the movie.
I adore the casting of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Of course, I was predisposed to. And thankfully, their singing did not make me want to strangle something. I think Johnny Depp tried too hard to get the notes right, so some of Sweeney's songs aren't as properly growly as I feel they should be, but I loved "Epiphany," which was growly and angry and creepy. Ditto with Carter; I think some of her songs could have had more character, but oh well.
I didn't think Alan Rickman was slimy enough as Judge Turpin, especially compared to the very stylized versions of Sweeney, Mrs. Lovett, Johanna and the beadle (bwahaha! Peter Pettigrew is the Beadle, you have no idea how much this amused me!). I wanted something just a little more over the top to match the rest of the film.
Toby's played by a kid in this; I am not sure if this is how it usually is, since the DVD I saw had Toby played by a man (right?). This Toby's more a bright kid than a simple man, but that made the final scene creepy in a different way -- I don't think he goes mad, but I liked the juxtaposition of a kid slitting Sweeney's throat. It's a more straightforward type of creepy, but still creepy.
Sacha Baron Cohen as Pirelli is awesome.
As for the visuals, all I can say is GUH.
(I briefly thought while watching that Tim Burton should film Cain Saga/Godchild, but then my head exploded.)
Even though the blood is deliberately fake-looking, I still winced at all the gushing. I love love love love love the stylization. I love the color palette and the way Depp and Carter look like broken Victorian dolls with their white-powdered skin and shadowed eyes. I love how it allows Burton to play his best visual joke ever with "By the Sea" (I don't think I've ever been that startled to see a blue sky before).
I love all the windows and cages -- Johanna behind hers and Sweeney behind his in the garret, Johanna's bird cages echoed later in Mrs. Lovett's shop. I love how demented Mrs. Lovett's dresses are. I love the way the garret transforms from the warm, sunny alcove in Sweeney's memories to the faded and broken-down room with the creepy doll looking like a dead baby in the covered crib to the stripped-down and utilitarian barber shop. I love the sequence of Sweeney building the chair. I love how his razors are one of the only untarnished, shiny things in the movie. I love all the mirrors and the cracked reflections, slivers of faces seen in the razor blades, spiderweb fractures across Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett's mad eyes.
So, has anyone else posted on this? I am dying to read more commentary, particularly from people who know Sondheim better than me!
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Unlike many people I was really iffy about the acrylic red blood. I know it was a stylistic choice, and by the end of the movie one I enjoyed, but I remember being doubtful at first. I found Anthony/Johanna pretty boring, but necessary so I am glad they cut a bit of it out. I was able to put the beggar woman thing a little sooner than I liked as well. I thought the rape scene was eerie and well done because you knew exactly what was happening without showing it. My only other "problem" I has was the kind of wonky CGI in the first few minutes of the film. I have seen quite a few people on my list say it was too gory, especially the montage at the end, but I thought it was really humorous, and was glad to see the spurting and gushing improve by the end of the movie.
So, I guess a very long-winded answer to say I like it a lot and will be adding it to my collection when it comes out. (A rare occurrence for me.) However I admit I do not have much experience with musicals, but I plan on exploring the genre more after liking Sweeney and Hairspray so much!
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I am really tempted to get the Sweeney CD now!
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