Sweeney Todd
Dec. 24th, 2007 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinWhat better to raise the Christmas spirit than murder and meat pies?
I have to preface this with the following: I am not terribly familiar with the musical. I have heard it's good and have known people who swear by it, but the furthest I ever got with it was checking it out from the library, forgetting I had it, and then listening to it a few hours before returning it. I liked it enough, and could tell I would probably like it more upon subsequent relistenings, but somehow managed never to check it out again. All I could remember about it was the twist at the end (which I will not reveal here) and the opening chorus number that went 'Sweeney ... Sweeney Todd ... the demon barber of Fleet Street!' whose melody I rather liked.
So when I found out Tim Burton was directing a film rendition, and that it was actually going to be the musical (unlike disappointing Les Mis) I was moderately excited, and when the trailer came out it became pretty much the only movie I was looking forward to this year. This is a dangerous position to be in, for a film, as lately I've been disappointed even by movies I haven't been looking forward to. Normally I try to avoid information on movies I'd really like to see but I'm glad my embargo was not complete on this one: I learned well before the release that the aforementioned chorus number was cut, and the Entertainment magazine in the bathroom at work gave me the impression there would be kegs of blood spewed about the set and all over everyone on it.
After some initial confusion over the actual release date (impression was Dec 21 but marketing said Christmas) my sister and I made it to the early bird matinee.* Good seats were easy to find – the number of people eager to see a bloodthirsty R-rated musical in the morning on Christmas eve in suburban Utah is fantastically low for some reason. Enduring the batch of often ridiculously bad trailers proved to be well worth it because this, right from the opening titles which look sort of like flat set pieces and a little like cutout animation, is a very entertaining movie. I simply have little more to say on it than that. It was a lot of fun. The music was good and I thought the performances generally good as well, though I would have liked for Mrs Lovett to show some clearer signs of recognition when she meets Todd – nothing drastic, nothing condescending, just he flicker of an expression would have done. I felt a bit stupid for taking so long to catch on to the fact. Maybe it would have helped if they'd made up Ms Carter a bit older so I wouldn't have been doing mental math through the rest of the movie trying to figure out how old she was when Barker was transported.** I would have liked a bit more in the way of levels from Mr Depp as well; not a lot, just a bit, so we could tell when he was really tortured and intense but holding it in as opposed to just coping with normal ambient torture and intensity. These are both tiny quibbles on the acting, though. I thought the singing was good too, for what it was ... this musical doesn't really have show-stopping big belty numbers so a more conversational singing style worked well. It was gratifying to see a stylization of movement to go along with the stylized speech (a.k.a. singing), something too few directors seem to understand. You don't have to dance, necessarily, but motion should look like it belongs with the sound and if you're not speaking in a normal voice you shouldn't be moving in a normal way either. (I'm talking to you, Evita.)
It's not just the movement that gets in on the stylization party, either – this is one cool-looking movie. London is horribly gloomy, grimy and depressing even in what is, apparently, summer (some would argue this isn't stylized at all), and the costumes – oh, the costumes! So cool! Obviously Victorian yet twisted slightly to be somehow ... 'cool' in the late twentieth-century sense of the word, but in a singularly Burton way. Lots of materials that looked plasticky or oily but were just as easily leather or taffeta or something less anachronistic. One of Sweeney's jackets has a very 1870s-looking shape but the pattern and material are cut in such a way as to resemble a jean jacket. I mean, they're ... just ... COOL. I hope it gets nominated for a costume design Oscar. A wonderful combination of history and imagination. More, please.
Remember how I mentioned my impression that there would be gallons of blood? Well ... okay, there was blood. No denying that. If you don't like seeing blood onscreen, or especially blood coming out of people, DON'T GO SEE THIS MOVIE. There is lots of blood. More importantly there is a scene which has little blood but is much more gory just in set dressing and prop manufacture, not for the weak of stomach. On the other hand, I'd had a mental image painted for me of a room ankle-deep in blood with splatters running up the walls and Sweeney drenched in red from head to foot, and it wasn't like that. It sprayed a bit and tried to win the adjective 'copious' but didn't reach the levels of hyperbole that my imagination had described. Take that as you will, good or bad.
Side note: I have a bit of a 'thing' about fake blood. I once had a very minor accident that resulted in a small puddle of oxygenated blood on a blue metal chair, and ever since have been dissatisfied with the colour and/or opacity of movie blood. It should be bright, bright red and opaque as milk (only red, of course). Usually it's too dark and is almost always syrupy-transparent, but this was good blood! Kudos to whoever was in charge of that.
I only have one significant complaint about Sweeney Todd: the ending. I won't tell you what it is because that's really not important to my quibble, I'm just disappointed that it didn't end with more of a bang. It just sort of went ... pleh. I'm hope this was a conscious decision but I can't quite figure out the logic behind it. I would have at least liked a reprise of the main theme, that big bangy one that sounds sort of like 'Dies Irae' (the chant, not the Mozart version) to bookend the movie and at least make it sound like it ended. I don't quite remember the way it ended in the musical but I remember feeling an approxination of that shockwave that runs through you when you realize something's gone horribly wrong ... it's not adrenaline, really, it's something else, and I think that sort of feeling could have been well done in the movie but the moment passed without emotional comment, really. It would have been nice, too, to see a bit more denouement, perhaps the wrapping up of one of the other storylines, but ... pleh. A shame the one disappointment had to come right at the end, but there you have it ... maybe it's only me who was bothered by it anyway. Perhaps we'll get a director's cut and there'll be something more ...? Probably not.
*Salt Lake is the only metropolitan area in which I've lived where you can go to a 9 am movie.
**I figured she could have been as young as 15, working in her father's pie shop with a crush on the upstairs tenant. Is this too much rationalizing? Did the casting/makeup call for this? Or am I a dork who would probably have done this anyway?
"Hamlet, but with Meat Pies"
tagline courtesy of Tulanoodle
I have to preface this with the following: I am not terribly familiar with the musical. I have heard it's good and have known people who swear by it, but the furthest I ever got with it was checking it out from the library, forgetting I had it, and then listening to it a few hours before returning it. I liked it enough, and could tell I would probably like it more upon subsequent relistenings, but somehow managed never to check it out again. All I could remember about it was the twist at the end (which I will not reveal here) and the opening chorus number that went 'Sweeney ... Sweeney Todd ... the demon barber of Fleet Street!' whose melody I rather liked.
So when I found out Tim Burton was directing a film rendition, and that it was actually going to be the musical (unlike disappointing Les Mis) I was moderately excited, and when the trailer came out it became pretty much the only movie I was looking forward to this year. This is a dangerous position to be in, for a film, as lately I've been disappointed even by movies I haven't been looking forward to. Normally I try to avoid information on movies I'd really like to see but I'm glad my embargo was not complete on this one: I learned well before the release that the aforementioned chorus number was cut, and the Entertainment magazine in the bathroom at work gave me the impression there would be kegs of blood spewed about the set and all over everyone on it.
After some initial confusion over the actual release date (impression was Dec 21 but marketing said Christmas) my sister and I made it to the early bird matinee.* Good seats were easy to find – the number of people eager to see a bloodthirsty R-rated musical in the morning on Christmas eve in suburban Utah is fantastically low for some reason. Enduring the batch of often ridiculously bad trailers proved to be well worth it because this, right from the opening titles which look sort of like flat set pieces and a little like cutout animation, is a very entertaining movie. I simply have little more to say on it than that. It was a lot of fun. The music was good and I thought the performances generally good as well, though I would have liked for Mrs Lovett to show some clearer signs of recognition when she meets Todd – nothing drastic, nothing condescending, just he flicker of an expression would have done. I felt a bit stupid for taking so long to catch on to the fact. Maybe it would have helped if they'd made up Ms Carter a bit older so I wouldn't have been doing mental math through the rest of the movie trying to figure out how old she was when Barker was transported.** I would have liked a bit more in the way of levels from Mr Depp as well; not a lot, just a bit, so we could tell when he was really tortured and intense but holding it in as opposed to just coping with normal ambient torture and intensity. These are both tiny quibbles on the acting, though. I thought the singing was good too, for what it was ... this musical doesn't really have show-stopping big belty numbers so a more conversational singing style worked well. It was gratifying to see a stylization of movement to go along with the stylized speech (a.k.a. singing), something too few directors seem to understand. You don't have to dance, necessarily, but motion should look like it belongs with the sound and if you're not speaking in a normal voice you shouldn't be moving in a normal way either. (I'm talking to you, Evita.)
It's not just the movement that gets in on the stylization party, either – this is one cool-looking movie. London is horribly gloomy, grimy and depressing even in what is, apparently, summer (some would argue this isn't stylized at all), and the costumes – oh, the costumes! So cool! Obviously Victorian yet twisted slightly to be somehow ... 'cool' in the late twentieth-century sense of the word, but in a singularly Burton way. Lots of materials that looked plasticky or oily but were just as easily leather or taffeta or something less anachronistic. One of Sweeney's jackets has a very 1870s-looking shape but the pattern and material are cut in such a way as to resemble a jean jacket. I mean, they're ... just ... COOL. I hope it gets nominated for a costume design Oscar. A wonderful combination of history and imagination. More, please.
Remember how I mentioned my impression that there would be gallons of blood? Well ... okay, there was blood. No denying that. If you don't like seeing blood onscreen, or especially blood coming out of people, DON'T GO SEE THIS MOVIE. There is lots of blood. More importantly there is a scene which has little blood but is much more gory just in set dressing and prop manufacture, not for the weak of stomach. On the other hand, I'd had a mental image painted for me of a room ankle-deep in blood with splatters running up the walls and Sweeney drenched in red from head to foot, and it wasn't like that. It sprayed a bit and tried to win the adjective 'copious' but didn't reach the levels of hyperbole that my imagination had described. Take that as you will, good or bad.
Side note: I have a bit of a 'thing' about fake blood. I once had a very minor accident that resulted in a small puddle of oxygenated blood on a blue metal chair, and ever since have been dissatisfied with the colour and/or opacity of movie blood. It should be bright, bright red and opaque as milk (only red, of course). Usually it's too dark and is almost always syrupy-transparent, but this was good blood! Kudos to whoever was in charge of that.
I only have one significant complaint about Sweeney Todd: the ending. I won't tell you what it is because that's really not important to my quibble, I'm just disappointed that it didn't end with more of a bang. It just sort of went ... pleh. I'm hope this was a conscious decision but I can't quite figure out the logic behind it. I would have at least liked a reprise of the main theme, that big bangy one that sounds sort of like 'Dies Irae' (the chant, not the Mozart version) to bookend the movie and at least make it sound like it ended. I don't quite remember the way it ended in the musical but I remember feeling an approxination of that shockwave that runs through you when you realize something's gone horribly wrong ... it's not adrenaline, really, it's something else, and I think that sort of feeling could have been well done in the movie but the moment passed without emotional comment, really. It would have been nice, too, to see a bit more denouement, perhaps the wrapping up of one of the other storylines, but ... pleh. A shame the one disappointment had to come right at the end, but there you have it ... maybe it's only me who was bothered by it anyway. Perhaps we'll get a director's cut and there'll be something more ...? Probably not.
*Salt Lake is the only metropolitan area in which I've lived where you can go to a 9 am movie.
**I figured she could have been as young as 15, working in her father's pie shop with a crush on the upstairs tenant. Is this too much rationalizing? Did the casting/makeup call for this? Or am I a dork who would probably have done this anyway?
"Hamlet, but with Meat Pies"
tagline courtesy of Tulanoodle
