Now that the writer's strike is over, and just in time for the Oscars, I can finally bring to you my much-delayed analysis of Sweeney Todd.
One thing I could not understand for the longest time was why so many people seem to dislike the 1989 Tim Burton film version of Batman (which I think is bloody genius). This perplexity came to a head with the release of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, which everyone seemed to like but me. Finally, someone explained it to me with perfect clarity: Batman fans don't like Burton's Batman because it is a Tim Burton film first and a Batman film second.
While I now understand the objections these fans had, I am still unable to fully accept them. I like auteur-ish directors, and have long felt that the fact that Burton makes Batman fully his is what makes it a film worth watching rather than a giant exercise in cross-market corporate synergy.
While I sat and watched Burton's adaptation of Sweeney Todd, I could not help but wonder if I was succumbing to the same tendencies as those Batman fans. Was I bothered that Burton had erased Hal Prince's Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, my Sweeney Todd?
The answer I think, is no. Besides the fact that I don't really think I have such a great attachment to the musical, the problem that I had with the Tim Burton adaptation of Sweeney Todd is that it never really becomes a Tim Burton film in full. At best, it is a filmed version of the musical, very well adapted to make it less theatrical and more cinematic, with a veneer of production design from the Tim Burton School of Fantastically Wild Hair and Low Camera Angles From Which You Can See The Sky.
Don't get me wrong; the result of this is a very entertaining movie. I still love the musical, and the music. Most of the cuts were well chosen, the cinematic touches well executed (the montage-of-sorts for By the Sea, for example, is hilarious), the special effects cool (the beggar woman's death was particularly pretty). The problem is that while choices like these obviously betray the hands of filmmakers skilled at their craft, and all of the stylistic hallmarks remain, I simply could not shake the feeling that this was Sweeney Todd executed by a studio in the style of Tim Burton rather than Sweeney Todd by Tim Burton.
Some notes about the performances:
- An admirable if less-than-awe-inspiring performance. Suitably dark and freaked out, managed not to be out-acted by his hair, itself a feat.
- Passable, but not much more. I'm all for hiring good actors who can't really sing, but only if they're comfortable with the fact that they can't really sing (in Sondheim, see Elaine Stritch, Judi Dench). Carter seemed really uncomfortable during most of the musical numbers. In particular, I felt like I could see her counting the beats during The Worst Pies in London. Did an admirable job in portraying the devil to Depp's Faust.
- Again, passable. He was funny, and a very good casting decision, but I don't think he really brought anything to the role; it seemed exactly the same as every other actor to do it. I was going to say that, well, most of his screentime is sung and there's no room in a Sondheim score for ad-libs. But you know what? His numbers are stocked with little pauses that are obviously intended for the actor to fill with (mostly physical) comic flourishes.
- Everything and more. I mean, he's just doing his normal Alan Rickman thing, but who cares?
- Again, suitable but nothing more. Would have liked to have seen him kill a bird with his bare hands but that's not his fault really.
- Excellent performance. I don't really remember much about it other than that I thought it was good.
- Don't really remember much about her except that she was pretty and sang well enough.
- As they say on the interweb, A+++. Simultaneously one of the best and worst thing in this movie. Best because he was really good, and worst because he made the "stars" look pitiful by comparison, particularly with Nothing's Gonna Harm You.
As good as the adaptation was, it did lay bare some of the perils of the theater-to-film adaptation business. For example, again taking The Worst Pies in London as an example, the pies onstage are much more believably disgusting, since we are coerced into trusting Mrs. Lovett's lyrics and Sweeney's reactions. On screen, we have to actually be shown how gross they are with a campier and (I think) more unbelievable shot of a cockroach crawling out of the pie. Similarly, Mrs. Lovett's death seemed a little too fantastical for me, and read more like an effects shot than a horrifying end. In the stage version, the real horror of that scene is Sweeney's madness, exemplified by the traumatized Toby's repeated lines (excised from the film) about grinding the meat - "Three times. Three times. Smoothly, smoothly."
Partially to show I'm not just against change altogether, let's talk about a cut I particularly liked: the removal of Kiss Me. Besides making Anthony and Johanna's love affair seem much more romantic and eliminating the more farcical side of Johanna's character (at the climax of Kiss Me she realizes she doesn't even know Anthony's name), doing this essentially pares down the musical expression of Anthony and Johanna's love to one very strong leitmotif, that of Anthony's "I feel you/Johanna." Hearing this theme repeat over and over reinforces the obsessive nature of Anthony's love for Johanna, which we are then forced to compare to that of Sweeney and the Judge.
But did he really have to cut the third verse of Priest?
