Sweeney Todd (Tim Burton, 2007)

[Magic Hate Ball]

Watching the stage play (Hearst/Lansbury), it becomes apparent that the movie isn't half as dark as the play. Where the dark tone of the play comes from the actual subject matter, the dark tone of the movie comes not from the subject matter but from the visual tone. In the play, every character is obviously suffering. Everyone is dirty and limping and wearing disgusting clothes, but in the movie it's not half as bad. Sweeney is a dark, dark play, and the movie isn't that dark. The play is also very funny at times, while the movie goes for a more serious tone, but also plays it down. It's odd. Gone are the holes in the clothes, the buggy whore on the street screaming for Todd to split her muff, gone is the Beadle twisting the neck of the small bird. Gone is all that, but hello desaturated colors (and characters)...

Kept is the misanthropy, rape, paternal incest, serial throat cutting, and cannibalism.

Yes, but the tone, the mise-en-scène, the...I have no more words to italicize.

In any case, something was lost in the translation to film. The details, I think. There are so many little details in the stage play, more than you might expect from a stage play. The movie is much less colorful than the stage play, in tone and in color both. It feels like something is missing.

[David Ehrenstein]

I saw the original production with Lansbury and Cariou and have no idea what you're talking about in terms of "little details." It was very broad. Almost as broad as L'il Abner -- which I've been thinking about in light of Michael Kidd's passing.

[filmnoir1]

I saw this the other day and have to say that this is a film only Tim Burton could have directed. However, both Depp and Bonham Carter's singing were far from enthralling. The look of the film was dead on, but I believe the use of digital images and camera moves distracted from the dark and seriousness of the film. In addition Burton's constant reliance on the macabre overshadows the political and radical anti-capitalist rhetoric and thematics of the original play.
I am glad I saw the film on the big screen but I do not believe that it is as good as some of Burton's earlier films and once again I believe Depp has settled on portraying a quirky, outsider without providing a great deal of emotional depth to the character and his actions.

[justeleblanc]

I saw this the other day and have to say that this is a film only Tim Burton could have directed. However, both Depp and Bonham Carter's singing were far from enthralling. The look of the film was dead on, but I believe the use of digital images and camera moves distracted from the dark and seriousness of the film. In addition Burton's constant reliance on the macabre overshadows the political and radical anti-capitalist rhetoric and thematics of the original play.
I am glad I saw the film on the big screen but I do not believe that it is as good as some of Burton's earlier films and once again I believe Depp has settled on portraying a quirky, outsider without providing a great deal of emotional depth to the character and his actions.

Dead on.

[noelbotevera]

Argento is a source, I think; also interesting is the use of mirrors and windowpanes, not just light gleaming off them, but seeing into them, through them. This is a film about Todd, not some stagebound musical, and Depp need not sing to the rafters.

[mogwai]

Saw it tonight, and I agree ab-so-lute-ly with David E. Completely magnificent. I was really quite taken aback. I certainly didn't anticipate enjoying the film nearly as much as I did (and I'm a bit of a Burton freak!). And, man, was this film ever dark (and rightly so)! Hell, it could've been filmed in black and white with splashes of blood red and I'm not sure I would've known the difference. Refined, bleak, bombastic, and over-the-top. Loved every bloody moment.

[Jeff]

Stephen Sondheim discussion (more or less) moved here.

[malcolm1980]

I just saw this today. I actually tried to lower my expectations for this film, expecting the worst. But no, Tim Burton actually made a fantastic film. The look, the performances, the songs, almost all are pitch-perfect. Yes, Depp and Bonham Carter do not sing like George Hearn/Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury but they more than make up for it by their outstanding acting. To risk angering the Sondheim purists, I actually think the ending of this film is an improvement on the stage musical. I found it far emotionally affecting. It was everything I loved about the original musical and more.

[noelbotevera]

Sweeney Todd (Tim Burton, 2007)

[Marcel Gioberti]

I caught it this weekend and thought it was almost amazing. Instead, it was just very good. The next time I see it, I might upgrade to amazing. Depp was up to the task, Bonham-Carter was even better, Rickman had an (intentionally I think) awful voice but he was perfect otherwise.

My only beef with the film was its lack of wide lenses and/or wide shots. Even when Burton is establishing spaces, he consistently used longer lenses. It felt that way, at least. Maybe I'll know more the next time I see it. I just wanted to see more in frame at particular moments and Burton resorted to medium bust shots more often that he should have. Oh, and the one chance he had to "create" his London used a shitty movement effect and CGI. That was disappointing even though the sequence that preceded it was edited very well.

So, it was an anti-bourgeois, misanthropic revenge tragedy with not much of a twist and a romantic heart, but it sounded and looked beautiful. If the text is smarter than I'm giving it credit for, I'll need to view it a few more times.

[colinr0380]

Review of the DVD from DVD Maniacs.

[Michael]

Just stepped off the wild, fun slide of Sweeney Todd. It's no question that it's Burton's best work since Ed Wood...finally! I just love how the film soaks up the blood of the old Italian Horror - operatic & highly stylized killings. Not surpising because La maschera del demonio, the godfather of Italian Horror, is Burton's favorite film and it's also the film that turn him to making films. Johnny Depp continues to amaze me.

The only thing I didn't like about Sweeney Todd is its opening titles. Simply awful but the rest is gorgeous and majestic.

[jesus the mexican boi]

It feels like something is missing.

I think it may be the soul. I'm a big fan of the play, having seen it at the very impressionable age of 14 in 1985, and I thought the film was too abbreviated. Sure, Ehrenstein is right that the play is broad, but that broadness did contain details (like Walt Whitman, it was a cosmos, it contained multitudes). Magic Hate Ball is right on the money with his attempt to describe this missing piece; I just feel that so much abbreviation has given a Cliff's Notes version of the experience. Maybe it's that way with any adaptation that isn't note-for-note, but some things (details) didn't even make sense (one edit had Mrs. Lovett reference the wallpaper not even being singed when it's actually the harmonium/organ she's referring to). Turpin is reduced to the point of near incomprehensibility, and though I did like Depp, I felt Carter wasn't quite right and the character itself seemed altered through her performance giving shading to her relationship with the boy that wasn't in the original text. I think it's good, but not very good, and certainly not sublime. If you want to see ST, get the Hearn/Lansbury DVD at the new price point. It's well worth it. Bravo to Burton for getting this on the big screen and drawing more people to the play. Michael is right -- it is Burton's best since Wood.

[Michael]

It sounds like it certainly helped that I had never seen the play prior to seeing the film version but in part, it felt very theatrical. What I enjoyed the most about the film is the breathtaking production design - like Oliver! after being dragged through the sewage too many times, Johnny Depp (as always), the beautifully stylized killings complete with way so generous gushings and floodings of giddily fake blood - a nice homage to 70s Italian Horror.

But the ugly opening titles still have to go.