#art-byfatigue

[tearosesarts]

Hello there, I hope you have a great day! Also what are you thoughts about Tim Burton - Sweeney Todd’s movie adaptation? (Sorry thats pretty nowhere I just really appreciate u & Sweeney Todd very much 🥺💖)

Aww, thanks! Now, as for the 2007 Sweeney Todd... I hope I don’t get a lot of hate over this, but I had a lot of problems with this movie. I’ll try to go through this in organized chunks. I’ll put it under the cut, this is going to get long.

First off: the casting. We have to address the fact that, besides the actress playing Lucy, none of the cast really had any musical theatre experience, and it showed. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if it weren’t for the fact that this was Sondheim music, which is insanely difficult, even for well-experienced musical theatre actors. Thus, we ended up with Sweeney awkwardly singing from his throat (sounding more like a pirate than Jack Sparrow) and frail, shrill vocals from Mrs. Lovett, Johanna, and Anthony. One justification that I’ve seen people use is “Well, Tim Burton was making a film, not a musical,” but in that case, why even include the music? Why not simply make a non-musical movie adaptation using those characters? Sweeney Todd has existed for far longer than the musical; the musical itself is based off of a play adaptation by Christopher Bond. It could have very easily been a movie adaptation of that play, instead. Moving past the singing, while this film did have a lot of really good actors, it wasn’t really any of their best works. I don’t know if it’s because of Tim Burton’s “style” or what, but a lot of the actors’ performances felt nearly lifeless compared to when they were in other movies (although Timothy Spall’s facial expressions as the Beadle were great!). Particularly, Helena Bonham Carter’s Lovett felt very flat and static. I feel bad for saying so, since this was apparently a dreamrole of hers (plus it was just her birthday yesterday!), but something about it just didn’t work. It seemed like she was torn between playing a doe-eyed damsel in distress, a jaded, sarcastic woman, and a suave, devious temptress (and being motherly for one scene, and the combination made for a bland and inconsistent performance. The inconsistency especially stands out during and after Epiphany, where she goes from looking quite terrified of Sweeney at the beginning to nonchalantly delivering the “That’s all very well...” line, even though the song got more scary towards the end, not less.

Now for what probably bugged me even more: some of the things that were cut. The film seems like it’s trying to be more edgy and gritty than the stage musical by cutting out some of the humor, but it also cuts out some of the darkest parts of the show. I can understand getting rid of the Greek chorus for the different Ballads of Sweeney Todd, but they really could have and should have included the ensemble bits for God, That’s Good. We can see the townspeople enjoying the pies, but it isn’t enough to see them simply enjoying the pies, we need them to be obsessed, screaming for “more hot pies.” Then there’s Toby, who doesn’t get his crazy part at the end. I understand cutting that bit short since we don’t have the final Ballad to end it (and therefore ending with the shot of Sweeney bleeding over his dead wife), but he could still do the creepy “pat-a-cake” stuff before slitting Sweeney’s throat and scuttling away. Besides creeping out the audience, this bit shows how everything has affected Toby and taken a toll on him.

And then there’s Johanna. Johanna, what did they do to you? Sometimes movie adaptations of musicals add some depth to some of the less-developed characters. Here, they seemed to do the opposite. She sings Green Finch and Linnet Bird, looks at Anthony, and after that only exists because the plot calls for her. Kiss Me is cut, which also cuts an entire plot point. She doesn’t even sing in the Johanna Reprise. It’s called the Johanna Quartet on the OBC album for a reason, guys! They not only reduced her to a prop who sings about her emotions once and no more, but her relationship with Anthony was also less developed. The two of them never really meet, they just look at each other once. That’s barely an interaction. It’s a wonder that she even recognizes him when he rescues her from the asylum. Speaking of, next came the thing that bothered me the most: she isn’t even the one to shoot Fogg (or whatever they named the asylum warden in this). In the musical, this was her moment of finally holding her own against one of the older male oppressors in her life. This was her breaking point, her loss of innocence she may not have even had in the first place. Changing this just felt wrong.

Alright, I’ve done enough ranting. There were a few things that I thought the film did pretty well, actually. Firstly, the cinematography. Tim Burton has a very specific aesthetic to his films, and this was no different. Some people like, it, others don’t, but the dark, muted aesthetic did work, in a way that may not have worked if another director did it. The opening sequence with an instrumental of the Ballad of Sweeney Todd playing looked really cool. I also especially liked the visuals during Epiphany, when Sweeney is outside having a mental breakdown as the crowds of townsfolk are completely unaware of his presence. While I didn’t care for his singing, Johnny Depp’s acting was pretty solid here. Sacha Baron Cohen as Pirelli was fun. The kid playing Toby had a good performance. I’m not usually a huge fan of children singing, but he handled the score well. Another thing I liked was the addition of the scene between Anthony and Turpin. It added an extra layer of vicious cruelty to the Judge that was more than just “creepy old guy preying after a teenage girl” (and the “You gandered at her” line was great, especially with Alan Rickman’s delivery).

All in all, I wasn’t really a fan of this adaptation, but there were some parts I did enjoy, and I appreciate that it did expose more people to Sondheim’s music and musicals in general.