Sweeney Todd

Movie musicals, recent movie musicals at least, are of two types. The first type basically shoots the stage version on fancier sets and with more closeups. This is a mistake. The directors of these musicals, the most striking recent example of which is Rent, seem to have forgotten all the wonderful possibilities to create meaning that are now open to them in film. Instead of letting us into the characters' minds in a way that the stage could never manage, they basically shoot a music video and laugh as the loyal but deluded fags line up for tickets. What these directors do has been done.

The second type of musical takes advantage of all that film has to offer. Chicago is the best example of this. It's brilliant and makes the stage version look rickety and bare by comparison. The daring visuals and inventive concept took the show beyond itself, and a masterpiece was born.

Which brings us to the subject at hand. I don't have anything serious against the movie and am grateful that Tim Burton has managed to bring the best American songwriter on the century and my personal idol the the movie screen. Sadly, Sweeney Todd stops just short of the second category. It doesn't quite descend into retread territory; At times, Burton uses film to its potential: "By The Sea" and Sweeney's soliloquy are both conceptually bold, with comedic and unnerving effects, respectively. But cinema's big advantage over live theatre is subtlety, and Burton doesn't fully capitalize on it. He feels that Sweeney has to gaze longingly and lengthily at his razors several times for the audience to get the point [sic], and we can only take so many reprises of slightly overearnest Jamie Campbell Bower chirping "buried sweetly in your yellow hair". So much of the subtlety is lost with wide, set-encompassing shots that reduce the mostly capable actors to figures on a stage. I may as well have seen those scenes in live theatre.

And when I say mostly capable, I chiefly have Johnny Depp in mind as the exception. I expected better. His Sweeney is consistent and clear enough, but he lacks honesty, reality. Except when he's in a murderous rage, it is always clear that we are watching Johnny Depp playing Sweeney. It's what Tom Lindblade would call "Shmacting". It doesn't help that he belts the high notes a la Nick Lachey. Helena Bonham-Carter, Timothy Spall, Alan Rickman, and Even Sacha Baron Cohen (who is hot, but I digress) on the other hand create clear, believable characters and do the difficult music justice. In scenes with Depp, however, they all seem to be searching for something to play off of, with no success.

In the final analysis, I suppose I can't be too upset. The movie was what it set out to be: A Sondheim musical with no limits.--at least not on the budget for bright, arterial blood. While I'm at it, the previews/advertisements are an entrenched part of the medium of movies, and it is worth noting that this is 3 Doors Down's "jump the shark" moment. A music video advertisement for the National Guard? As though our national guard is really the heir of the revolutionary militia? That is the sound of a band's soul flying into the purple, buzzing light.