Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Sweeney
Post contents to be reposted.
- Camelot (11/05/2008)
- A Peaceful Transfer of Power (11/05/2008)
- Election Prediction (11/04/2008)
- The Whole Truth (11/04/2008)
- Election Day - Molly Brown Style (11/04/2008)
Posted 01/01/2008 8:36 AM CDT • Print Vers.
Comments
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that’s the beauty of being an uncultured neanderthal. I don’t know anything about any of that stuff so I had a great time.
lots of throatslashing helped that, of course.
og | 1/1/2008 12:15 PM CDT -
The kids don’t like horror films, generally, and weren’t expecting that (my fault for not warning them, I really thought they knew). They did appreciate that the violence was more of a cartoon/stylized nature, but Wendy was still pissed about it.
Wendy wrote an interesting essay for her English class last year, about Snuff Porn, which is how she (adeptly) describes most horror/slasher flicks. She is not a fan… and really detests that genre.
Again, my mistake for not warning her.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/1/2008 12:25 PM CDT -
The kids didn’t care for it (and they are the box office target market) and really wanted to like it.
Hunh. Three of my kids liked it - ages 23, 15 and 13. My youngest - 8 - didn’t see it that night, my wife and I took him to a more age appropriate movie.
They all like ‘horror’ films to varying degrees. None like the slasher sub-genre but they like ‘creepy spooky’ movies.
I am an uncultured boob from the sticks; I am aware it was a stage musical but I hadn’t seen it.
Brian | 1/1/2008 01:12 PM CDT -
I can see easily how someone not accustomed to the sort of gore in Sweeney would be very put off. It’s pretty graphic.
Having been around some pretty vile things in my life, close up, this sort of stuff doesn’t bug me anymore. I have to stop and think sometimes about the fact that not everyone has cleaned up dead bodies and watched people die up close. And be glad for them that they have never seen some of the things I wish I could unsee.
og | 1/1/2008 03:33 PM CDT -
I read LAT’s review, which was pretty favorable. I guess Depp worked hard for the role, and he has a rock and roll background (not Broadway, I know).
In any case, hope you’re having a great ‘08 so far!
Americaneocon | 1/1/2008 09:40 PM CDT -
Um, a niggling little detail: In My Fair Lady, even though Audrey Hepburn did record her vocal parts, that was Marni Nixon singing for her.
Marni Nixon sang for a lot of actresses in the musicals of the time. Please see http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0633262/bio for some of the pertinent details.
Actually Audrey Hepburn had a splendid if small voice of her own, but perhaps not deemed appropriate for the part.
And while indeed it was perhaps a tragedy Julie Andrews lost out on playing Eliza Doolittle, if she had not lost that part she would not have wound up in The Sound of Music-- Ms. Andrews says so openly. Which one would you rather have?
I have not yet seen Sweeney Todd but as someone who adores Sondheim I’m looking forward to it. I have already heard how the score has been greatly modified and how poorly some of the cast members of the movie perform those difficult vocal charts.
I do not expect to get a note for note recreation of the Broadway production—that would be asking too much. What was right and good and appropriate for 1979 and Broadway and Sondheim would never fly in a movie in 2007. I did recently see a videotape of the original Broadway production with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury; it was nearly unwatchable, though the music was exquisite. And I love musicals, so imagine how it would go over for someone who isn’t a music buff or is coming to this without the breadth of expertise you undoubtedly possess.
They obviously did the safe smart thing—tried to appeal to the everyday moviegoer and not the cognoscenti. And Tim Burton knows horror if nothing else, so no surprise he went for the slasher aspects of this gory tale.
I’m still going, though I expect to see parts of this movie between my fingers and wincing at all the cuts and etc. Even crappy Sondheim is better than none at all!
Thanks for taking my comments.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
(who coincincidently just played a rock opera—the audience loved “Jesus Christ Superstar.")Jenny Paradis-Hagar | 1/1/2008 10:04 PM CDT -
Having seen the original 1979 B’way production (Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury - George Hearn came along later), I’ll say that I was more pleased with Burton’s film version of Sweeney Todd than I expected to be.
Depp and Bonham Carter are not singers, but at least in Depp’s case, he does the score justice. If they had had the same actors doing this show on stage, it would’ve been a disaster, but on film they make it work, and work well.
As for the gore quotient, the movie version is certainly (and unsurprisingly) far more bloody than the stage show. It’s not your typical Christmas fare, for sure. It’s a film version of a Grand Guignolesque stage play...not for the kiddies.
Elisson | 1/2/2008 05:43 AM CDT -
You are right, Len Cariou, I stand corrected. Memory, it’s the second thing that goes (I forget what the first thing is.)
Jenny
your humble TubaDivajenny | 1/2/2008 06:20 AM CDT -
We wondered why they didn’t choose the old route, as they did in My Fair Lady, of dubbing voices with real singers.
I suspect that the audience has changed their acceptance/tolerance of such a practice. This is the generation who has grown up on Milli Vanilli and the “fraud” that evoked among their fans (and the music industry, in general).
While dubbing singers in film musicals was never secret, we just suspected that it would (today) be tarnished with that never again lip sync music you did not yourself record.
Oh, and one correction: One son did enjoy the film. The other son was neutral.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/2/2008 07:31 AM CDT -
I thought, too, that a voice track would be interesting. Maybe disconcerting to see Depp sounding like… well, like anyone.
A generation earlier.. well, maybe two generations earlier, we were perfectly willing to suspend disbelief to accept Giorgio Tozzi singing for Rossano Brazzi, or Thurl Ravenscroft singing for Ken Clark in “South pacific”. And those amazing voices added so much to the film, IMHO. yeah, maybe Milli Vanilli ruined it for us all. Dumbasses.
hey, I was amazed Depp could sing. I mean, not SING, but sing.
og | 1/2/2008 07:59 AM CDT -
Of course he could sing. He’s a brilliant actor. A great actor can fake anything. He could have been pushed to have more color (as he did in the final duet), but I think he was afraid (or Tim Burton was) that if he pushed too hard he’d come off worse.
I think he had a few more grains of bellow he could have released… but he was holding it in, and trying to build to something, and was probably reserving too much, for fear of not having enough left for the crescendo.
Funny that you mention the song Joanna and how you were humming it. The interesting thing, too, about how they presented that particular number… they presented it as a kind of sorrowful, soulful ballad, when it isn’t. It is a very light and optimistic song… similar to the “On the street where you live” classic. It was anything but sorrowful. It was a ROMANTIC number… one of perpetual hope. He can feel her and see her, no matter where she is, no matter how many walls or barricades are put between them. It needed just a bit more sweetness (well, and a voice who could actually sing it).
Had that song been more… ummm… frivilous… more… happy… more optimisic… it would have provided the necessary contrast of the doom/gloom/pitiful fate of Sweeney.
They accomplished the contrasts quite successful in the Sea number--where they dared to add color to represent the fantasy… but it was there were the humor (dark humor, of course) of the essence of the original came through.
That’s what was missing… we can’t, obviously, arrange a musical for today’s audiences the way it had been, but they left out the brashness and bawdiness of the original, which was the contrast needed to balance it.
Simply: they left out the humor of the piece. The humor could have been along the lines of Harold and Maude or the macabre characterization of Depp in Pirates, but I think with the success of Pirates and that role, Depp had to play against it (to avoid comparison to it). He was afraid to have fun as Sweeney.
I was quite surprised, actually, that Mr. High Contrast-Burton didn’t provide those needed high contrasts/juxtapositions to provide the color through the stark black and white.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/2/2008 08:22 AM CDT -
Actually, I thought “Joanna” was very light and romantic. perspective, I guess. Yeah, this would have been a riot had it been a little hammier. The Ogwife and I had to cover our mouths to keep from laughing out loud at “A little priest”. As it was, we laughed and laughed outside the theater.
og | 1/2/2008 08:29 AM CDT -
Here’s a link to the Broadway take on Johanna… now, they also screwed with the ages of the characters, so Sweeney was younger, as well as the sailor…
In the reprieve (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB350vjUFCw&feature;=related) hear the contrasts of the lightness of the sailor, compared to the brutality and glimpse at Sweeney’s reminiscing of himself with that hope?
That is the contrast I’m talking about… even though the characters were closer to peers in age, you need there to be a difference in their voices and their attitudes… someone had to be happy! It didn’t have to have the young male lead opera voice of the Broadway cast, but it needed more light.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/2/2008 08:38 AM CDT -
yeah, I revisited all those youtube clips before I saw the movie, to get myself in the mood. Probably what happened- with me- was I went to the movie intending to enjoy it, with my own vision of what I was about to see, and I overlaid my own emotions onto the film- because I DID see Joanna as light hearted- though, certainly, better singing chops would have improved that.
Unquestionably, Angela Lansbury has incredible talent, but i loathe her nonetheless, and she ruined the entire stage play for me. I’m a little annoyed I was never able to see the thing on the stage, and only the filmed stage version (which is a horrible way to see a play) but I’m comforted by the fact I didn’t have to be in the same room as her. I would have liked the Patti LuPone version, but I certainly wouldn’t have gone to nyfc to see it. And Victor Garber was incredible. To me, that clip is like stepping up to a bowl of wonderfully crafted fruit punch, and dipping myself as cup, and taking a long, sweet draught, enjoying the flavor and aroma, and then I see a turd float by. If Angela had merely stayed inside I could have enjoyed it.
(most of this hatred falls from seeing her in “The Manchurian Candidate” the first movie I ever saw with her in it. I’m sure she’s a fine person, but it’s always poisoned her for me)
og | 1/2/2008 08:57 AM CDT -
maybe it’s a tribute to her acting chops that Angela was so convincing in “candidate”, I hated her ever after.
Of course “Miss Marple” is good enough reason as well.
og | 1/2/2008 09:05 AM CDT -
She’s never been high on my list either, but I appreciate what she does, even though she irks me (probably similar to the way she does you). I prefer her in some of her much earlier film roles.
Carol Channing, however, man I loved her as Dolly.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/2/2008 11:05 AM CDT
