Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
by Tim Burton
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alan Rickman, Edward Sanders, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Timothy SpallDirector: Tim Burton
Brand: Paramount
Cinematographer: Dariusz Wolski
Composer: Stephen Sondheim
Editor: Chris Lebenzon
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Movie Reviews of Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Movie Review: Tim Burton Goes For The Jugular
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay - let's not split hairs. Tim Burton's screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's stage-musical thriller `Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street' is a pitch-black, bloody masterpiece.
With this film, both Burton and his longtime cinematic collaborator, Johnny Depp, have found a new voice. And, in Mr. Depp's case, quite literally. Safe to say that 'Sweeney' is like nothing either of them has ever done before. Not by a mile.
And no one was more surprised than I.
Though an admirer of much, if not all, of the work Burton and Depp have co-created, when it comes to this musical - one I've passionately appreciated ever since I saw the original Broadway cast - I must confess that I feared the worst. Namely, that both Burton and Depp would accentuate the whimsically macabre, campy aspects inherent in the story (admittedly, a melodrama, after all) to the detriment of the core essence of relentless, escalating, bone-chilling terror and pity -- the key ingredients of classic tragedy.
But not so. Thank God.
In fact, this film is surprisingly faithful to the glowering, sinister, painful, and at times hilariously dark heart of Sondheim's classic masterwork of tonsorial terror. And while not lost in any way, the very dark (and very necessary) humor is deftly balanced here against the howling bleakness, raging injustice, and just-plain-evil which stalk the twisted alleyways of Sweeney's world and revenge-hungry mind.
But, is it an utterly perfect movie? In a word: no. I can quibble with the elimination of the show's "theme song" -- the repeated, savagely witty chorus `The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd'. And the voices of the cast, technically speaking, are not always up to the rigorous, near operatic quality standards of many major productions of the live show.
But in the blood-streaked face of what Burton has achieved in this intimate epic, with its spectacularly seedy, yet perversely beautiful evocation of a Dickensian/Jack-The-Ripper London -- its stylized, near-monochromatic squalor shot through with sudden and, at times, shocking assaults of color - any negatives seem mere niggling in retrospect.
Without indulging in showiness for the sake of show, Burton has proven himself, more dazzlingly than ever, to be a technical conjuror, yet without losing sight of the quieter, subtler undercurrents throughout. He's as confident in his work with the actors and his marvelous staging of the many musical show-pieces, as he is with the compelling use of CG effects. (That opening-credits sequence alone is a stunner.)
This is a new, more mature artist at work here, fully in control of his minor-keyed palette. Though Burton has unmistakably worked his distinctive wizardry yet again, this time he's created a truly unified, seductively sinister fairy-tale like no other, somehow pretty and poisonous simultaneously.
Yet never was a fairy tale more truly Grimm!
And that's no idle warning, believe me.
No matter which way you slice it -- and Sweeney does it in all KINDS of ways -- this film was rated R for a VERY well deserved reason. Grand Guignol gore via throat-slashings galore are the order of the day in the morally askew funhouse world of Mr. T and his partner/paramour in crime, Mrs. Lovett.
Speaking of whom, the sweetly sordid pie-maker herself is played to perverse perfection with threadbare, hauntingly droll, pastry-faced allure by Helena Bonham Carter, who is funnier and sings much better than I had feared might be the case, memorably putting her own depraved stamp on the role. As does everyone in the supporting cast, especially the deliciously decadent Judge Turpin of Alan Rickman and the obsequiously vile, rodent-like, beady-eyed Beadle of Timothy Spall. Oh, MAN, do you ever itch to see Sweeney go to work on these two! And go to work he does! But I get ahead of myself...
I would also be remiss in not making special mention of both Sascha Baron Cohen as the bogus barber Perelli in an enjoyable, broadly comic turn, and Ed Sanders as his hapless, much put-upon young assistant (i.e. slave) Tobias - both of them perfection in their very different ways. And even the "straight" romantic characters are played and sung equally well by Jamie Campbell Bower, Jayne Wisener, and Laura Michelle Kelly who, collectively, manage to sidestep the potential curse of cliché and/or blandness inherent in these tricky roles.
I was also impressed at the seamless streamlining of various story elements, in the process losing a few songs which, truly, never advanced the story in any crucial way onstage, but which would have proved a major impediment on the screen. And the restructuring of the scenes/songs which originally constituted the first half of Act Two, was pure inspiration, immeasurably increasing the film's storytelling effectiveness and propulsive energy.
But, as in any production of Sondheim's musical thriller, the ultimate power and essential emotional force of this story stands or falls on the strength of the actor playing Todd. And Depp's Sweeney is truly a revelation.
This is a Depp with newfound gravitas - his eyes and every gesture conveying a brooding, world-weary, soul-deep despair, and a potently unsettling undercurrent of simmering danger. All the layers and facets of this troubled and troubling character are laid bare in Depp's delicately gauged, fearless and fearful performance. And all the while maintaining a richly effective dialect which, along with the other details of his perfectly gauged portrayal, helps cement his Mr. T uniquely in one's memory long after the film has reached its tragically inevitable, pitifully chilling, blackly merciless conclusion.
Yeah, yeah. But how's his SINGING?
Well, very much to my surprise, unexpectedly effective. For, whatever Depp may lack in vocal virtuosity is made up for in spades by the power and range of his acting and the fact that he sings IN CHARACTER, utilizing his wonderfully growly, lower-class British dialect to marvelous effect - something no other stage Sweeney has done. And it works like mad. "Barking mad", to quote Mrs. Lovett. And though the role is usually sung by a baritone -- one further reason for my initial skepticism regarding Depp -- the switch to tenor was less jarring than I'd feared. And while the lighter vocal tone is admittedly less intimidating, the requisite demonic undercurrents are still very much in evidence, so all is far from lost.
And, lest I forget, the lush orchestrations of the talented Johnathan Tunick have never sounded more awe inspiring.
As a particularly delicious bonus, the 2-disc version of this DVD is packed as full as one of Mrs. Lovett's meat pies with wonderful special features on the background of the original show, the historical context of the original Sweeny Todd penny-dreadful & subsequent legend, and oodles of behind-the-scenes stuff on the making of the film.
Not necessarily the most logical of films for a Christmas release (I'm sure more than one Mr. and Mrs. Middle-America ran screaming from the local cineplex long before the end credits rolled -- there was, nevertheless, a certain bitter irony at work in that unconventional studio decision which, if to no one else, would certainly have brought an amused chuckle to Mr. Todd himself as he stared at his pallid reflection in one of his beloved razors and smiled. Like a knife.
Summary of Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical thriller "Sweeney Todd." Depp stars in the title role as a man unjustly sent to prison who vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop, Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who "shaved the heads of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard from again." Joining Depp is Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney's amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies. The cast also includes Alan Rickman, who portrays the evil Judge Turpin, who sends Sweeney to prison and Timothy Spall as the Judge's wicked associate Beadle Bamford and Sacha Baron Cohen is a rival barber, the flamboyant Signor Adolfo Pirelli.After years of rumors, it turns out that Tim Burton was the perfect visionary to film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Stephen Sondheim's Broadway masterpiece, and the result is a macabre and moving musical movie as enthralling as anything Burton has ever done. The show's mix of gothic horror, Grand Guignol, very dark humor, and witty and beautiful music never was the stuff of traditional musical comedy, but it's a powerful work, and perhaps the richest of the late 20th century. In the movie, Burton's frequent collaborator, Johnny Depp, plays Todd, a wronged man whose lust for revenge drives him to murder (an 19th-century legend who has been traced to a real-life barber). Helena Bonham Carter, another Burton mainstay, is Mrs. Lovett, the barber's partner-in-unspeakable-crime. It's no surprise that Depp is an excellent choice to convey Todd's brooding intensity and volcanic rage, but he can also sing a score that is so challenging it has often played in opera houses (though not with the same style as the Broadway original, Len Cariou, and he occasionally lapses into pop style). Bonham Carter is small of voice and lacks the humor of the original Broadway Lovett, Angela Lansbury, but she sings on pitch, in rhythm, and in character at the same time, which is no small feat for a Sondheim show. Aficionados will regret the loss of certain musical passages--"The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is just an instrumental overture and the chorus is gone altogether, among others--but the reassuring presence of orchestrator Jonathan Tunick and conductor Paul Gemignani ensures that the music feels right and sounds great. And the film's depiction of a Victorian London hellhole--with cinematography by Dariusz Wolski and costumes by Colleen Atwood--also looks and feels right.
The excellent cast is filled out by Alan Rickman as the villainous Judge Turpin, Timothy Spall as his seedy Beadle, Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) as a rival barber, Jamie Campbell Bower as the young lover Anthony, Jayne Wisener as his object of affection, and Ed Sanders as the young Toby. For fans of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp who don't think they like musicals, Sweeney Todd should be a revelation (though not for the squeamish, as the gore is intense and completely appropriate). For fans of Broadway and Sondheim, it's hard to imagine getting a better adaptation than this. The fact that there's no newly composed Oscar-bait song sung by a Josh Groban-type over the end credits only makes it better. --David Horiuchi
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