I don’t know anything about this musical, but the commercials are pissing me off by glossing over this part. I could hate Johnny Depp less if everyone would quit acting as if he mattered.
Quothe Wikipedia: The shoot was interrupted three weeks later when Depp’s daughter fell ill. Christopher Lee, Peter Bowles and six other actors were cut out of the film following the ailing of Depp’s daughter. They were originally set to play the ghost narrators and sing “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd”.
Thanks for the review, Cervais (and lissener). It reminds me a bit of On the Town, which is a great stage musical, a great movie, but for completely different reasons that make their striking differences obvious. It doesn’t sound like Sweeney is quite that disparate, but, not being familiar with the Sondheim, it sounds like I’m going to have to explore the play separately from my film experience with the show.
You move the camera closer in a film, you sing to the rafters on stage. In a film, if you fill the frame with the characters face, you getting the full blown emotion. In the theatre, the actor fills the house.
I can’t help but feel that you decided to not like the film, based on 10 seconds of the preview and then went and confirmed what you had already decided.
But that aside…
What do you make of the fact that the trailers hardly present any music at all? You could come away not knowing it’s a musical.
Number one goal - sell lotsa tickets! Tim Burton! Johnny Depp! Horror! Blood!
Why confuse the youngsters with telling them it’s a musical (that originally starred that lady from the 'Murder She Wrote" re-runs (you know, the show your great-grandma used to watch when you were visiting on Sunday afternoons with the family))?
Even though we’ve recently had Chicago, Hairspray, and High School Musical I & II, to the post MTV generation stage musicals are a bit of an anachronism. Kinda like the olde tyme revue at the theme parks.
You forgot Moulin Rouge, which was HUGE when it came out. Honestly, I think you would have a better argument going for you if this was the 80s or 90s. With these examples, you’re showing that there are a few well-known recently made musical hits. The marketers avoiding using the songs in the previews are likely for people older than the post MTV generation (who grew up in the previously mentioned 80s or 90s, or before) who had how many musicals (next to nil?) and thus think of them as bizarre.
[sub]Sorry, but I kind of chuckled at “Sure, we’ve recently had this hit musical, and another one that was huge, and a big one I forgot to mention, all of which took high schoolers and college aged people (usually girls) by storm, and the THREE musicals that are basically the biggest thing EVER for tweens (there’s a third High School Musical), but seriously, no one under 30 will want to see a musical.”[/sub]
One of the more memorable experiences in the theatre (on or off the stage) was at a performance of ST. The actor who played Sweeney (it was a number of years ago, and it wasn’t Hearn or Cariou; at any rate, I can’t recall his name) gave a rendition of Epiphany that had the audience shocked into silence for a measurable time before they could respond. He used his voice to express every nuance of the character’s descent into madness, and the result was electrifying. To reduce that to a meander through London sounds appalling.
And no Greek chorus? No"Lift your razor high, Sweeney,
Hear it singing ‘Yes!’
Sink it in the rosy skin of righteousness!"?Perhaps it would be too much to expect Burton to capture anything remotely like the immediacy of a live performance, but it sounds like he didn’t even try. I’ll most likely go see it, and will probably appreciate it for what it is; but I will just as probably mourn for what could have been.
Really, my words were meant to invoke the thinking of the Hollywood marketing suits, who have chosen to downplay the musical aspects in their ads and trailers. They sometimes(?) misjudge their audiences.
I saw it this weekend too, and really enjoyed it. I had no preconceived notions because I am unfamiliar with the play. I knew it was about a barber who starts cutting his customers’ throats so his lady friend could make them into meat pies, and that was all. I was surprised by the amount of graphic gore, but it was completely appropriate to the whole Grand Guignol-ness of it. I had assumed it would be mostly implied – panning away, maybe showing some spray from off-camera, or some bloody aftermath – so when the first throat gets cut and there’s this huge gout of blood and a big gaping neck wound suddenly it was like, “Holy shit, it’s THAT kind of movie!” So, so much fun. I think it’s going to freak out a lot of people who aren’t expecting it and don’t like that kind of movie though. Holiday fun for the whole family!
It’s funny, because although you’re generally correct about the commercials, there have been ST ads that make it unequivocally clear it’s a musical, and I’ve only seen them on one channel: BRAVO.
He called it “brilliant”. :dubious:
