Page 57
Spoilers May Be Below!
Page 57
Spoilers May Be Below!
Lovely scans from AnaMaria from the CD Booklet
From Grey BruceOscar Buzz: Johnny's Revenge
Posted By Earl's Girl
February 12, 2008Oscar Buzz: “Johnny’s revenge”
Such familiar revenge tragedies as The Duchess of Malfi, The White Devil, Macbeth, Titus Andronicus make an impressive list of powerfully seductive and evil tales and all based on a modicum of truth, making the massive excess of their stories all the more terrifying. So it is with Steven Sondheim’s "Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street", not the ‘evil’, ‘wicked’ or ‘murderous’ barber but the ‘demon’…………..an evil spirit possessed by the devil, a fiend. Very little of the basis of the story is known, but as with John Wilmot, Ed Wood etc, Johnny is notable for his skill at drawing a character out of a few paragraphs. So the stage is set for Sondheim’s musical to be translated into film and who better to play the evil fiend, than Johnny Depp, a highly skilled practitioner in the art of melding the ‘Jekyll’ with the ‘Hyde’; subtly manipulating the audience’s swift inclination to banish the demon to purgatory, to a curious acceptance of the human traits of the pariah, leaving one baffled by conflicting feelings of the love hate relationship.I wondered after first viewing Sweeney Todd how these stories of twisted love, anger, jealousy, betrayal, murderous rage and bloody violence would stand up if, instead of theatrical performances or, as in Sweeney Todd, musicals, they were taken up by a ‘Tarantino’ and turned into a straight drama/thriller film. The experience, for me, would be an abomination bordering on the complete insanity of the ‘Saw’ and ‘Hostel’ genre. That said, however, the pot of gold awaiting us at the end of this ‘DeppBurton’ rainbow is indeed a masterful, astounding and truly remarkable creation.
The current Oscar buzz gives me license to ponder the powerful performances of this year’s contenders, lamenting a little that the tortured and agonized performances of a Sean Penn, a Tom Cruise or a Brad Pitt are usually favourite choices of the Academy members. Rarely do they deviate from the routine of picking from one intense drama or another which leads me again to wonder what could be more agonizing than to be wrongfully accused of a crime, to lose wife and child, return home from exile to find your wife molested and drawn into lunacy, and the child abducted by a seemingly untouchable member of society. How much more would The Academy want to see the human soul tortured? And the intensity of the story of Sweeney Todd is made so much more poignant by the musical combination of the comedic with the horrific. As with many of Johnny’s roles, after witnessing his mastery and control of the particular character, it is hard to imagine anyone else being cast in the part; he becomes the archetype and template by which the standard is set. So it is that the concept of Sweeney Todd being anything other than a musical is anathema to me. Our ‘revenge’ hero is all the more tragic because of Tim Burton’s tender treatment of the subject allowing us to see humour where there should be none. We should loath and revile the transformed Mr Barker, but we pity his plight, we empathize with him, a love hate relationship Johnny uniquely holds with his audience, (Agent Sands in Once Upon A Time In Mexico, George Jung in Blow, and John Wilmot in The Libertine); the ability to fool us into believing in the human tragedy along with its selfishness, stupidity and ruthlessness.
I did occasionally glimpse some Edward and a few others hovering in the background of Sweeney Todd – the desperate solitude, abandonment, desolation; but more than that……..the ‘isolation’ brought upon him by circumstances and spurred on by his own decisions. Edward is forced to take revenge of a kind to fight back against injustice. Sweeney is compelled to take revenge for another type of injustice, in complete juxtaposition to our Christian teaching of forgiveness. (“We all deserve to die Mrs Lovett, even you, even I.”) In an ironic twist of fate his need for revenge precipitates the death of his wife, Lucy and all but kills his daughter, Joanna and inevitably as in the true revenge tragedy tradition there can be no happy ending. All the main characters and most of the sub characters lie dying or dead at the conclusion. Despite Mrs Lovett’s (brilliantly portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter [sorry, Angela Lansbury..}) attempts to draw Sweeney into her twisted ‘family’ his purpose is single-minded and ruthless. Yet in the end we feel a certain unsettling disquiet that he has not undone the wrongs done to him, even as he dies. (“no, not one man, no, not ten men, nor a hundred can assuage me”)
Even as Mrs Lovett’s world unfolds and magnifies into dreams of the future with Sweeney, his world narrows and shrinks at a quickening pace. It is appropriate that Mrs Lovett’s death is reminiscent of the witch burnings of medieval times (....he could have slit her throat, after all) for she has indeed bewitched and betrayed him albeit with her own good intentions. In some ways she is more evil than her lover, because although he wallows in torrents of blood and gore, he does not betray anyone close to him.I found the recurring themes of betrayal and victimization appropriately universal as within any revenge tragedy; Sweeney is a victim of Judge Turpin’s tyranny, Lucy and Joanna are the victims of the judge’s warped affection and jealousy, Mrs Lovett is a victim of her own love for Sweeney, Sweeney’s customers are all victims, but the judge is the ultimate victim of Sweeney’s monumental and terrifying rage; the judge betrays Sweeney, he also betrays Lucy, Mrs Lovett eventually betrays Toby, Toby attempts to betray Sweeney, and Sweeney eventually betrays Lucy………….that is his ultimate downfall. We have come full circle. The faut family based on revenge, death and destruction rather than love and beauty and innocence has finally met its end.
My mind was also engaged by the less common themes of observation and imprisonment: Joanna is locked in Judge Turpin’s house and subsequently in Fogg’s Assylum, reminiscent of her mother who is locked away in her mind, Anthony is locked outside of Joanna’s room and Judge Turpin is locked out of Joanna’s heart, Toby is locked in the bake house, Pirelli is locked bleeding in a chest and Sweeney Todd is locked inside of himself and figuratively bleeding to death, foreshadowing the demise of his many “bleeders” and long before his own mortality catches up with him.
This imprisonment theme is promoted and depicted in the viewer’s mind by the use of windows separating people from the outside world, especially Sweeney Todd who, from the moment he enters Mrs Lovett’s pie shop, can only view the world from that perspective and focuses his vigilant attention on the limited view through the barber and pie shop windows. Peripherally he sees nothing. The outside world is beyond that pane of glass and Sweeney cannot venture there. He is as much enslaved as ever he was in exile, and a prisoner is his own mind perhaps as much as Lucy is in hers.
Johnny’s masterful Sweeney is played in such an understated yet vividly passionate way: every pore of his body oozes emotion; he is heated, impassioned and excitable, yet distant, remote and impassive. Every flinch of acknowledgement plays across his face before it registers in his body on any physical level. He isn’t playing Sweeney Todd, he surely is Sweeney Todd. His classically beautiful features display every thought before he utters a word. His movement is paced, minimal and slow. There is no need for superfluous words or action. He reserves his energy for the predatory kill. His thoughts are secretive, stewing and bubbling below the surface; dangerous, calculating, triumphant, sycophantic, tragic and flawed. For my own personal experience, Johnny’s ability to make what he does appear effortless is remarkable. His metamorphosis into his character is a rare and exceptional gift and in the case of Sweeney Todd in particular, I was moved by the poignancy deep inside the words “No, I’ll never see Joanna, no I’ll never hug my girl to me” ,knowing how close he and Vanessa came to losing their daughter, Lily Rose during filming.
I believe Johnny (with Oscar nominations 3 out of the last 4 years) grows with each and every film he makes. He doesn’t seem moved by box office wonders yet from my perspective he has never done a poor job himself, even in a ‘bad’ film. From Cry Baby to Sweeney Todd light strikes another facet of the diamond and we squint at his brilliance wondering how many more of these faces are to come. My personal belief is that his crowning glory is still John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester in “The Libertine”, and if the Academy rolled right over that one, they will squash this beneath their collective feet without a second thought. However with each passing year Johnny is accruing a remarkable body of work which will one day be recognized in its entirety.
NECA is coming out with a line of Sweeney Todd items, including replicas of his blades. Some pics here
From Messiah found at TLAVideo
Paramount unleashes the beloved Tim Burton masterpiece "Sweeney Todd" on April 1st in single disc, 2-disc Special Edition, and gasping-for-breath HD-DVD versions.
Specs:Single Disc:
Languages: English, French Dubbed & Subtitled, Spanish Dubbed & Subtitled
Audio: 5.1 Surround
DVD Feature:
• Featurette: Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd2-Disc Special Edition:
Languages: English, French Dubbed & Subtitled, Spanish Dubbed & Subtitled
Audio: 5.1 Surround
DVD Features:
• Featurette: Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd
• Interview: Sweeney Todd Press Conference, November 2007
• Featurette: Sweeney Todd is Alive: The Real History of the Demon Barber
• Featurette: Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd
• Featurette: Sweeney's London
• Featurette: The Making of Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• Featurette: Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition
• Featurette: Designs for a Demon Barber
• Featurette: A Bloody Business
• Interview: Moviefone Unscripted with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp
• Featurette: The Razor's Refrain
• Trailers: Theatrical Trailer
• Photo Gallery: Photo Gallery2-Disc Special Edition HD-DVD:
Languages: English, French Dubbed & Subtitled, Spanish Dubbed & Subtitled
Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus, 5.1 Dolby TrueHD
DVD Features:
• Featurette: Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd
• Interview: Sweeney Todd Press Conference, November 2007
• Featurette: Sweeney Todd is Alive: The Real History of the Demon Barber
• Featurette: Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd
• Featurette: Sweeney's London
• Featurette: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• Featurette: Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition
• Featurette: Designs for a Demon Barber
• Featurette: A Bloody Business
• Interview: Moviefone Unscripted with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp
• Featurette: The Razor's Refrain
• Photo Gallery: Photo Gallery
• Trailers: Theatrical Trailer
Official Sweeney Todd Site
Official Sweeney Todd My Space page
Please
email me if you find
any missing
links
home
