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Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

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    Ian Jane
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  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

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    Released by: Dreamworks
    Released on: 10/21/2008
    Director: Tim Burton
    Cast: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ed Sanders
    Year: 2007
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    The Movie:

    Steven Sondheim's Sweeney Todd has gone on to become one of the most popular musical theater productions of modern times, so in a roundabout way it makes sense that someone would adapt it for the big screen, and who better to capture the play's macabre humor and over the top gothic melodrama than Tim Burton? The proof is in the pudding! Or in this case, the meat pie. Burton, along with his cast and crew, have made a truly excellent film that stays true to the story's roots but takes advantage of the scope that film offers over stage.

    When the film begins, a man calling himself Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) is sailing into London along with a young man named Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower), whose enthusiasm for returning to London contrasts with Todd's morose visage. Here we learn that Todd's wife was killed by a corrupt Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and that his life has been miserable ever since. The two part ways when the ship docks and Todd winds up in Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pie shop where the proprietor herself (Helena Bonham Carter) expresses how happy she is to see him back in town, and it soon becomes obvious that the two share a connection of some sort.

    Todd soon sets into motion his elaborate plan to exact revenge on Turpin. He takes his old razors out from under the floorboards above Lovett's shop and proceeds to challenge the local champion barber, Signor Adolfo Pirello (Sacha Baron Cohen), to a challenge in front of a fairly large audience of potential customers, judged by local would be big-wig Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall).

    Of course, Todd wins with ease and soon earns a reputation for himself. Though when it later turns out that Pirello is not only a fraud but that he knows who Todd really is, Todd succumbs to his bloodlust and slits the man's throat. This first murder leads to more and soon proves a very viable way for Mrs. Lovett to acquire meat for her pies. But Todd wants more than just financial gain, he wants revenge, and when he finds out that Turpin intends to marry his long lost daughter, Johanna (Jayne Wisnener) despite the fact that she's in love with Anthony, he soon finds all the reason he needs to pick up his razors and commit the ultimate sin.

    Though far from the first filmed version of the Sweeney Todd legend, Burton's film just might be the best and it's certainly the best looking. Burton, drawing on his love of Universal horror films (he told the designers to use Frankenstein as a reference) and silent German pictures like Nosferatu has crafted a Victorian London the likes of which you've never seen. The city is alive with shadows and almost completely devoid of color - It's not quite black and white, but it's close. As such, once the blood starts to flow by the gallon it makes for a nice visual contrast against the dark colors of the sets that have been created for the film. The picture looks fantastic from start to finish with an admirable amount of attention paid to detail in the buildings, streets, sets and costumes and with some perfectly complimentary camera work.

    The performances are equally impressive. Rickman has always made a good villain and he continues that tradition with his dastardly performance in this film and Spall plays off of him nicely. Cohen is excellent as the brief comic relief, playing his Italian barber with the cliché annunciation you hear from the pizza guy in The Simpsons! While Bower and Wisener aren't give as much to do, they're fine as the young star crossed lovers.

    The real show stealers, however, as Depp and Bonham Carter. Both have worked with Burton before (Carter in more ways than one!) and are obviously pretty comfortable with his style and turn in excellent work here, even during the musical numbers (for which every actor delivered his or her own singing). Depp goes just as over the top as you'd hope considering the origins of the character but Bonham Carter turns in a surprisingly restrained turn as his female counterpart and even if her singing isn't perfect, it's at least reasonably sincere. The two work very well together here, their chemistry really helps to make the picture as good as it is.

    While the fact that the picture is a big budget mainstream studio musical in the truest sense of the word (not in a South Park: Bigger Longer Uncut pseudo-musical sort of way) may turn some genre fans off, Burton's film delivers a surprisingly amount of bloodshed and genuinely unsettling moments. While the film isn't scary in the way that the best horror movies are, it is at least a pretty intense experience in the way that many horror films are not.

    As he did with Sleepy Hollow, Burton has effectively taken a very familiar story and turned it into something interesting and eerie. Shooting it as a musical could have very easily backfired on the project but the material is played well and is obviously quite respectful and in keeping with the source material that inspired it.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Sweeney Todd looks excellent, presented here in 1080p AVC 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen. While much of the color has been intentionally sucked out of the picture, the image remains stable and sharp throughout. Blacks are nice and strong and reds are bright, bold and bloody. Skin tones look lifelike when they're supposed to, but most of the time everyone looks appropriately pale and odd. There aren't any problems with compression artifacts nor is there an overabundance of edge enhancement. Fine detail is strong in both the foreground and the background of the picture and thankfully even when there are plenty of shadows on screen (which is more often than not in this film), things remain clean and clear and allowing us to enjoy all of the detail that is present in the film's various backgrounds and in the costumes used throughout the picture. As far as how it compares to the standard definition release, the biggest difference is in the detail. There's just a lot more here to see and 'wow' over. There aren't any problems with noise or compression artifacts and the black levels are pretty much perfect. Paramount/Dreamworks have done a very nice job here indeed.

    Just as impressive is the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound mix. The musical numbers pack more punch and have more depth than they did on the SD release and you can make out all manner of subtle background effects and ambient noise during the scenes that incorporate them. Dialogue stays clean and clear and the levels are all properly balanced save for one or two scenes where they're just a little low in the mix. Bass response is very strong without being over done and generally, this mix sounds fantastic. Standard definition English, French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mixes are also included while subtitles are provided in English SDH, English, French and Spanish.

    All of the extras have been ported over from the SD release and they're all presented here in HD save for the Sweeney Todd Press Conference segment and the Moviefone segment. The extras start off with a featurette entitled Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd (26:06). Here we're treated to interviews with Helena Bonham Carter, writer Stephen Sondheim, Tim Burton, producer Richard D. Zanuck, Johnny Depp, producer Walter F. Parkes, Depp's vocal producer Bruce Witkin, Ed Sanders, Alan Rickman, Jamie Campbell Bower, and music producer Mike Higham. The interviews cover how the project was put together (Burton has wanted to make this film for roughly twenty years since seeing it performed on stage twelve times) and how the cast members had to deal with performing in a musical as opposed to a more traditional film (Depp can't read music!). We hear from Burton about the look that he wanted and from Carter about how he wanted her to refrain from using her eyebrows or hands during her performance to let the music do the acting for her. There's some interesting behind the scenes footage in here as well as some stills and photographs alongside clips from the finished feature which nicely illustrate most of the points being made by those on camera. While this is a little promotional in nature sometimes, it's interesting enough that it's certainly worth a watch. Surprisingly enough, there isn't a commentary track provided for the feature and while this isn't quite extensive enough to take the place of a decent commentary, it's at least a solid look behind the scenes.

    The second disc starts off with the Sweeney Todd Press Conference (19:40) from November of 2007 in which Tim Burton explains how he's wanted to make the play into a film for years now. Johnny Depp talks about how he brought part of himself to the role (he's shaved a grown man before!) and he and Burton express their mutual admiration for one another. Carter admits that having Burton direct her made her performance much harder, and Burton talks about the how the blood in the film was made from their own special recipe. Rickman notes that his character doesn't chop any one up or eat them, making him the hero, and Depp talks about what it was like singing on camera for the first time (he didn't do his own singing in Cry-Baby). Spall and Zanuck show up and talk about the film while Burton talks about how he didn't want a traditional musical, he wanted more of a silent movie with music.

    Sweeney Is Alive: The Real History Of The Demon Barber (20:06) is an interesting look at the real story behind the film. Author Peter Hainnig, who has written about Todd extensively, shows up alongside Dr. Roseland Crone, director Tim Burton, Dr. Lawrence Goldman, and a few others show up to discuss whether or not Todd actually existed. We're given a decent history of the character, shown clips from the Tod Slaughter film, and images from various programs for plays performed that were based on the legend. They discuss the importance of cannibalism in fairy tales as the ultimate taboo, and how Sawney Bean may have been the basis for the Sweeney Todd legend. Historians talk about a newspaper article that detailed how a barber slit the throat of his customer's throat, and how a French barber supposedly killed some of his customers and sold the meat to a nearby meat pie parlor which also likely added to the myth. From there we learn how violence became popular in the entertainment of Victorian culture, and how London publishers of the time cashed in on this, resulting in the Penny Dreadful's, where Todd debuted as a popular character for the first time. The importance of the Tod Slaughter film and the plays that inspired it is discussed, and from there we learn how Sondheim's musical brought the character back in a play that won a plethora of awards, which in turn lead to Burton's film.

    Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (12:01) is an interesting interview with the man whose play inspired the film. He talks about how he wrote the play while living in London in the seventies where he saw what he was would would be a Grand Guignol performance of legend that turned out to not be Grand Guignol at all. This lead to his interest in the character and resulted in his adaptation. Music producer Mike Higham talks about the music in the film as does producer Walter F. Parkes who credits Sondheim with reinventing the musical. Everyone who worked with Sondheim on the film credits him with being very cooperative and open with the reworking of his play, while Sondheim himself expresses his admiration for the finished product.

    The Making Of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (24:02) is, as you could probably gather from the title, a lengthy look at the making of the picture by way of interviews with the cast and crew. The principal performers talk about their characters while Burton, Zanuck and others talk about the importance of the performers in the film. The also discuss how Burton had a very specific vision for the film and how he set about putting that up there on the screen. Sondheim talks about how the filmmaker's 'maintained the integrity of the music' while the cast talks about singing on camera. From there we get a look at what went into the costume design, and the production design and the importance of the razors. While there are some interesting bits here and some good behind the scenes footage, this is pretty repetitive and it covers a lot of the same ground as the featurette on the first disc.

    Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition (19:12) is a fascinating featurette that explores the origins of the Parisian theatrical tradition that started in 1897 in an old deconsecrated chapel and became a phenomena. There are some great pictures of various productions and footage from the theater itself, and some interesting interviews with authors and experts who have written about the history of Grand Guignol. We learn how the theater managed to capture the atmosphere of horror and in turn made a mark for itself. From there the differences between Grand Guignol and English Melodrama are covered before Sweeney Todd's place in both traditions is covered. Also discussed how sometimes social commentary would creep into the plays and how the French Grand Guignol plays influenced early American horror films.

    Designs For A Demon Barber (8:54) is a series of interviews with costume designed Colleen Atwood, production designer Dante Ferretti, set designer Francesca Lo Schiavo, and director Tim Burton where the unique look of the film is discussed in a fair bit of detail. Burton talks about how he wanted the sets to look not like London, but like 'Horror Movie London' specifically and how he wanted it to have an old fashioned horror movie style. The designers all talk about their work on the film and what was involved in their efforts, and we get a look at a whole whack of production sketches and drawings.

    A Bloody Business (8:51) is an interesting look at the various ways in which Sweeney Todd's victims were killed by his razor blade. The prosthetics technicians who worked on the film appear here to talk about what went into making such a bloody film, and we get a look at some interesting behind the scenes effects test footage.

    Moviefone Unscripted With Tim Burton And Johnny Depp (11:35) is the episode of Moviefone which Depp and Burton appeared on to discuss the film and take calls from viewers. They talk about the film's they've made together and Depp tells a funny story from the Sleepy Hollow shoot while Burton talks about how they started working together in the first place before they start talking about Todd specifically. A lot of what we see here has been covered in the other features but it's done here with more of a sense of humor and in a much more casual manner.

    The Razor's Refrain (8:39) is simply a slideshow of publicity photos that play out underneath some music from the film. Similar is the Photo Gallery, which contains roughly fifty images comprised of behind the scenes photos, promotional photos, production art and some of Burton's own sketches. Last but not least if the film's North American theatrical trailer (2:31).

    The Final Word:

    A fantastic film gets a fantastic release - this one should be in everyone's collection, it really is a great disc.
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