Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Directed by Tim Burton
Written by John Logan
Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen
Release Date December 21st, 2007
Published December 21st, 2007
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is filled with such self congratulatory irony that one is forced to call it arrogant. Arrogance is often seen as a negative quality and it is certainly nothing less than a pejorative here. However, the line between arrogance and confidence is thin here because of the talent involved.
It grows odd then that some of the arrogance of the creators of this Steven Sondheim adaptation comes from insecurity. Tim Burton is no fan of musicals. He never wanted to make one. He chose to make Sweeney Todd because of the almost anti-musical qualities of Sondheim's creation. This however, leads to a violent form of ironic detachment from the music and sentiment of the songs that leaves the filmgoer outside the emotion of the piece.
In not wanting to make a musical, Burton has attempted to make an anti-musical and as such forgotten that involving an audience is necessary even when you are rebelling against a form many audiences find so easily involving.
Johnny Depp stars as Sweeney Todd, though Barker is his real name, he became Todd in a British prison colony. When he was a young man Benjamin Barker's wife and child were taken from him by the jealous machinations of one Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). Envious of the young barber, his beautiful wife (Laura Michelle Kelly) and baby, Turpin had Barker arrested on a trumped up charge and sent to Australia, then a British penal colony.
Returning 15 years later as Todd, Benjamin Barker seeks his revenge on Turpin and the hellhole London that has risen up around him. Returning to his old shop where his former landlady Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) has kept his beloved silver razors, Sweeney will pick the shave business and use it as a base of operations for his revenge.
The sub story of Sweeney Todd involves the young sailor Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) who rescued Sweeney at sea and brought him to London and who also happens to fall for Sweeney's now teenage daughter Johanna (Jane Wisener), now a captive in Judge Turpin's home staring listlessly from a gilded cage. The teenage lovers work to leave the oppressive violence and sadness of the Sweeney story and the young actors are effective in that.
Now if only Tim Burton gave a damn about them, we'd have something here. Unfortunately, Burton doesn't take much care with the young lovers, bungling their coupling and their involvement with Sweeney to the point that what should be a major revealing moment hits with little flourish and is shuffled quickly offstage in favor of more revenge and viscera.
Fans of Viscera, I'm talking serious blood and guts here, will be more than satisfied with Sweeney Todd. The film is soaked in viscous fluid. However, do not mistake Sweeney for the blood stopped likes of Hostel or Halloween. No, Tim Burton is more humorous in his detachment than the frightening seriousness of Eli Roth or Rob Zombie who come off as real life Sweeney's seeking revenge on humanity in their hateful attacks on audiences.
Oddly enough, Burton would have to be more engaged in Sweeney Todd for that level of commitment to hatred. Thus Sweeney has an ironic detachment that leaves audiences little place to be appalled, repelled or won over by it. We are left merely as observers of rich cinematography, performances of great commitment and songs that offer glimpses of emotional involvement and dark humor.
Tim Burton has always been the disaffected genius working within the system and subverting it with his art-pop. Conversely, at a certain age disaffection becomes an old pose struck with boredom and stagnation. Sweeney Todd is far too big budget busy to be boring but stagnant is not far off. From a creative perspective Tim Burton's imaginative whimsy and his attempt to subvert it by covering it in blood fails to beat away the stagnating emotional distance.
In interviews Burton has discussed how the Broadway approach to Sweeney's blood soaked tragedy, the belt it back of the room, typical Broadway approach, was inappropriate for such dark brooding material. Yet here he seems to demonstrate that a more dramatic, Broadway approach, heightened emotions, heightened reality, may be the only way to render such awesome grand guignol tragedies.
I can tell you that Burton's minimalist approach takes the wind out of the sails and translates what should be grand emotional developments into something we in the audience merely observe without involvement.
