Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

There is not much to say about this story. We all know it is a tale of miscarriage of justice, of sexual greed, of alienation and injustice, and of final revenge that turns sour. This is a typical Victorian story in the line of Jack the Ripper and so many other crimes of that type, and I should say multiple killers or serial killers one century before the FBI invented profiling.

This particular production is special since it is a Broadway production of the musical that Tim Burton brought to the silver screen many years later. This particular production was actually brought to TV a long time ago and it is this TV version that they remastered and brought to us in this format. The sound is perfect of course since in the 1980s FM sound also call hi-fi sound was already arrived. The pictures are good though from a TV standard, probably professional, probably Betamax. The remastering was only used to clean up the sound and probably too to densify the resolution. So we can consider we have the best possible rendering of this old production.

The interest is to have a stage production from Broadway and from a period when special effects were not yet the norm on the stage. The stage production was supposed to create emotion in the spectators and they mostly only had human means to do so. They only wrapped up the human means in a stage setting that could increase or decrease the realistic effect. They chose to break up that realistic effect with the systematic use of machinery visible to the audience. Constantly elements, some enormous, are moved on the stage, turned around more or less building up structures that are supposed to render the various locations and the various scenes. It is totally artificial and it works perfectly because of the other dimension which is used in the most genial way imaginable.

This other dimension is the use of actors, singers and “dancers,” in  one word stage performers. The music is good but we do not see the musicians. The singers are not opera singers but musical singers and they are good not so much because of their voices but because they use their voices as one element of their performing. That performing is physical and the voices are part of this physicalness. The voices, the physical performing on the stage (movements and other physical contact or absence of contact) and the phenomenal body language and facial expressions, it all is extremely effective to create emotion and density. The situations are deep and heavy because of this performing qualities. It is what has slightly been reduced in the most recent period by the use of special effects. In those old days special effects were hardly available and the actors had to work with their bodies, voices and faces to create those emotions. And that was a time that has unluckily mostly disappeared.

In this case we have a real masterpiece because everything is looking artificial and yet the emotions look extremely realistic. That’s a stage directing choice that was more or less the only solution at the time if the stage director wanted to produce an emotional and powerful show. This is a real success along that line.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

This film in its original version is entirely or nearly entirely sung and the music is probably the best part of the film. It is thus a musical tragedy, mind you, not drama.

First, Tim Burton recreates in color the bleak black and white vision we can have of London in Dickens’s time among others. Oliver Twist is there in front of us all over again, and his world of coal, smoke and dirt. And the house of this barber is a lot bleaker than any bleak house in Dickens. In fact it goes as deep in squalor as D.H. Lawrence’s early autobiographical novels like Sons and Lovers. The only real color Tim Burton uses is red, the color of blood and nothing else, but all its possible shades and intensities. That is already a piece of art and a masterpiece at that, a film in black, red and grey. Nothing white of course.

Second, the actors are so great in their roles and characters that we do believe they are what they pretend to be. Sweeney Todd is really a monster at first look, at first sight, and he will not vary from that identification one single iota. He may be justified in his monstrosity or monster-ness, but he is a monster through and through. And he drags everyone around him into that ugliness. He is only motivated by vengeance and he finds in the pie-maker a perfect accomplice though she would stop at the meat of Sweeney Todd’s victims and may forget about the vengeance itself. But circumstances are never what you can control entirely and Sweeney Todd will have his own vengeance fully and totally, though he made a few mistakes.

Third, there is no hope whatsoever. In the film at least. He abandons the younger ones behind, the youngest has just killed Sweeney, the two others, the sailor and Todd's daughter are just abandoned alone and frightened, though they should not be too much since the preying predator of a judge has disappeared in Sweeney’s Todd meat grinder. You can also imagine what the good old English Victorian society is going to do to them when they are discovered or captured in that vast cemetery of corpses and cadavers. At the same time you may imagine some kind of clemency for the sailor since he committed no crime, well, except at the “loony-bin” where he kidnapped Johanna. As for the girl her fate is more obscure since she is a girl and has to be protected and she comes from Bedlam. So, this is this and back to Bedlam.

Fourth, the speaking is voluntarily fuzzy, misty, dark, difficult to follow, often too low, and that is done on purpose. The dialogue is not so much important, apart from a few sentences now and then. It is an atmosphere that is created as if everyone was more or less whispering or mumbling in order not to be overheard or understood, misunderstood maybe. And the cockney of the actors is not always cockney, some pale and fuzzy imitation. But this linguistic opaque texture creates the atmos-fear of angst and fright.

But fifth, in this atmos-fear the most important element is the music and the singing. It is in no way attractive, charming, harmonious or whatever you may expect from music and singing. It is always the same tone, even when the tune is changing, a very minor dirge that stretches out without any kind of harmony or even attractive rhythm. It is a slow tempo for a very flat music and a minimal singing. A dirge I said, maybe even more than that, the complaint of surviving undead living-dead ghosts. We are in the deepest most sinister cul-de-sac blind alley you can imagine in full darkness, with no public light, just a smidgeon of moonlight between two heavy clouds and a lot of dark ill-smelling if not foul smoke coming out of the chimney of this diabolical barbershop-cum-pie-factory.

And Sweeney Todd is so much engulfed in his vengeance that he does not see anything any more. He is made blind by his desire, impulse and need to kill in order to alleviate his conviction that he was convicted for no reason at all and eliminated for the only sake of stealing his wife Lucy. And that leads him to the supreme killing: he kills his own wife who has become a deranged, hallucinating and totally mental beggar roaming around the judge’s house, her own predator. Sweeney Todd does not recognize his own wife except when it is too late. He nearly performs the same crime of oblivion and blindness with his own daughter, though he is distracted just in time, at the last moment when the razor was just going to hit her throat. He even gets rid of his main accomplice, Mrs. Lovett who loves it too much to accept it all, probably out of pure blind vanity and addiction, the addiction to his own vengeance and killing, and she will burn in the furnace before burning in hell for all eternity. And his unaware – well, at least for a short while – child accomplice is getting just like him at the end and the final razor cut sinks deep in our sensitive mind. Nothing to save that Sweeney Todd and his world! Victorian it is to the very last second and even right into the credits.

If you believe in love, stay away. If you believe in the beauty of man's heart somewhere, at least the hearts of a few people, stay away: there is not one single beautiful heart in this film, not even Johanna who has been warped by her detention in the soiled hands of Judge Turpin who has the mind of a turnip merged with terpenoids that have the soul of a rubber tire and the taste or turpentine. But what is Tim Burton trying to do? To scare us witless out of our pants and frocks with what the world really is behind the shiny and sparkling façade of a fake and hypocritical vicious court of justice with wigs and potbellied rotten beadles, white ermine fur and red robes? Probably, but maybe it is his vision of the world and that is very frightening.

A pessimistic film to make us feel relieved when we get out of it because Tim Burton has read his Aristotle and he sings his cathartic faith every morning while shaving with an electric razor, which is a lot less dangerous that the foldable machete we call a barber’s straight razor: after all, the world is not that bleak.

But is it or is it not? Maybe it is after all. Maybe it is not all in all.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

AMAZON.COM

5 STARS Colorful black and red

By Jacques COULARDEAU on March 30, 2008

AMAZON.CO.UK

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5 STARS Red and black color film

By Jacques COULARDEAU on 30 March 2008

IMDB

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Olliergues, France, March 30, 2008

10 STARS A dark parable of light

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Nothing to compare with the French version seen at the cinema some years ago. This film in its original version is entirely or nearly entirely sung and the music is probably the best part of the film.

First Tim Burton recreateS in color the bleak black and white vision we can have of London in Dickens among others. Oliver Twist is there in front of us all over again, and his world of coal, smoke and dirt. The only real color he uses is red, the color of blood and nothing else. That is already a piece of art and a masterpiece at that.

Second the actors are so great in their roles and characters that we do believe they are what they pretend to be. Sweeney Todd is really a monster at first look and will not vary from that identification one single iota. He may be justified in his monstrosity or monster-ness, but he is a monster through and through. And he drags everyone around him into that ugliness.

Third there is no hope whatsoever. In the film at least. He abandons the younger ones behind, the youngest has just Killed Sweeney, the two others, the sailor and Todd's daughter are just abandoned alone and frightened. You can also imagine what the good old English Victorian society is going to do to them when they are discovered or captured in that vast cemetery of corpses and cadavers.


Fourth the speaking is voluntarily fuzzy, misty, dark, difficult to follow, often too low, and that is done on purpose. The dialogue is not so much important, apart from a few sentences now and then. It is an atmosphere that is created as if everyone was more or whispering or mumbling in order not to be overheard or understood, misunderstood maybe.

But fifth in this atmosphere the most important element is the music and the singing. It is in no way attractive, charming, harmonious or whatever you may expect from music and singing. It is always the same tone, even when the tune is changing, a very minor dirge that stretches out without any kind of harmony or even attractive rhythm. It is a slow tempo for a very flat music and a minimal singing. A dirge I said, maybe even more than that, the complaint of surviving undead living dead ghosts. We are in the deepest most sinister cul-de-sac blind alley you can imagine in full darkness, with no public light, just a smidgeon of moonlight between two heavy clouds.

And Sweeney Todd is so much engulfed in his vengeance that he does not see anything any more. He does not recognize his own wife except when it is too late. He nearly does the same thing with his own daughter, though he is distracted just in time. He even gets rid of his main accomplice probably out of pure blind vanity and addiction, the addiction to his own vengeance and killing. And his unaware child accomplice is getting just like him at the end and the final razor cut sinks deep in our sensitive mind. Nothing to save that Sweeney and his world. Victorian to the very last second and even right into the credits.

If you believe in love, stay away. If you believe in the beauty of man's heart somewhere, at least the hearts of a few people, stay away: there is not one single beautiful heart in this film. But what is Tim Burton trying to do? To scare us witless out of our pants and frocks with what the world really is behind the shiny and sparkling façade? Probably.

A pessimistic film to make us feel relieved when we get out of it: after all, the world is not that bleak. But is it or is it not?

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

A dark parable of light

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Sweeney Todd could have been a swine representing "der Tod", in German in the text, death in one word. And he does represent a fate that should be ashamed of existing. A young barber is the husband of a beautiful woman and the barber is sent to forced labor for no other reason than to clear the way for the judge. The wife will be the possession of the judge but she will poison herself, though she will survive as a deranged homeless woman. The daughter will be adopted by the judge for his unique later use. This Victorian society is shown as being absolutely horrible, disgusting. That denial of justice creates and feeds the desire to get his vengeance in the barber when back from his deportation. He will manage to get his vengeance, with the help of a woman who will lead him to opening a kind of human butchery to produce meat pies that are amazingly successful. This Victorian society is hypocritical for one and cannibalistic for two. This horror will lead to the worst crime. Sweeney will kill the surviving ghost of his own wife. When he recognizes his guilt he is then killed by the young teen orphan he had retrieved from absolute enslavement. A new Oliver Twist of some sort. The story is ugly, horrible, gross, unbearable and yet the film is admirable. Why? Because Tim Burton transforms this clair obscur of the soul and the society into a clair obscur on the screen that provides us with a full black and white film in an orgy of colors. Because Johnny Depp is the best at expressing a world that is totally out of sync with purely dramatic and aesthetic means that his body serves perfectly. He has just the right face to carry the ugly make-up of an unrecognized monster, for example. In other words a cinematographic master-piece with no original content or so little.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

For 1936 that was a good English film? No embellishment, just the drama, the horror, the descent into hellish London when Fleet Street was really deserving its name when it was the disembarking entrance into London for all ships that still went up the Thames beyond Tower Bridge.

The Barber is Sweeney Todd and the pie-maker is Mrs. Lovatt. They are associates in crime to share the profits since it targets isolated travelers arriving on the ships mostly from the Indies, West or East, or even in-between Africa. The objective of their waiting for them and then on them is to rob them and make them disappear, though there is no real allusion to any cannibalism.

Johanna is the daughter of a shipmaster who sends a new ship at sea and has accepted to be associated to Sweeney Todd (12,000 pounds mind you). But the contract was probably not correct and the ship is announced as lost. Sweeney Todd will then bring the shipmaster down or if the latter wants to save his bones he can give the former his daughter in marriage. The father refuses.

It is then the arrival of the supposedly lost ship is announced and the captain is apparently Johanna’s lover. Be careful we are in the Victorian period. Lover only means that he expects to marry her one day, virginal and pure of course.

And that’s when the plot sickens without thickening too much. Rivalry between the pie-maker and the barber, greed on both sides and mishaps on all sides leads to the happy ending we are expecting. The evil ones are punished by death and the good ones are rewarded with marriage and the loot of the evil ones. Isn’t it moralistically pure?

It is classified as a horror film. It is in fact a rather bleak crime story from the 19^th century sandwiched between an introduction and a conclusion in a barber’s shop of the 1930s. The “modern time” customer suddenly doesn’t fancy the razor..

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU