OK - the joke whitefonted:

When she was singing about how good life would be, Mrs. Lovett had the line she sang about taking in guests, and then sang: "Now and then you can do the guest in". At which point, Sweeney, who had been just nodding distractedly through the whole thing suddenly perked up. Maybe this "by the sea thing" would be worth considering says the expression on his face. Which also reveals that aside from the whole "driven mad by injustice" thing, Sweeney really really enjoys killing.

Heh. I wonder why they took that out?

Cuz it would have ruined the "every time we see him he has the same frozen expression of doom and gloom" pattern that made me laugh over and over. Making him an active participant would have interrupted that pattern. (I also laughed hysterically every time a body hit the floor, but maybe that is just because i am sick and twisted. *shrug*)

Yeah so glad they lost three fourths of the humor of the play for the sake of two or three new jokes in the movie. Believe me the play had a lot more and better funnies than bodies hitting the floor.

I'm with Erin. I love the play, but it is a different animal. It uses the chorus to distance us from the characters, reminding us again and again that it is a story being presented rather than lived in a total Brechtian fashion (Hey, I get to use my Theater degree-yahoo!). No one actually dies--even Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett come back from the dead to tell the tale. The film, on the other hand, is all about getting us close to the characters. Lots of close-ups and boith Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett get a song which is an internal monologue. She gets By the Sea and he gets They All Deserve to Die. Everyone but our main characters is voiceless. I think both approaches work very well.

I don't mind play and movie being different animals. Translations between media require major alterations. I really think losing the humor was a mistake. Also, Burton is a master of Brechtian alienation. If you look at plot an dialog, Burton was (for a movie) pretty damn faithful. What he lost was the spirit. He altered the characters, the theme, and the feel of the play. None of the characters was the star of the show. The damn pomegranate juice/blood was. Jilli often points out that Goth does not have to equal depressed. Burton seems to have forgotten that for this show, and he is usually the one who can see the funny side of Goth.

We'll have to agree to disagree, Typo. I would call the "spirit" the interpretation. I can see that you didn't like Burton's interpretation and you do a great job of explaining why. But it's a valid way to approach the material. To use two shows I saw--Kevin Kline's Hamlet was very funny and dark and clearly using humor to manipulate everyone around him. Rafe Fiennes Hamlet was tortured and enraged and using humor to hurt. Both were good interpretations of the play, and all of us would likely respond more to one than another depending on our temperament--but both happened to be good productions. I think a BAD production is different than production which one doesn't respond to. and I feel this production of Sweeney is good--but one which didn't work for you.

Hmm _ I'll accept that for the most part. I really think there were some serious errors even given this interpretation - Mrs. Lovett and Johanna were seriously miscast.

Saw Sweeney this afternoon with Tom Scola (at the fancy new Kabuki theater refurbished by Sundance).

I'm with Robin. I think the movie worked as a movie, and it would've been very difficult to maintain the tone of the stage production. I just watched Angela Lansbury and George Hearn doing "A Little Priest" on YouTube and it was much more broad - as it should be on a stage.

The movie was dark and tragic with some great bits of grim humor. I really liked HBC's performance. Didn't mind her voice. The smaller voices worked fine with the intimacy of all the closeups. Much more like thinking aloud than declaiming.

Also, it is criminal that Jilli hasn't seen it yet since the costuming is spectacular. (Particularly in "By the Sea.")

Before the movie, Scola and I had donburi at the Japantown Center, then we got a drink at the cinema's bar. Afterwards we went to Bittersweets the chocolate cafe and had superdelicious hot chocolate.

A day well spent.

think the movie worked as a movie,

Here it is not worth arguing over - depends on what you like. You do, I don't.

and it would've been very difficult to maintain the tone of the stage production.

That is worth arguing over. Don't see why it would have been more difficult to make a dark comedy rather than tragedy with comic overtones - especially for Burton, a master of dark comedy. I would not expect it to be exactly the same; to maintain it as a dark comedy rather than a tragedy with grim humor might have required a slightly less literal translation of the plot, though maybe it could have kept more of the music.

The smaller voices worked fine with the intimacy of all the closeups. Much more like thinking aloud than declaiming.

Except I would swear Jayne Wisener as Joanna was straining for the high notes in "little bird". And maybe HBC would have been better off she'd really declaimed rather than tried to sing - like Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady".