NYT: Sondheim Dismembers ‘Sweeney’

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NYT: Sondheim Dismembers 'Sweeney'

Sondheim Dismembers 'Sweeney'


Leah Gallo/Paramount Pictures
Jamie Campbell Bower, left, as Anthony and Johnny Depp as the title character in the film version of "Sweeney Todd."

By JESSE GREEN
Published: December 16, 2007

FOR months now, in anticipation of the Dec. 21 release of Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” theater buffs have been worrying themselves sick about what would happen to “their” masterpiece when it was remade as a film. Would it still be alive despite drastic cutting? Would it still sing, despite the casting of stars not known for their voices? (Johnny Depp plays the murderous barber, Helena Bonham Carter his accomplice.) Or would commercial pressures and Hollywood habit leave it just another corpse on the heap of butchered theatrical translations?

Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the score, might almost have been among the worriers. “The only kind of movie I didn’t like as a kid were musicals,” he said. Everyone who has attempted to translate a stage musical to film, he added, “has underestimated the distance between the languages.” The movie musicals he enjoys — ”Love Me Tonight,” “Under the Roofs of Paris,” “The Smiling Lieutenant” and a couple of the MGMs — are those that were originally conceived for the screen. The rest, he said, are “either stodgy or rely on flash.”

He understood, then, that remaking “Sweeney” would be risky and involve major surgery. Still, he eagerly wielded the razor on perhaps his greatest work. “I’m hoping people will just forget what they know,” he said, “and enjoy the movie or not. But if they go in counting the things that are missing, they’re going to be very distracted.”

Below, a look at Mr. Sondheim’s process of elimination.

Back Story


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A scene from the 1961 film version of "West Side Story."

Of Mr. Sondheim’s 17 major musicals, only 4 had been made into films before “Sweeney.” The two for which he wrote both music and lyrics (“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “A Little Night Music”) were heavily rewritten and are much reviled for desecrating excellent material; the two for which he wrote lyrics only (“West Side Story,” right, and “Gypsy”) were mostly faithful but have many critics. Does he find any of the movies satisfying?

“None of them. In ‘West Side Story’ you see a gang dancing down a real New York street in color-coordinated sneakers, and you just don’t believe it. And then there are the songs themselves. The problem is, what do you shoot in something like 'Tonight' You get a close-up of him, a close-up of her, a medium shot of the fire escape. It's the same problem with so many of those other movies. The director has to fill out three or four minutes of what is essentially a static song, which holds your attention on the stage because that's part of the theatrical convention. Whereas for me, as a movie buff, I want the action to move forward constantly, and it doesn't. They may have little camera diversions and a trick here or there, but they're just filming a stage musical, and that's not for me.”

The Ballad of Johnny Depp


From left, Martha Swope; Sara Krulwich/The New York Times; Peter Mountain/Paramount Pictures
The Faces of Mrs. Lovett: from left, Angela Lansbury in the 1979 Broadway production of "Sweeney Todd;" Patti LuPone in the 2005 Broadway revival; and Helena Bonham-Carter in the 2007 film.

“Sweeney Todd” has been produced by opera companies, and even on Broadway it has generally been cast with accomplished singers. When Mr. Depp was announced for the title role, and especially when Ms. Bonham Carter was announced for Mrs. Lovett, purists groaned.

But Mr. Sondheim, who said he generally leans toward actors who sing rather than the other way around, had no qualms. “I knew Johnny was musical because he’s been in a rock band, but I also knew that he wouldn’t take this part unless he thought he could sing it. And that was good enough for me. I accepted him unheard.” As for Ms. Bonham Carter, the “big shocker” for “Sweeney” fans won’t be her voice, Mr. Sondheim said, as much as her interpretation. Unlike the blowzy musical-hall character created by Angela Lansbury, the movie’s Mrs. Lovett is almost as internal and intense as Sweeney. “Which is right for the movie,” Mr. Sondheim said, “but not how I’d cast it onstage.” (Above, from left, Ms. Lansbury; Patti LuPone, the most recent Mrs. Lovett on Broadway; and Ms. Bonham-Carter.)

Slashing the Score

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
A scene from the 2005 Broadway revival of "Sweeney Todd."



Leah Gallo/Paramount Pictures
Jamie Campbell Bower, left, as Anthony and Johnny Depp as the title character in the film version of "Sweeney Todd."

What Mr. Sondheim called his cynicism about movies made from stage shows only whetted his appetite when the director Tim Burton expressed interest in adapting “Sweeney.” “Obviously one of the most enticing things in the world is to say, ‘That’s impossible to do,’” Mr. Sondheim recalled. “‘So let’s do it.’”

After 20 years of directors and deals falling by the wayside, Mr. Burton and the screenwriter John Logan came along with an idea for retelling the story in more cinematic terms. First, there would be no chorus commenting on the action in song; the singing would be done entirely by the principals. This meant cutting or truncating all ensemble numbers, a major element of the stage production, which had a chorus of 18. Out went “The Letter,” “City on Fire” and two-thirds of “God, That’s Good!” Even the show’s opening number and recurrent theme, “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” which was to be sung by the ghosts of Sweeney’s victims as the movie progressed, was dropped just before filming. (Above, from the 2005 Broadway production; left, the movie’s opening.) Happily, the song’s “Dies Irae” climax and creepy, buzzing string figures — Mr. Sondheim’s tribute to the film composer Bernard Herrmann — remain as underscoring.

The filmmakers also suggested cutting most of the sunnier songs that offered relief onstage but would be hard to film interestingly or would dissipate the desired atmosphere of unrelenting dread. Out went “Ah, Miss,” “Kiss Me” and “Parlor Songs.” To keep the movie under two hours (the stage show lasts about three) most of the songs that did remain were trimmed by about 20 percent, Mr. Sondheim estimated. In all fewer than 10 of the stage show’s 25 major numbers survived substantially intact.

No Remorse
Peter Mountain/Paramount Pictures
Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin in the film version of "Sweeney Todd."

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Walter Charles as Judge Turpin and Celia Keenan-Bolger as Johanna in "Sweeney Todd" at the Kennedy Center in 2002.

Mr. Sondheim not only approved every change, as his contract required, but also did the musical reworking himself. Though he was at first shocked by the suggested elimination of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” Mr. Sondheim said that when he put on his “movie-buff hat,” he “completely agreed,” because it would keep holding up the action. The loss of the Judge’s version of “Johanna” — part of a brilliantly conceived triptych of “Johanna” numbers that look at the girl from various perspectives — was more troubling. It is the only time the Judge is characterized in song. (Below left, the Judge and Johanna in the 2002 Kennedy Center production.) But Mr. Logan had written a new scene that covered similar material visually. (The Judge, played by Alan Rickman, above left, fondles albums of exotic pornography.) So out it went. Did Mr. Sondheim not mind so much butchery of his score?

“Come on, you’ve got to be ruthless. I learned that from Oscar Hammerstein. He and Richard Rodgers cut their big hit song out of ‘Oklahoma!’ because it interfered with the storytelling. A song like ‘Kiss Me’ has its delights onstage if it’s played well, because it’s funny and silly, and I’ve always meant it to be suspenseful, because you worry if the Judge is going to discover the lovers. But that’s just not how the sequence in the movie is written, and if you don’t have that, then you’re stuck in the parlor with the lovers singing and singing and singing and singing and — nothing. So there’s no point. Now, if I had my druthers, would I put the Judge’s song back in? Yes, but it might hold the story up. And anybody who wants to know what the whole thing sounds like can still listen to the record of the show.”

Another Stab

Among Mr. Sondheim’s shows “Sweeney Todd” may be what he calls “a one-off” in lending itself to this sort of translation. Most stage musicals remove huge hunks of plot in order to make room for song, so when they are adapted, there’s too little of the thing that movies do well and too much of what they do poorly. But “Sweeney,” even onstage, is heavily plotted and much of that plot is told in the songs. In remaking it for film, there was less staginess to overcome.

Even so, Mr. Sondheim said he thought some of his other shows could make the leap, especially “Company” and “Follies,” which is already in development with the director Sam Mendes and the writer Aaron Sorkin. When asked if he was willing to tear apart those great scores too, Mr. Sondheim said, “Oh yeah,” and described a gift from the librettist Peter Stone that now sits on his desk. It is in fact a slab of stone; carved into it are the words “Nothing is written in stone.”