December 20, 2007

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Commentary by Max Einhorn

Sweeney Todd
Director Tim Burton and Stephen Sondheim have collaborated to make a very enjoyable film. The film has a miserable and tortured look to it, a gray London and a hope for anything at all is nowhere in site. Blood paints the rest of the film in all its beauty and sets the tone Burton was hoping for; this is a man who has been wronged and now it’s his turn to point the blade. The opening credit sequence, what one may have expected to be an exciting “Ballad of Sweeney Todd” prelude made famous by the stage musicals, has been exchanged for a moderately acceptable musical score….