Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007 film)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tim Burton
Written by	Stephen Sondheim (musical) Hugh Wheeler (musical) Christopher Bond (play) John Logan (screenplay)
Produced by	Richard D. Zanuck John Logan Walter F. Parkes
Starring	Johnny Depp Helena Bonham Carter Alan Rickman Timothy Spall Sacha Baron Cohen Laura Michelle Kelly Jayne Wisener
Cinematography	Dariusz Wolski
Edited by	Chris Lebenzon
Music by	Stephen Sondheim
Distributed by	Paramount DreamWorks Warner Bros.
Release dates	December 21, 2007 (USA) January 25 2008 (UK) January 31 2008 (HK)
Running time	116 min.
Countries	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$50 million
Box office	$122,332,000

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a Golden Globe and Academy Award winning musical thriller and the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's stage musical of the same name. The film stars Johnny Depp in the title role, in his sixth collaboration with director Tim Burton. Helena Bonham Carter also stars as Mrs. Lovett. The film was released in the United States on December 21, 2007 and in the United Kingdom on 25 January, 2008 to enthusiastic reviews. It won the award for Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical) and Best Actor (Comedy or Musical) at the 65th Golden Globe Awards. It was nominated for Best Actor and Best Costume Design, and won Best Art Direction, at the 80th Academy Awards.

Plot

Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp), a barber, is falsely arrested, charged and sentenced to a life of hard labour in Australia by Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), who covets Barker's "beautiful and virtuous" wife, Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly). Returning 15 years later, having escaped the Penal Colony, Barker adopts the name of Sweeney Todd and says goodbye to his friend, sailor Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower), who rescued him from the sea. He then returns to his old flat above Nellie Lovett's (Helena Bonham Carter) pie shop on Fleet Street. She tells him that after his arrest Turpin raped his wife, and she poisoned herself out of humiliation. Turpin then took Barker's daughter Johanna in as his ward. After receiving this news, Todd vows revenge and reopens his barber shop in the upstairs flat.

Anthony wanders the streets of London, where he sees the now-teenage Johanna (Jayne Wisener) and instantly falls in love with her. His attraction provokes a confrontation with Turpin and his associate Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall), who beats Anthony and threatens him with more violence should he return. Meanwhile, in the marketplace, Todd denounces a fraud advertised by the Italian street barber Adolfo Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen) and his young assistant Tobias "Toby" Ragg (Ed Sanders). Todd challenges Pirelli, who claims to be a master barber, to prove his shaving finesse in a speed contest. He calls upon Bamford to witness the contest and trounces his rival. Bamford congratulates Todd on his victory, and Todd uses the opportunity to invite Bamford to his shop for a complimentary shave. When Mrs. Lovett and Todd return to the pie shop, Pirelli, after revealing himself as Barker's old assistant, David Conners, attempts to blackmail Todd with his former identity, whereupon he is murdered by the enraged Todd. Mrs. Lovett takes Toby, initially unaware of his master's murder, under her care and employs him at the pie shop. Todd reluctantly agrees.

Judge Turpin expresses his desire to marry Johanna and is disappointed by her refusal. Bamford encourages Turpin to visit Todd for a shave to enhance his appearance. Todd realises this to be the perfect opportunity to kill Turpin and exact his revenge. Then, Anthony bursts into Todd's shop mid-shave and accidentally reveals to Turpin Johanna's plans to flee with him. Enraged, Turpin leaves in a huff and vows that he shall not return to Todd’s barbershop again since Todd associates himself with the likes of Hope. He then sends Johanna to an insane asylum until she agrees to marry him. Furious at the thwarting of his vengeance, Todd directs his frustration at innocents who Lovett suggests will become delicious pies in the shop's oven. Todd enthusiastically agrees to this suggestion and even installs machinery in his barbers' chair to dump the bodies of his victims through a trap door to Lovett's basement bakehouse. As Todd's barber shop and Lovett's pie shop prosper financially, Mrs. Lovett confesses her desire to marry Todd, moments before Anthony returns to reveal that he has found Johanna. Hearing this, Todd instructs him to disguise himself as a wigmaker's apprentice and break Johanna out of the asylum. Todd then writes a letter to Turpin informing him of Anthony's plans to abduct Johanna in order to lure the evil Judge and sends Toby to deliver it.

When Toby returns, he voices his mistrust of Todd to Mrs. Lovett. Mrs. Lovett consoles him and lures him into the bakehouse, locking him inside. As Lovett warns Todd of Toby's suspicions, they are surprised by Beadle Bamford, sent to investigate "strange smells" from the bakehouse. While Todd lures Bamford into his barber shop, Toby (in the bakehouse) finds a human toe in one of the pies. He discovers stacks of human corpses just as the corpse of the Beadle comes out of the chute. Toby flees into the sewers, narrowly avoiding Todd and Mrs. Lovett.

Meanwhile, Anthony and Johanna return to Todd's barber shop, where he tells her to wait for him. Disguised in men's clothing, Johanna takes a look around the shop, where she picks up a picture of what she does not realise is her mother holding her. She quickly scrambles into the chest in the corner of the room as the beggar woman enters, looking for Beadle Bamford. Soon after, Todd returns to the shop and is surprised by the beggar woman, who appears to recognize Todd. Hearing Turpin about to enter, Sweeney, in a panic, quickly slits the beggar woman's throat and drops her body down the chute. Turpin enters the room seconds later and accepts Todd's offer of a shave. Looming with his sharp razor over Turpin, Todd reveals his true identity to the Judge and proceeds to brutally murder him, stabbing him in the neck repeatedly before cutting his throat with a single swing.

Todd then discovers Johanna hiding in the trunk and, not recognising her, prepares to kill her. Mistaking her for a boy he offers to give her a shave only to be interrupted by Mrs. Lovett's screams. He tells Johanna to forget everything about him and races to the bakehouse. Mrs. Lovett tries hurriedly to dispose of the beggar woman's corpse, but when she opens the oven door and light is shed on the face of the beggar woman, Todd recognizes her as his wife, Lucy, whom he believed to be dead. Lovett reveals that Lucy survived her suicide attempt, but the poison drove her mad. Mrs. Lovett tries to persuade Todd she lied because of her love for him claiming she was "only thinking of him." Todd calms her down and, bizarrely, begins to dance with her, saying that he loves her too and to "just keep living it." Suddenly, he thrusts her through the open oven door. Mrs. Lovett screams as Todd slams the furnace door and glares at her through the grate as she burns to death. Todd then returns to Lucy and holds her dead body. Toby emerges from the sewer and picks up Todd's discarded razor. Tobias slits Todd's throat and walks slowly from the scene.

Cast

• Johnny Depp plays Benjamin Barker/Sweeney Todd, a barber who slits the throats of innocent customers in madness after the loss of his wife and daughter. Depp first learned of Sweeney Todd in 2000, when he was given an original cast recording of the musical by Burton. Depp was not a fan of the genre, but liked this musical. Depp said when he signed on, "How many chances do you get at a musical about a serial killer?" The actor cited Peter Lorre in Mad Love (1935) as his influence, and practiced the songs while filming Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Depp recorded demo tapes of himself in West Hollywood, working with Bruce Witkin to shape his own vocals without a qualified voice coach. Much of Sweeney's dialogue was cut from the musical. Depp said, "We focused on the dangerous and unsettling idea of stillness, that he doesn’t look many people in the eye, or say much", an idea Burton compared to Boris Karloff and other actors in classic horror films, where "his eyes and the music [...] tell the story." While Depp had formed a band as an adult, he was unsure of whether he could sustain Stephen Sondheim's lyrics. He appreciated that there were "a lot of half-steps... kind of go G to A-flat to A to B-flat. It's super, ultra complicated; these notes that shouldn't work together at times." Producer Richard Zanuck admitted it was "millions of dollars committed on an assumption. [But] we all said to one another, 'Johnny is a smart guy. He would never put himself in this position if he didn't think he could do it.'" Sondheim felt, "I figured he'd have a light baritone... I love him as an actor, and always have. Put those things together, I didn't hesitate for one second." Sondheim explained to Depp the performance would be more about acting than singing. Depp chose a punk rock approach to his performance, citing inspiration from Anthony Newley and Iggy Pop, the latter whom he called a "very aggressive crooner. Especially in the early stuff, there’s something about [Sweeney's] attack that’s haunting."

• Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Todd's partner-in-crime who bakes the corpses of his victims into pies. Bonham Carter, who's "wanted to be Mrs. Lovett since she was 11", wanted to prove to herself that being cast would not be an act of nepotism on partner Burton's part. The actress was trained to sing by Ian Adam, and Sondheim watched around twelve of her audition tapes, which he approved of: "Even in a recording studio, wearing a schmatte, she is as beautiful and sexy as they come." In total she spent three months on singing lessons while pregnant during the production of the film. The character is often singing while she moves and behaves, a behavior which Bonham Carter dubbed "the Olympics of multi-tasking". In addition she practiced pie baking for many hours while singing her lyrics at the same time, commenting "you had to do it to syncopated Sondheim rhythm and sing at the same time."

• Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, an evil judge who locked away Todd and raped his wife. He adopted Todd's daughter, Johanna, as his "ward", on whom he spies voyeuristically through a hole in her wall. He intends to marry her, although she is no older than fifteen. Rickman said, "The music is sort of constant, and it slips in and out of speech and song. Because it's in real rooms and real spaces, the move from speaking into singing becomes much more organic."

• Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford, Turpin's personal assistant.

• Sacha Baron Cohen as David Connors/Signor Adolfo Pirelli, Todd's Irish (Italian in disguise) rival and former employee. In his audition, Baron Cohen sang songs from Fiddler on the Roof. Burton commented, "I wish we had a camera, because he literally went through the whole score of Fiddler on the Roof."

• Laura Michelle Kelly as Lucy Barker, Todd's wife. During her husband's absence, she has become a crazed beggar due to the rape from Turpin and the effects of attempted suicide by arsenic.

• Jayne Wisener as Johanna Barker, Todd's daughter.

• Jamie Campbell Bower as Anthony Hope, a sailor who befriends Todd and falls for Johanna.

• Ed Sanders as Tobias "Toby" Ragg, Pirelli's gin-loving former assistant who later joins Todd and Lovett. He worked and lived in a workhouse during his early years before being taken in by Pirelli.

Production

Development

Alan Parker had expressed interest in filming Sweeney Todd during the 1980s. Tim Burton saw the musical numerous times since 1980, first as a CalArts student. Although he was not a fan of the genre, he was struck by how cinematic it was. He described it as being a silent film with music in it, and was "dazzled both by the music and its sense of the macabre." When his film directing career took off in the late 1980s, Burton approached Stephen Sondheim. In Sondheim's words, "then [Burton] went off and did other things." Burton had completed a drawing that coincidentally resembled Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, though it would be years before he met either of them.

Sam Mendes developed the project for several years, during which time Sondheim himself was approached to write the script in June 2003. For unknown reasons Sondheim didn't want to write the screenplay, though Mendes, Sondheim and producer Walter Parkes all approved over John Logan, who previously collaborated with Parkes on Gladiator. Logan claims his biggest challenge in adapting the script "was taking a sprawling, magnificent Broadway musical and making it cinematic, and an emotionally honest film. Onstage, you can have a chorus sing as the people of London, but I think that would be alienating in a movie." Mendes decided to direct Jarhead. Burton leaped at making the film in 2006 after his project, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, fell apart due to its excessive budget. John Logan felt he and Burton "share[d] stunted childhoods watching Amicus movies," agreeing over the film's tone. In August 2006, DreamWorks announced that Burton had taken over direction of Sweeney Todd, and Johnny Depp was cast as Todd. Burton and Logan once again reworked the screenplay upon Burton's hiring.

The adaptation of the 3-hour stage musical into a 2-hour movie required some changes. Some songs lost some verses and others were completely removed. Burton and Logan also decided to maintain the focus of the story in the triangle of Sweeney, Mrs. Lovett and Toby, not letting secondary elements become as involved as in the show. On the show for example, Johanna, Sweeney's daughter, and Anthony are more musical characters than in the movie.

Filming

Filming began on February 5 2007 at Pinewood Studios and wrapped on May 11 2007. Burton opted to film in London as he felt "very much at home" since his work on Batman. For the film's depiction of London, production designer Dante Ferretti looked at the relevant neighbourhoods surrounding the real Fleet Street, and skewed it, making "it a little bit more frightening, more dark, more interesting." Burton initially planned to use minimal sets for the film and use greenscreen, but decided against it, stating that sets helped actors get into a musical frame of mind. "Just having people singing in front of a green screen seemed more disconnected", he said. Depp created his own image of the character, suggesting a white streak in Todd's hair, which was inspired by his nephew. Heavy rings of purple and brown were created around his eyes to suggest fatigue and rage, as if "he's never slept".

Burton insisted that the film be bloody, as he felt stage versions of the play which cut back on the bloodshed robbed it of its power. For him, "Everything is so internal with Sweeney that [the blood] is like his emotional release. It's more about catharsis than it is a literal thing." Producer Richard D. Zanuck said that "[Burton] had a very clear plan that he wanted to lift that up into a surreal, almost Kill Bill kind of stylization. We had done tests and experiments with the neck slashing, with the blood popping out. I remember saying to Tim, ‘My god, do we dare do this?’" On set, the fake blood was colored orange, as the color of the film would be desaturated. Crew members covered themselves with bin liners to avoid getting wet as the fake blood spurted out. Studios were nervous over the twisted tone of the film, and as a result it took three studios to agree to fund the film's $50 million budget. Burton said "the studio was cool about it and they accepted it because they knew what the show was. Any movie is a risk, but it is nice to be able to do something like that that doesn't fit into the musical or slasher movie categories."

Music

See also: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Deluxe Complete Edition

Sweeney Todd has joined Ed Wood to become one of few films in Tim Burton's career with music not composed by Danny Elfman. In adapting the musical to film, Stephen Sondheim noted the plot has to keep moving on film. Mike Higham, the film's music producer, sent Sondheim MP3 files of his shortened songs, upon which Sondheim would give feedback. To create a larger, more cinematic feel, the musical was reorchestrated by the show's original orchestrator, Jonathan Tunick, to increase the orchestra from twenty-seven musicians to seventy-eight.

Burton didn't want patches of dialogue interrupted by song, as is traditional. He cut the show's famous opening number, "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" explaining, "Why have a chorus singing about 'attending the tale of Sweeney Todd' when you could just go ahead and attend it?" Several other songs had to be cut in order to turn the nearly three-hour stage musical into a two-hour movie. Sondheim noted that there were "many changes, additions and deletions... [though]... if you just go along with it, I think you'll have a spectacular time." Christopher Lee, Peter Bowles, Anthony Stewart Head, and five other actors were set to play the ghost narrators, but those roles were cut. Lee believed the song was cut because of time constraints after Johnny Depp's daughter fell ill in March 2007. Anthony Stewart Head still however made a quick cameo in the final cut of the film.

American Censorship

The closing act in the American cut uses alternate angles for some of the more violent murders than in the international cut. The edits altogether amount to 3 to 5 seconds. The American cut focuses more on Sweeney Todd rather than the great amounts of blood which can be seen more intensely in the international cut. The small edits were necessary to get an R rating in the United States.

Release

Issues with theatrical release

Marcus Theaters Corporation did not show the movie initially after its premiere because it was unable to reach an agreement with Paramount on the film cost for Sweeney Todd. The dispute was later resolved and beginning on 21 December the film began its run.

Critical reception

Critics gave the film very positive reviews. As of January 30, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 87% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 160 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 83 out of 100, based on 38 reviews. Although Stephen Sondheim was somewhat cautious of a film adaptation, he was impressed overall by the film and its cast.

Time rated it an A- and added, "Burton and Depp infuse the brilliant cold steel of Stephen Sondheim's score with a burning passion. Helena Bonham Carter and a superb supporting cast bring focused fury to this musical nightmare. It's bloody great." Time magazine also ranked it number 5 of its Movies of the Year. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave it a highly favorable review and four stars out of four, lauding Burton's visual style.

In his review in Variety, Todd McCarthy called it "both sharp and fleet" and "a satisfying screen version of Stephen Sondheim's landmark 1979 theatrical musical . . . things have turned out uniformly right thanks to highly focused direction by Tim Burton, expert screw-tightening by scenarist John Logan, and haunted and musically adept lead performances from Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Assembled artistic combo assures the film will reap by far the biggest audience to see a pure Sondheim musical, although just how big depends on the upscale crowd’s tolerance for buckets of blood, and the degree to which the masses stay away due to the whiff of the highbrow."

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+ and stated, "To stage a proper Sweeney Todd, necks must be slit, human flesh must be squished into pastries, and blood ought to spurt in fountains and rivers of death. Enter Tim Burton, who has . . .has tenderly art-directed soup-thick, tomato-red, fake-gore blood with the zest of a Hollywood-funded Jackson Pollock." She went on to refer to the piece as "opulent, attentive. . . so finely minced a mixture of Sondheim's original melodrama and Burton's signature spicing that it's difficult to think of any other filmmaker so naturally suited for the job."

In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers awarded it 3½ out of 4 stars and added, "Sweeney Todd is a thriller-diller from start to finish: scary, monstrously funny and melodically thrilling. . . [the film] is a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rendering as it flies on the wings of Sondheim's most thunderously exciting score." The critic listed the film at #5 on his list of the Best Movies of 2007.

Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter said, "The blood juxtaposed to the music is highly unsettling. It runs contrary to expectations. Burton pushes this gore into his audiences' faces so as to feel the madness and the destructive fury of Sweeney's obsession. Teaming with Depp, his long-time alter ego, Burton makes Sweeney a smoldering dark pit of fury and hate that consumes itself. With his sturdy acting and surprisingly good voice, Depp is a Sweeney Todd for the ages."

Harry Knowles gave the film a highly positive review, calling it Burton's best film since Ed Wood (1994), his favorite Burton film, and said it was possibly superior. He praised all of the cast and the cinematography, but noted it would probably not appeal to non-musical fans due to the dominance of music in the film.

A notable negative review came from Cole Haddon of film.com, who was critical of Depp and Carter's singing voices and the use of CGI.

The movie was a success upon release, opening on only 1,250 screens and grossing an estimated $9.35 million over the weekend (less than one-fifth of the film's budget), making approximately $7,480 per theater. As of February 28th the film had grossed an estimated $50,000,000 at the box office (based on the US takings). Total takings stand at an estimated $122,332,000 as of February 19th.

Time magazine's Richard Corliss named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #5. Corliss singled out the star, saying, “Cheers to Johnny Depp, who incarnates this Edward Razorhands with a dark, post-mortem passion. Depp's a powerful singer, too.”

Top ten lists

The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.

• 3rd - A.O. Scott, The New York Times (tied with There Will Be Blood)
• 3rd - Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club
• 4th - Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
• 5th - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
• 5th - Richard Corliss, TIME magazine
• 6th - Cole Dabney, coleandbobby.com
• 6th - Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club
• 7th - Stephen Holden, The New York Times
• 10th - David Ansen, Newsweek
• 10th - Glenn Kenny, Premiere

Marketing

The marketing for the film has been criticized for not advertising it as a musical. Theater director Alex Levy argued, "I picture hordes of teenage boys on Christmas break [...] Someone says: 'That new Tim Burton movie promises the most blood; let's go to that.' I picture their faces as Helena Bonham Carter breaks into the song 'The Worst Pies in London'. I see horror in their eyes, because this certainly is not what they were expecting." Michael Halberstam of the Writers' Theatre said, "By de-emphasizing the score to the extent they did in the trailer, it is possible the producers were condescending to us — a tactic which cannot ultimately end in anything but tears." In the UK, many audience members have walked out of the film upon realising it is a musical, and complaints have even been made to the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards that advertisements for the film are deliberately misleading.

The three studios opted for a low-key approach for marketing. Producer Walter Parkes stated, "All these things that could be described as difficulties could also be the movie's greatest strengths." Warner Brothers felt it should take a similar approach to marketing to The Departed, with little early exposure and discouraging talk of awards.

Awards and nominations

The film received four Golden Globe nominations for the 65th Golden Globe Awards, winning two. The film won for Best Motion Picture in the Musical or Comedy genre and Johnny Depp won for his performance as Sweeney Todd. Tim Burton was nominated for Best Director and Helena Bonham Carter was nominated for her performance as Mrs. Lovett. The film has been included in the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures's top ten films of 2007, and Tim Burton also won their prize for Best Director. The film was also nominated for two BAFTA awards, in the categories of "Costume Design" and "Make Up and Hair".

The film received three Academy Award nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Depp), Best Achievement in Art Direction (won), and Best Achievement in Costume Design.

Home release

The movie is set to be released on DVD (In 1-disc and 2-disc editions) on April 1, 2008 in the U.S.

An HD-DVD release was announced for the same date. However, due to the discontinuation of the format, Paramount has since canceled the HD-DVD release of Sweeney Todd.

External links

• Official site
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at IMDb
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at AllMovie
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at Rotten Tomatoes
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at Box Office Mojo
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at Metacritic
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• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at Apple