Horror – describes a film genre which aims to frighten the audience. This is linked to my study as the film I am using is from the horror genre; also I am investigating how Sweeney Todd has reinvented this genre and therefore need to research other horror films.
Genre – a category of media products classed as being similar in form and type. Genre plays a key role in my study as I am investigating how Sweeney Todd has reinvented the horror genre. I will need to research the key concepts of the horror genre and see how Sweeney Todd has changed these to make the film unique and different.
Director – the individual responsible for the overall creation of a film, including the mise en scéne and the structuring of individual shots, and with artistic control over the film’s final appearance, including the way in which it is edited and constructed. The director is also very important to my study as his previous films, including Sweeney Todd, have also changed the normal conventions of horror films, e.g. corpse bride where he has made a horror cartoon, making the film suitable for children whereas normal horror films would not be seen by children at all.
Celebrity – an individual who has become the focus of media attention and is therefore widely known and recognised by the public. Johnny Depp starts in Sweeney Todd. He is a well known actor and has starred in many films and in different types of films, e.g. children’s films, action films, horror films, etc. Sweeney Todd was disliked by quite a few people, however due to the fact that it was starring Johnny Depp it drew them in to watching it.
Audience – the groups or individuals targeted by producers as the intended consumers of media texts. Owing the wide availability of media texts, the actual viewers, readers or listeners may not be those originally targeted. Sweeney Todd has a wide audience profile. It is targeted at Johnny Depp fans, people who enjoy musicals, and people who enjoy horror or slasher films. There was quite a bit of discussion on this topic as the film’s rating varied for different countries and people who were not supposed to see the film had been to see it e.g. 14 year olds, also some people said the rating was not including the large number of Johnny Depp fans which are girls aged roughly 14-16. This would mean that a wide section of the audience has been eliminated.
Musical – a film genre that incorporates songs as part of the film’s narrative. Sweeney Todd is a horror musical; therefore I can research how musicals help tell the story.
Propp – a Russian formalist writer and folklorist who analysed the structure of folk stories in his work ‘The Morphology of the Folktale’ (1958).
Narrative Theory – a type of thinking that seeks to explain narrative structures and their relationship to wider cultural and genre-related factors.
Friday 21 November 2008
Friday 14 November 2008
Tim Burton (Director of Sweeney Todd) has made a quite a few other films where he has tried to re-create the genre by changing the films from their norms, such as; Corpse Bride (2005), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Mars Attack (1996), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Beetle Juice (1988), Frankenweenie (1984), Vincent (1982), The Nightmare before Christmas (1993), Luau (1982). All of these films were somehow changed by the imagination of Tim Burton, he has created these films by giving them different features from what people would expect them to have.
Tim Burton has created a lot of horror films but has also changed elements of them to make them watchable by children or has added a humorous side to it which kind of re-creates the horror genre itself as some of these films don't follow the normal conventions of horror.
- Corpse Bride (2005) is a film where Tim Burton has created a children's horror film. The fact that it is an animation film doesn't make the film so scary enabling younger children to watch it.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) is a change from other Christmas films. This film has a scary element to it (skeletons) which is unexpected, yet it turns out to be a great children's film which is shown by the use of animation.
- Frankenweenie (1984) is a film about a young boy Victor, who's pet dog Sparky (who stars in Victor's home-made monster movies) is hit by a car, Victor decides to bring him back to life the only way he knows how. But when the bolt-necked "monster" wreaks havoc and terror in the hearts of Victor's neighbours, he has to convince them (and his parents) that despite his appearance, Sparky's still the good loyal friend he's always been. Tim Burton is also re-creating this film. It will hopefully be released in 2009.
Tim Burton has created a lot of horror films but has also changed elements of them to make them watchable by children or has added a humorous side to it which kind of re-creates the horror genre itself as some of these films don't follow the normal conventions of horror.
During the 1990s, genre film production saw a multiplicity of remakes, sequels and adaptations. The Horror genre is no exception to the ‘rule of the remake and sequel’ during the 1990s and beyond. In his article ‘Same as It Ever Was: Innovation and Exhaustion in the Horror and Science-Fiction Films of the 1990s’, David Sanjek states that, although there seems to be an abundance of cinema screens, these offer nothing new or intellectually exciting or stimulating to the audiences.
Indeed, in the early 1990s the film industry seemed to return to classic novel adaptations and the Fantasy/Horror cycle of the 1930s, with films like Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh, 1994). By the mid-90s, we saw the release of Wes Craven’s Scream (1996), which revives the Teen Slasher Horror cycle of the 1970s and 1980s. This, at first, would seem to corroborate Sanjek’s assertion. However, the film actually refers directly, consciously and unashamedly to many classical Horror movies, such as Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978), and invites its fans to engage actively in deconstructing key generic conventions along with the characters, who are themselves Horror film buffs. Based on an analysis of visual and narrative elements in the Scream trilogy, this article will argue that, rather than ‘intellectual understimulation’ , practices of self-referentiality, pastiche and parody have contributed to a redefinition of the Horror genre by offering its audiences alternative forms and levels of engagement.
Indeed, in the early 1990s the film industry seemed to return to classic novel adaptations and the Fantasy/Horror cycle of the 1930s, with films like Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh, 1994). By the mid-90s, we saw the release of Wes Craven’s Scream (1996), which revives the Teen Slasher Horror cycle of the 1970s and 1980s. This, at first, would seem to corroborate Sanjek’s assertion. However, the film actually refers directly, consciously and unashamedly to many classical Horror movies, such as Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978), and invites its fans to engage actively in deconstructing key generic conventions along with the characters, who are themselves Horror film buffs. Based on an analysis of visual and narrative elements in the Scream trilogy, this article will argue that, rather than ‘intellectual understimulation’ , practices of self-referentiality, pastiche and parody have contributed to a redefinition of the Horror genre by offering its audiences alternative forms and levels of engagement.
Tuesday 23 September 2008
history of the horror genre
History
1890s-1920s
The horror genre is nearly as old as film itself.
The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by film pioneers such as Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, the most notable being his 1896 Le Manoir du diable (aka "The House of the Devil") which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film. Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898.
In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first film version of Frankenstein, thought lost for many years, film collector Alois Felix Dettlaff Sr. found a copy and had a 1993 rerelease.
Many of the earliest feature length 'horror films' were created by German film makers in 1910s and 1920s, during the era of German Expressionist films.
Many of these films would significantly influence later Hollywood films. Paul Wegener's The Golem (1915) was seminal; in 1920 Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with its Expressionist style, would influence film-makers from Orson Welles to Tim Burton and many more for decades. The era also produced the first vampire-themed feature, F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Early Hollywood dramas dabbled in horror themes, including versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Monster (1925) (both starring Lon Chaney, Sr., the first American horror movie star). His most famous role, however, was in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), perhaps the true predecessor of Universal's famous horror series.
1930s-1940s
It was in the early 1930s that American film producers, particularly Universal Pictures Co. Inc., popularized the horror film, bringing to the screen a series of successful Gothic features including Dracula (1931), and The Mummy (1932), some of which blended science fiction films with Gothic horror, such as James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933). Tod Browning, director of Dracula, also made the extremely controversial Freaks based on Spurs by Ted Robbins. These films, while designed to thrill, also incorporated more serious elements, and were influenced by the German expressionist films of the 1920s.
Other studios of the day had less spectacular success, but Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1931) and Michael Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933) were both important horror films.
Universal's horror films continued into the 1940s with The Wolf Man 1941, not the first werewolf film, but certainly the most influential.
The first horror film produced by an Indian film industry was Mahal, a 1949 Hindi film. It was a supernatural thriller and the earliest known film dealing with the theme of reincarnation.
1950s-1960s
With the dramatic advances in technology that occurred in the 1950s, the tone of horror films shifted away from the gothic towards concerns more relevant to the late-Century audience. The horror film was seen to sever into two sub-genres:
1890s-1920s
The horror genre is nearly as old as film itself.
The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by film pioneers such as Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, the most notable being his 1896 Le Manoir du diable (aka "The House of the Devil") which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film. Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898.
In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first film version of Frankenstein, thought lost for many years, film collector Alois Felix Dettlaff Sr. found a copy and had a 1993 rerelease.
Many of the earliest feature length 'horror films' were created by German film makers in 1910s and 1920s, during the era of German Expressionist films.
Many of these films would significantly influence later Hollywood films. Paul Wegener's The Golem (1915) was seminal; in 1920 Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with its Expressionist style, would influence film-makers from Orson Welles to Tim Burton and many more for decades. The era also produced the first vampire-themed feature, F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Early Hollywood dramas dabbled in horror themes, including versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Monster (1925) (both starring Lon Chaney, Sr., the first American horror movie star). His most famous role, however, was in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), perhaps the true predecessor of Universal's famous horror series.
1930s-1940s
It was in the early 1930s that American film producers, particularly Universal Pictures Co. Inc., popularized the horror film, bringing to the screen a series of successful Gothic features including Dracula (1931), and The Mummy (1932), some of which blended science fiction films with Gothic horror, such as James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933). Tod Browning, director of Dracula, also made the extremely controversial Freaks based on Spurs by Ted Robbins. These films, while designed to thrill, also incorporated more serious elements, and were influenced by the German expressionist films of the 1920s.
Other studios of the day had less spectacular success, but Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1931) and Michael Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933) were both important horror films.
Universal's horror films continued into the 1940s with The Wolf Man 1941, not the first werewolf film, but certainly the most influential.
The first horror film produced by an Indian film industry was Mahal, a 1949 Hindi film. It was a supernatural thriller and the earliest known film dealing with the theme of reincarnation.
1950s-1960s
With the dramatic advances in technology that occurred in the 1950s, the tone of horror films shifted away from the gothic towards concerns more relevant to the late-Century audience. The horror film was seen to sever into two sub-genres:
- the horror-of-personality film
- the horror-of-the-demonic film. A stream of low-budget productions featured humanity overcoming threats from "outside": alien invasions and deadly mutations to people, plants, and insects. Filmmakers would continue to merge elements of science fiction and horror over the following decades. One of the most notable films of the era was 1957's The Incredible Shrinking Man, from Richard Matheson's existentialist novel.
The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the rise of production companies focused on producing horror films, including the British company Hammer Film Productions. Hammer, and director Terence Fisher, are widely acknowledged as pioneers of the modern horror movie. Other companies contributed to a boom in horror film production in Britain in the 1960s and '70s, including Tigon-British and Amicus, the latter best known for their anthology films like Dr Terror's House of Horrors (1965).
Teaming with Tigon British Film Productions, American International Pictures (AIP) would make what is perhaps the most brutal horror film of the late 1960s: Michael Reeves' Witchfinder General (film). Released in 1968, it was oddly retitled for American audiences as The Conqueror Worm.
In Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), for example, the object of horror certainly doesn't appear as monstrous or a supernatural other, but rather as a normal human being. The horror has a human explanation, steeped in Freudian psychology and repressed sexual desires. Films of the horror-of-personality sub-genre continue to appear through the turn of the century, with 1991's The Silence of the Lambs a noteworthy example. Some of these films further blur the distinction between horror film and crime or thriller genre.
1970s
With the demise of the Production Code of America in 1964, and the financial successes of the low-budget gore films churned out in the ensuing years, plus an increasing public fascination with the occult, the genre was able to be reshaped by a series of intense, often gory horror movies with sexual overtones, made as "A-movies" (as opposed to "B-movies"). Some of these films were made by respected auteurs.
The ideas of the 1960s began to influence horror films, as the youth involved in the counterculture began exploring the medium. Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1972) and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) both recalled the horrors of the Vietnam war and pushed boundaries to the edge.
Also in the 1970s, horror author Stephen King, a child of the 1960s, first arrived on the film scene. Many of his books were adapted for the screen, beginning with Brian DePalma's adaptation of King's first published novel, Carrie (1976. John Carpenter, who had previously directed the stoner comedy Dark Star (1974) and the Howard Hawks-inspired action film Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), created the hit Halloween (1978), kick-starting the modern "slasher film". This subgenre would be mined by dozens of increasingly violent movies throughout the subsequent decades, and Halloween has also become one of the most successful independent films ever made.
In 1975, Steven Spielberg began his ascension to fame with Jaws, a film notable for not only its expertly crafted horror elements but also for its success at the box office. The film kicked off a wave of killer animal stories such as Orca, and Up From The Depths. The 1978 comedy film Piranha, directed by Joe Dante, is a spoof of such films. Jaws is often credited as being one of the first films to use traditionally B-movie elements such as horror and mild gore in a big-budget Hollywood film.
In Hong Kong, filmmakers were starting to be inspired by Hammer and Euro-horror to produce exploitation horror with a uniquely Asian twist. Shaw Studios produced Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1973) in collaboration with Hammer, and went on to create their own original films. The genre boomed at the start of the 1980s, with Sammo Hung's Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1981) launching the sub-genre of "kung-fu comedy horror", a sub-genre prominently featuring hopping corpses and tempting ghostly females known as fox spirits (or kitsune), of which the best known examples were Mr. Vampire (1985) and A Chinese Ghost Story (1987). But Hammer Film Productions would stop making movies in the 1970s as the demand for slasher films increased, following the success of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween, among others.
1980s
The 1980s were marked by the growing popularity of horror movie sequels. 1982's Poltergeist (directed by Tobe Hooper) was followed by two sequels and a television series. The seemingly-endless sequels to Halloween, Friday the 13th (1980), and Wes Craven's successful supernatural slasher A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) were the popular face of horror films in the 1980s.
Also released in 1980 was Stanley Kubrick's austere adaptation of the Stephen King supernatural thriller The Shining which became one of the most popular and influential horror films of the decade.
1990s
In the first half of the 1990s, the genre continued many of the themes from the 1980s. The slasher films A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween all saw sequels in the 1990s, most of which met with varied amounts of success at the box office.
New Nightmare, with In the Mouth of Madness, The Dark Half, and Candyman, were part of a mini-movement of self-reflective horror films. Each film touched upon the relationship between fictional horror and real-world horror. Candyman, for example, examined the link between an invented urban legend and the realistic horror of the racism that produced its villain. In the Mouth of Madness took a more literal approach, as its protagonist actually hopped from the real world into a novel created by the madman he was hired to track down. This reflective style became more overt and ironic with the arrival of Scream.
Two main problems pushed horror backward during this period:
- Firstly, the horror genre wore itself out with the proliferation of nonstop slasher and gore films in the eighties.
- Secondly, the adolescent audience which feasted on the blood and morbidity of the previous decade grew up, and the replacement audience for films of an imaginative nature were being captured instead by the explosion of science-fiction and fantasy, courtesy of the special effects possibilities with computer-generated imagery.
To re-connect with its audience, horror became more self-mockingly ironic and outright parodic, especially in the latter half of the 1990s.
Among the popular English-language horror films of the late 1990s, only 1999's surprise independent hit The Blair Witch Project attempted straight-ahead scares. But even then, the horror was accomplished in the context of a mockumentary, or mock-documentary. Other films such as M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense (1999) also concentrated more on unnerving and unsettling themes than on gore.
2000s
The start of the 2000s saw a quiet period for the genre. The re-release of a restored version of The Exorcist in September 2000 was successful despite the film having been available on home video for years. Franchise films such as Freddy Vs. Jason also made a stand in theaters. Final Destination (2000) marked a successful revival of clever, teen-centered horror, and spawned two sequels with a third sequel coming out in {2009}.
Some notable trends have marked horror films in the 2000s. A French horror film Brotherhood of the Wolf became the second-highest-grossing French-language film in the United States in the last two decades. The Others (2001) was a successful horror film of that year. That film was the first horror in the decade to rely on psychology to scare audiences, rather than gore.
There has been a minor return to the zombie genre in horror movies made after 2000. The Resident Evil video game franchise was adapted into a film released in March 2002.
A larger trend is a return to the extreme, graphic violence that characterized much of the type of low-budget, exploitation horror from the Seventies and the post-Vietnam years. Films like Audition (1999), Wrong Turn (2003), House of 1000 Corpses (2003), The Devil's Rejects and the Australian film Wolf Creek (2005), took their cues from The Last House on the Left (1972), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and The Hills Have Eyes (1977). The latter two have also been remade: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003, and The Hills Have Eyes in 2006 both followed by a prequel in the same year and a sequel in the following year.
Remakes of late 1970s horror movies became routine in the 2000s. In addition to 2004's remake of Dawn of the Dead and 2003's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in 2007 Rob Zombie wrote and directed a remake of John Carpenter's Halloween. The film focused more on Michael's backstory than the original did, devoting the first half of the film to Michael's childhood. It was critically panned by most, but was a success in its theatrical run. Production of re-makes looks set to continue in 2008 and beyond, with Quarantine (a remake of REC), Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scanners, Hellraiser, The Birds, Child's Play and even Attack of the Killer Tomatoes being remade.
horror films
Horror films are movies that strive to elicit fear, horror and terror responses from viewers. In horror film plots, evil forces, events, or characters, sometimes of supernatural origin, intrude into the everyday world. Horror movies usually include a central villain.
Early horror films often drew inspiration from characters and stories from classic literature, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Later horror films, in contrast, often drew inspiration from the insecurities of life after World War II, giving rise to the three distinct, but related, sub-genres: the horror-of-personality film, the horror-of-Armageddon film, and the horror-of-the-demonic film. The last sub-genre may be seen as a modernized transition from the earliest horror films, expanding on their emphasis on supernatural agents that bring horror to the world.
Horror films have been criticized for their graphic violence and dismissed as low budget B-movies and exploitation films. Nonetheless, all the major studios and many respected directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Romero have made forays into the genre. Serious critics have analyzed horror films through the prisms of genre theory and the auteur theory. Some horror films incorporate elements of other genres such as science fiction, fantasy, mockumentary, black comedy, and thrillers.
Early horror films often drew inspiration from characters and stories from classic literature, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Later horror films, in contrast, often drew inspiration from the insecurities of life after World War II, giving rise to the three distinct, but related, sub-genres: the horror-of-personality film, the horror-of-Armageddon film, and the horror-of-the-demonic film. The last sub-genre may be seen as a modernized transition from the earliest horror films, expanding on their emphasis on supernatural agents that bring horror to the world.
Horror films have been criticized for their graphic violence and dismissed as low budget B-movies and exploitation films. Nonetheless, all the major studios and many respected directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Romero have made forays into the genre. Serious critics have analyzed horror films through the prisms of genre theory and the auteur theory. Some horror films incorporate elements of other genres such as science fiction, fantasy, mockumentary, black comedy, and thrillers.
Monday 22 September 2008
film review
If you’re at all acquainted with Tim Burton’s filmography, you will have a good idea of what to expect from his movie of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd. Burton has never adapted a stage show before, and he has never previously made a film quite as blood-squirtingly gory as this one, but in tone and style it is consistent with his other pop-gothic works, such as Edward Scissorhands, the Hammer pastiche Sleepy Hollow and his cheerfully macabre animated films The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.
In that last movie, the main characters are a pallid man and woman voiced by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Here they are again in the lead roles in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, appearing in their own bodies, but looking quite cartoonish in traditional Burton manner: deathly-pale skin and lots of eye shadow. Depp, modelling a mane of black hair with a single white streak, could pass for a middle-aged Edward Scissorhands. Blades are a big part of his act, because, of course, he’s playing the barber in Dickensian London who slits his customers’ throats to provide his downstairs neighbour, Mrs Lovett, with ingredients for her pies.
The first thing that strikes you about Depp’s performance is that his cockney accent shares a postcode with the speech patterns of Captain Jack Sparrow. The similarity was perhaps unavoidable, but the echo of that overexposed pirate is wearisome. It puts Depp under pressure to make his performance distinctive in other respects – and he fails to do so. His Todd smoulders and growls entertainingly, but in a lightweight sort of way and without any flashes of individuality.
The other actors do equally conventional work. Bonham Carter is dishevelled and sardonic as Mrs Lovett; Alan Rickman employs his usual supercilious purr as Judge Turpin, whose villainy fires Todd’s homicidal rage; Timothy Spall is in gargoyle mode as the judge’s henchman, Beadle Bamford; and Sacha Baron Cohen does a comedy Italian accent as Pirelli, Todd’s foppish rival in barbering, who wears trousers almost as immodest as Borat’s swimming trunks. You don’texpect microscopically nuanced acting in a musical, but if the film’s performances were never going to be subtle, they could at least have been surprising.
Some viewers may have a further complaint: none of the leading actors has a top-notch singing voice. Well, perhaps I’m biased, being a hopeless singer whose idol in movie musicals is Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, but I didn’t mind the vocal shortcomings. Songs in movies are never as compelling as they can be live, and when, as here, they aren’t accompanied by much movement from the actors, they have the potential to drain the life out of a film as surely as a cameo by Quentin Tarantino. The singing’s rough edges, such as Depp’s Bowie-esque gulps, suggest the characters’ brutish personalities coursing through the songs, and this helps to keep the musical sequences energised. That said, some of Sondheim’s pieces fail to make an impression. The ones with insistent rhythms and lots of wordplay – the scene-setting No Place Like London and Todd and Lovett’s menu of possible victims, A Little Priest – come through strongly, but the more melodic numbers emerge as standard Broadway huffing and puffing. This goes not only for the ditties of the bland young lovers (Jamie Campbell Bower and Jayne Wisener), but for the supposed show-stopper, My Friends, Todd’s love song to his razors.
What keeps the film alive in these dronesome passages is Burton’s eye. His way with dark, cluttered interiors and cityscapes, and the flair with which he whizzes his camera through these settings, are consistently enjoyable. Even in visual terms, though, the film has no resoundingly memorable scenes – except for its graphic moments of bloodletting, and these are oddly misjudged. Why did Burton have to earn an 18 certificate by including such explicit goriness in a film whose essential spirit is not all that savage? He focuses on melodrama and makes Todd another of his tormented outsiders, while playing down one of the meatier aspects of Sondheim’s original: cannibalism as a metaphor for the evils of economic ruthlessness. The film might have dwelt more on that side of things, giving greater depth to its characters’ cruelty and anger. As it is, it’s an engaging but rather flat spectacle. Instead of having quite so much blood, it could have done with a bit more bile.
In that last movie, the main characters are a pallid man and woman voiced by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Here they are again in the lead roles in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, appearing in their own bodies, but looking quite cartoonish in traditional Burton manner: deathly-pale skin and lots of eye shadow. Depp, modelling a mane of black hair with a single white streak, could pass for a middle-aged Edward Scissorhands. Blades are a big part of his act, because, of course, he’s playing the barber in Dickensian London who slits his customers’ throats to provide his downstairs neighbour, Mrs Lovett, with ingredients for her pies.
The first thing that strikes you about Depp’s performance is that his cockney accent shares a postcode with the speech patterns of Captain Jack Sparrow. The similarity was perhaps unavoidable, but the echo of that overexposed pirate is wearisome. It puts Depp under pressure to make his performance distinctive in other respects – and he fails to do so. His Todd smoulders and growls entertainingly, but in a lightweight sort of way and without any flashes of individuality.
The other actors do equally conventional work. Bonham Carter is dishevelled and sardonic as Mrs Lovett; Alan Rickman employs his usual supercilious purr as Judge Turpin, whose villainy fires Todd’s homicidal rage; Timothy Spall is in gargoyle mode as the judge’s henchman, Beadle Bamford; and Sacha Baron Cohen does a comedy Italian accent as Pirelli, Todd’s foppish rival in barbering, who wears trousers almost as immodest as Borat’s swimming trunks. You don’texpect microscopically nuanced acting in a musical, but if the film’s performances were never going to be subtle, they could at least have been surprising.
Some viewers may have a further complaint: none of the leading actors has a top-notch singing voice. Well, perhaps I’m biased, being a hopeless singer whose idol in movie musicals is Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, but I didn’t mind the vocal shortcomings. Songs in movies are never as compelling as they can be live, and when, as here, they aren’t accompanied by much movement from the actors, they have the potential to drain the life out of a film as surely as a cameo by Quentin Tarantino. The singing’s rough edges, such as Depp’s Bowie-esque gulps, suggest the characters’ brutish personalities coursing through the songs, and this helps to keep the musical sequences energised. That said, some of Sondheim’s pieces fail to make an impression. The ones with insistent rhythms and lots of wordplay – the scene-setting No Place Like London and Todd and Lovett’s menu of possible victims, A Little Priest – come through strongly, but the more melodic numbers emerge as standard Broadway huffing and puffing. This goes not only for the ditties of the bland young lovers (Jamie Campbell Bower and Jayne Wisener), but for the supposed show-stopper, My Friends, Todd’s love song to his razors.
What keeps the film alive in these dronesome passages is Burton’s eye. His way with dark, cluttered interiors and cityscapes, and the flair with which he whizzes his camera through these settings, are consistently enjoyable. Even in visual terms, though, the film has no resoundingly memorable scenes – except for its graphic moments of bloodletting, and these are oddly misjudged. Why did Burton have to earn an 18 certificate by including such explicit goriness in a film whose essential spirit is not all that savage? He focuses on melodrama and makes Todd another of his tormented outsiders, while playing down one of the meatier aspects of Sondheim’s original: cannibalism as a metaphor for the evils of economic ruthlessness. The film might have dwelt more on that side of things, giving greater depth to its characters’ cruelty and anger. As it is, it’s an engaging but rather flat spectacle. Instead of having quite so much blood, it could have done with a bit more bile.
Friday 19 September 2008
Title:
How has Sweeney Todd reinvented the Horror genre?
Hypothesis:
In most horror films you would expect to see the usual presence of blood, a weapon e.g. knife, axe, etc. a scary looking villain and the villain always has a story behind them which explains why they behave in the manor in which they do.
Brief Summary:
Sweeney Todd is a film directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Laura Michelle Kelly and Jayne Wisener as the man few characters.
Returning back to London after his wife and daughter had been stolen by Judge Turpin, Benjamin Barker adopts the name of Sweeney Todd and relocates his barber business to the top of Mrs. Lovett's pie shop. Todd wants his revenge on the man who has now adopted his daughter, and works with Mrs. Lovett on an evil plan. Todd will slice the throats of the unsuspecting public whilst giving them a shave. These bodies would then be turned into Mrs. Lovett's new meat pies. With this plan being successful, all Todd needs to do now, is try and convince the Judge to sit in his chair.
Migrain Analysis: Trailer/Opening Credits
M:
1. Mysterious music at the beginning shows that something is not right, it shows that something that was not supposed to happen has or will take place.
2. Voice Over- Introduces the film and the story behind Sweeney Todd.
3. Music mixed together which leads to the musical side of the film as it shows the main character singing. This tells us that Sweeney Todd is not an ordinary horror film.
4. Screen shots have been edited to go in time with the music. This helps the audience to interact with the main character by seeing what is goin on in his mind as the most important bits have more emphasis on them.
I:
Dream works Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures
Parkes/MacDonald Productions
Zanuck Company, The
Dombey Street Productions
G:
Crime, Musical, Drama, Thriller
R:
Sweeney todd is represented as a person who has a good heart but wants revenge on the judge which makes him look like a bad person.
How has Sweeney Todd reinvented the Horror genre?
Hypothesis:
In most horror films you would expect to see the usual presence of blood, a weapon e.g. knife, axe, etc. a scary looking villain and the villain always has a story behind them which explains why they behave in the manor in which they do.
Brief Summary:
Sweeney Todd is a film directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Laura Michelle Kelly and Jayne Wisener as the man few characters.
Returning back to London after his wife and daughter had been stolen by Judge Turpin, Benjamin Barker adopts the name of Sweeney Todd and relocates his barber business to the top of Mrs. Lovett's pie shop. Todd wants his revenge on the man who has now adopted his daughter, and works with Mrs. Lovett on an evil plan. Todd will slice the throats of the unsuspecting public whilst giving them a shave. These bodies would then be turned into Mrs. Lovett's new meat pies. With this plan being successful, all Todd needs to do now, is try and convince the Judge to sit in his chair.
Migrain Analysis: Trailer/Opening Credits
M:
1. Mysterious music at the beginning shows that something is not right, it shows that something that was not supposed to happen has or will take place.
2. Voice Over- Introduces the film and the story behind Sweeney Todd.
3. Music mixed together which leads to the musical side of the film as it shows the main character singing. This tells us that Sweeney Todd is not an ordinary horror film.
4. Screen shots have been edited to go in time with the music. This helps the audience to interact with the main character by seeing what is goin on in his mind as the most important bits have more emphasis on them.
I:
Dream works Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures
Parkes/MacDonald Productions
Zanuck Company, The
Dombey Street Productions
G:
Crime, Musical, Drama, Thriller
R:
Sweeney todd is represented as a person who has a good heart but wants revenge on the judge which makes him look like a bad person.
A barber shop is a normal place where you would not expect anything unusual to happen. The director set the film in a baber shop because when you go to get your hair cut or to get a shave the barber is behind you and you cannot see what he is doing therefore leading to a sense of suspense.
A:
This film was rated 18 and is therefore usuitable for people under 18 due to the violence. Sweeney Todd would appeal to people who like gory slasher films however a lot of people did not apreciate the musical side of the film.
I:
N:
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