Sondheim on “Sweeney Todd”
Fox 411′s Roger Friedman ran into original Sweeney Todd creator Stephen Sondheim at last night’s Recording Academy’s New York Chapter’s Honors show, and asked if Sondheim has seen Tim Burton‘s movie version of the classic musical. Yes, Sondheim answered, and he likes it.
But “it’s not the Broadway show,” Sondheim cautioned. “It’s only an hour and 45 minutes. A lot of the score has been cut. They’ve made it its own thing. You have to go in knowing that. But what they’ve done is great.”
105 minutes with a lot of the score excised? That sounds like a good thing. You have to be nervy and authoritative in adapting any kind of stage show…anything from another performing realm that’s highly regarded. You can’t be too slavish and obsequious. A guy who’s seen it told me last night that on its own terms Burton’s film is very tight and together and self-defining. But it’s not an Academy film, the guy said, because “it’s too bloody.”
Wait…what? Did you just say something positive about the as-yet-sight-unseen Sweeney Todd?
I was just about to get all righteously indignant over you and your new whipping boy and you denied me.
My world…it is upside down.
Funny enough, I was driving around this morning listening to the most recent Broadway cast recording, and thinking that despite how amazing the show’s full score is, the movie would almost have to trim it down to the core songs, and lose a lot of the operetta, or else the audience would have trouble just following the plot (never mind being annoyed at the way everyone sings lines that could just as easily be spoken). Between the accents, the theatrical singing style, and Sondheim’s dense lyrics, it’s hard sometimes to actually hear what’s being sung in some of his scores. And though I trust Sondheim more than Burton, I hope that Burton made this material his own … otherwise, what’s the point? I already have the DVD of the old Broadway production (and an “in concert” version to boot).
This has been a tricky question since the early days of talkies. In the 30s and 40s, adaptations were mostly horrible because scores weren’t respected and studios tossed them out since they wanted to own all the music. (And to this day I can’t stand On The Town, which many consider a classic, since they threw out so much of Bernstein’s original score.)
Later, as the Broadway musical became an integrated work of art, and some creators could throw their weight around more (particularly Rodgers and Hammerstein), musicals were filmed close to intact. This led to some reasonable entertainments, but often too long and heavy.
My favorite movie musicals are ones created for the screen, but many of the biggest hits, not to mention Oscar winners (My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Oliver), are long films that include most of the score. This became the norm in the 50s and 60s. And while I wouldn’t compare them to the greatness of Top Hat or Singin’ In The Rain, I have to admit I’m glad we have relatively no-nonsense versions of shows like The Music Man or How To Succeed In Business that even preserved the original lead performance.
But after the success of many of these films, above all the huge hit Sound Of Music, Hollywood spent so much and lost so much on some of them (such as Hello Dolly), as the audience splintered due to rock music, that they stopped making them on a regular basis.
Now when a musical is made, it’s a question of approach. Fans of the original will prefer sticking to the original score and plot, but will it lead (commercially) to Chicago and Hairspray, or The Producers and Rent. Meanwhile, musicals’ creators aren’t sure if they should be pleased at the money, or worried that it’s taken out of their hands.
I think the ultimate test case is an earlier Sondheim work (before he was “Sondheim”), A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. When released in the middle of an era of respectful adapatations, it was condemned as the destruction of a finely-wrought farce. It kept the lead performer, but threw out half the score and flopped. Yet today, it has become a cult film, and people don’t see it as the definitive Forum, so much as a fine if quirky Richard Lester film.
So was it a good thing, or a bad thing? The original show is still revived regularly, including on Broadway, and the film lives on its own. Meanwhile, who can remember the respectful but regrettable adaptation of A Little Night Music?
I’m still mad that they cut a few filmed numbers like Coffee Break from the 1967 How To Succeed In Business — never to be seen again. It’s in my top three musicals.
The recent trend, as in DreamGirls, is to add new songs. Thank goodness for Bloody Burton’s approach.
Very catiously looking forward to this. Haven’t really liked a Burton film in quite some time, tho…
cautiously…i obviously wasn’t typing that way.
Catious? Isn’t that the gay version of Cats? What? You mean all Broadway . . . ? Forget I even brought it up.
For some reason, whenever I remember “How to Succeed,” I think of “Coffee Break” and “A Secretary is Not a Toy.” Fun stuff, fun show. It’s great to see Robert Morse in “Mad Men” on AMC.
T.S.: “Cats” is the gay version of “Cats”.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Every single Tim Burton movie gets surrounded by buzz before it’s release…..
and always comes up short.
Wait a minute. The team that created “Gypsy,” including Sondheim, have complained about the 1962 film version, despite its fidelity to their play and despite the fact it was still highly cinematic. So how can Sondheim look the other way in regards to his masterword, “Sweeney Todd,” which sounds as if it’s been butchered for the yahoos in the audience? Sondheim also looked the other way as filmmakers ruined “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “A Little Night Music” (filmed by its stage director, Harold Prince). Neither was faithful to what Sondheim wrote. I’ll stick with “Gypsy” and skip “Sweeney Todd,” even though I’ve been looking forward to it for decades now!
Wait a minute. The team that created “Gypsy,” including Sondheim, have complained about the 1962 film version, despite its fidelity to their play and despite the fact it was still highly cinematic. So how can Sondheim look the other way in regards to his masterword, “Sweeney Todd,” which sounds as if it’s been butchered for the yahoos in the audience? Sondheim also looked the other way as filmmakers ruined “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “A Little Night Music” (filmed by its stage director, Harold Prince). Neither was faithful to what Sondheim wrote. I’ll stick with “Gypsy” and skip “Sweeney Todd,” even though I’ve been looking forward to it for decades now!
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