"How do you solve a problem like a bloody, R-rated musical about a serial killer, starring movie actors who aren't professional singers?" So asks the Los Angeles Times. The answer: put Tim Burton in charge. "The result is a beautifully scored, high-art slasher film, told almost entirely in song and topped off with Depp paying homage to Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff."
"How do you solve a problem like a bloody, R-rated musical about a serial killer, starring movie actors who aren't professional singers?" So asks Los Angeles Times staff writer Paul Brownfield in an article in yesterday's Times. The answer: put Tim Burton in charge.
The issue the article refers to was one facing the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp. And, according to Brownfield, with Burton at the helm,
... the result is a beautifully scored, high-art slasher film, told almost entirely in song and topped off with Depp paying homage to Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff ...
The film costars Burton's dreamlike style with Depp's latest acting choice ... Here, that aesthetic gets married to Sondheim's music, re-recorded by a 78-piece orchestra. Even by Burton's standards for opening titles, the one for Sweeney Todd—the Bernard Herrmann-esque overture booming as the camera takes a fetishistic tour of Todd and Lovett's killing machine—is exhilarating.
To read the complete article, which features an interview with the film's creators, visit latimes.com.
For more on the film's soundtrack, due out on Nonesuch December 18, click here.
