#and any other production whose sweeney/lovett Go There

[esmes]

don't mind me - just some rainy day musings bc sweeney todd 2023 has rotted my brain

someone's tags on a gifset got me thinking about 2023 revival lovett and todd and the special something their dynamic has. there's something about this particular iteration of these characters and their relationship, especially as we see it evolve throughout the show (even as we've seen it evolve throughout the show's run), that just makes mrs lovett's betrayal and her death at his hands hit hard. i know, i know - she deserves it. she lies! she's a lying liar. her deceit is no small thing. any one of us would be incensed to have been misled the way she misleads sweeney. even if a small part of her may have done it, as she says, to spare him having to see what became of his lucy, the larger part was certainly to serve her own interests.

but there's something about how close mrs lovett gets to bringing sweeney around to her this time that just gets me carried away. they're not just business partners - they're lovers, they're co-conspirators, and they're sort of each other's only friend in the world. at this point, he indulges her flights of fancy. they know each other intimately. they joke with each other! he's likely had to listen to countless hours of her prattling on about her thoughts, hopes, and wishes. this is a man who, at this point in the show, is slitting people's throats without remorse. and yet he spends the evening on the sofa cleaning his pipe while he patiently listens to his girlfriend rave about a seaside wedding. when she takes his hand, he doesn't wrench himself from her grasp like he used to. he doesn't get up and walk out, which he could do. he accepts her - her presence, her company, her warmth. he may struggle to admit it to himself, but he does. he can concede that he loves her - just a little bit, though he can't quite bring himself to say the words. sweeney is fiercely loyal to lucy's memory, so much so that he clearly couldn't ever wholly give his heart to someone else, but, in that moment after "by the sea", you can see that he's softened toward lovett. they were both alone a long time before this, after all.

it's not the stuff of great love songs, but it's something. it's almost enough.

this is what ultimately makes the final living moments between them all the more heartbreaking. mrs lovett has always been a sympathetic character to me - a villain, sure, but not without her reasons. she's a woman alone in a brutal world. whether the character is an older or a younger iteration, she's been alone for a desperately long time. when sweeney returns to her after all this time, she sees her moment and she takes it. she's not letting her second chance at life get away from her without a few claw marks.

when sweeney kills her, he sheds no tears over it - but the grudging fondness we'd seen him beginning to feel toward her only serves to emphasize how monstrous of a deception it is. his "you LIED to me" comes out in an anguished roar. when he throws her in that oven, all the light goes out from the world. it takes my breath away every time. though it should, it doesn’t quite feel like justice.

i know not everyone loves annaleigh's interpretation, but i have maintained from the first time i saw this revival that the warmth she brings, the honeyed, deluded, comical sweetness that lures sweeney into believing life with her could be tolerable, if not ideal, was a brilliant choice.

that's why the leap into hell together works for me. some productions have had sweeneys that barely tolerate their lovetts, so a cold diverging of paths makes sense. these two definitely fall into a different category. it makes sense to me for this sweeney and lovett's ultimate fate to be each other. who else would it be? lucy did nothing wrong - she's not going where he's going. having made lovett pay for her lies, they can head on down (hand in unlovable hand!!!!!!!) to live out the almost-enough life they created with each other. and sure, her chirping his ear off for eternity would certainly make an appropriate punishment for his crimes.

#sweeney todd #long post #lord but i do go on! #mrs lovett and i have this in common #i've enjoyed them since i discovered the show in 2006 and they are very much My Brand #but i really do just feel a deep fondness for j&a's todd/lovett antics #and any other production whose sweeney/lovett Go There #also soz to reference the movie but #the moment where hbc's lovett echoes sweeney's 'life is for the alive my dear' back at him? perfection #'maybe not like i dreamed. maybe not like you remember. but we could get by.' perfection. no notes. #anyway the girlies that get it get it #otp: if you only knew

[thelogicalghost]

Mrs. Lovett, Abuse, and Power

During a discussion of musicals with some friends, Sweeney Todd came up. My partner said he wasn’t a fan. It turned out he’d only seen the Burton film, so my friends and I immediately sat him down to watch the recording of the stage version with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury, after which he admitted that, while he still wouldn’t put it on any top ten lists, “Have a Little Priest” is pretty damn amazing when done properly.

The most interesting part of our discussion happened when he compared Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett to the Joker and Harley Quinn. Obviously Harley Quinn is an abuse victim, and the portrayal of her relationship with the Joker in recent media has prompted a lot of discussions in our circles about depictions of abusive relationships, so the debate got fairly heated, but eventually it came around to a core point of disagreement: whether Lovett is a victim, an abuser, or an equal to Todd, in the context of the musical.

My “default” version of the musical is the Hearn/Lansbury duo, and in that performance (it’s on Youtube in pieces) Lansbury’s Lovett is definitely not a victim. She’s loud, confident, and self-assured. She barks out orders. I always felt that she was steering Todd, managing him with sly touches, and I never got the sense that she was at all afraid of him. In fact, I argued that, despite her obsession with Todd, she isn’t psychologically or emotionally reliant on him, and would turn on him without remorse to save herself if it came to that. 

My partner’s first impression of Lovett had been Burton’s movie, and Helena Bonham Carter’s Lovett is far more skittish and timid. Rewatching clips from the film, I definitely understood why anyone would think of her as a victim whose actions are meant to defensively redirect Todd’s violence to other targets. But I don’t think that’s supported by the text of the musical itself, because that meekness only gets to come out in specific scenes, and in other places lines have to be twisted or Carter has to suddenly affect a confidence she doesn’t have in order to, for example, pull off her part in “God that’s Good!” I looked up some clips from a concert version with Emma Thompson as Lovett, and that was surprisingly awful. Her delivery is weirdly flat and googly-eyed (like a very bad impression of an autistic child, perhaps) and she seems downright scared of Todd throughout “A Little Priest”, as if he’s going to hurt her if he doesn’t like a joke she makes. 

The aforementioned debate ended without resolution, but at least with my partner coming to an understanding that he’d been equating physical violence with power rather than considering the full scope of their relationship. 

That made me think about the shortcuts used on the screen and stage to portray abusive relationships. It was difficult for me to explain on the spot, or point out specific instances, such that I could show why Lansbury’s Lovett seems like a partner in crime where Carter’s Lovett seems so victimized. I could even imagine how a direction might arrange a production to make Todd look like the victim, mainly by making Lovett far more overbearing, Todd more generally desperate and defeated, and leaning on the idea of Lovett subtly and cleverly guiding Todd. 

Abusive relationships in fiction are tricky. There are harmful stereotypes on all sides of the argument, because any time we say “this is what abuse looks like,” we potentially disenfranchise a victim who doesn’t fit that mold, or potentially empower an abuser who relies on assumptions as part of their control. Thus, I think it’s especially important that, when we do depict abusive relationships, we don’t allow ourselves to be limited by our own assumptions. 

Making Lovett a victim is easy. Todd has the physical power and the capacity for violence. But I don’t think that’s the story Stephan Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler wrote, and I think it’s a disservice to force the musical into that mold. It’s so much more interesting and powerful to let Lovett be equal to Todd. To let this be a story not only about a man driven to unthinkable violence but also about a woman who supported him, created a space for him, and turned that horror into her own profit. 

It’s important to talk about abuse. It’s important to use fiction to show what abuse looks like. It’s equally important to show how the physical capacity for violence can be the least important factor in determining where the power and control lies in a relationship.

#sweeney todd #mrs lovett #abusive relationships #portrayal of abuse #actor choices #stage vs screen #my random thought

[imogengraceportfolio]

Film Studies Coursework- Imogen Mair

An exploration of Tim Burton’s auteur signature and the branding term “burtonesque”.

 According to Nelmes in ‘Film Studies: The Essential Resource’ an auteur is “an individual, inevitably the director, whose contribution to a film’s style and theme is considered so significant that he or she can be considered the ‘author’ of the film. Tim Burton is already an established auteur with a distinctive appearance to his films. In the words of Mark Salisbury the editor of the book ‘Burton on Burton’, “Tim Burton has transformed from being a visionary director with the Midas touch to becoming an identifiable brand; the term 'Burtonesque’ being ascribed to any filmmaker whose work is dark, edgy or quirky, or a combination thereof’. Adding to Tim Burtons’ auteur status Mark Salisbury argues that Tim Burtons “signature” transcends his own films and inspires others with his distinctive style. I am going to be exploring this perspective through an analysis of the films; Edward Scissorhands(1990), Beetlejuice(1988), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street(2007).

 One of the most distinguishable “burtonesque” elements of these films is the narrative, as all of the films appear to share the same characteristics when it comes to characters, environments etc. Firstly the main character in all of these films can be described as a misunderstood outsider, this is made the most clear in Edward Scissorhands as his peculiarities are shown with appearance as well as behavior. Tim Burton’s attraction to these types of characters stems from an autobiographical perspective as he said in the book ‘The Monster and the Crowd: A Post-Jungian Perspective’ “I get the feeling people just got this urge to want to leave me alone for some reason. I don’t exactly know why.” Frank Beaver describes Tim burton’s narrative style in the article ‘Tim Burton: auteur fantastique’ as “dark and expressive tailoring- a trait that has characterized all of Burton’s screen work. He has consistently been drawn to the macabre, and every aspect of his productions from plot to settings to lighting, costumes and makeup, contribute to his cinematic vision.” Tim Burton’s narratives normally contain an abnormal outsider as a main protagonist that is typically relatable to a certain audience, placed in fantasy environments that add to the absurd nature of his films.

 In relation to the narrative another key characteristic of Tim Burton’s films is the characters and to always have this alienated protagonist (shown in Edward Scissorhands). Yvonne Tasker in ‘Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers’ describes the characters of Edward Scissorhands and Lydia Deetz as “transitional” in Lydia’s case “a child-woman” and similarly in Edwards case a “half-finished physical state renders him an in-between”. This “archetype” is shown to be autobiographical to Tim Burton and to appeal and be relatable to a select audience of people likeminded to Burton himself. Despite gaining larger audiences and becoming a household name as an auteur Burton still uses the same types of outsider protagonists rather than attempt to appeal to all audiences, this defines his signature on his films as they stick to his original “brand”. Niamh Coghlan in the article ‘A massive retrospective bringing together hundreds of artworks and film-related objects tracing the trajectory of Tim Burton’s creative imagination’ says “visually his characters tend to be fractured in appearance, distorted in size, and aesthetically disturbing” this is again shown in Edward Scissorhands as his appearance is “fractured” due to the scissors for hands and numerous scars lining his face as well as the black clothing that stands out against the pastel colours of the suburban area, as well as the clothing the other characters wear which are also bright pastel colours.

On the character of Edward Scissorhands Tim Burton said “he has this kind of naïve quality which as you get older gets tested and has holes poked into it” this shows how Burton chooses to have the main characters have vulnerabilities and flaws as outsiders again choosing to direct films his own “burtonesque” way rather than have perfect less dimensional characters.

Tim Burton’s ‘stereotypical’ character appearance is at it’s peak in Sweeney Todd as both the main protagonists (Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett) are in full gothic ensemble costumes with white pale skin, erratic hair and sunken eyes. The appearances of these characters can also be compared to those of Lydia Deetz and Beetlejuice as they share the pale white skin, and dark eyes, Lydia Deetz also wears similar gothic clothing in all black, whereas Beetlejuice has a black and white striped suit, similar to that of Sweeney Todd in Mrs Lovett’s ‘Seaside Fantasy’ scene. Beetlejuice’s eyes are further exaggerated with a theatrical face paint appearance rather than the other characters’ more natural approach. Winona Ryder’s character Kim in Edward Scissorhands has a completely different appearance as for the character of Kim, Tim Burton chose to make her more suburban looking as her character in this film isn’t an outsider, the blonde hair and natural makeup are a change from Tim Burton’s signature character looks.

 Tim Burton is also identified by his preferences in terms of casting as those cast in a lot of his films include Helena Bonham-Carter, Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder all of which share the similar appearance of pale skin and dark sunken eyes and hair. Tim Burton explains casting Winona Ryder as Kim in Edward Scissorhands saying “she’s one of my favourites. Also she responds to this kind of dark material and I thought the idea of her as a cheerleader, wearing a blonde wig, was very funny.” The appearance of Winona Ryder’s character in this film is the polar opposite to her other role as Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice. Burton also describes why he chose Johnny Depp for the role of Edward Scissorhands with “I like people’s eyes a lot especially with a character like this who doesn’t really speak, eyes are very important. We wanted him right from the beginning.” Burton plays up his usual character appearance with Johnny Depp in this role as Edward is one of the most recognizable outcasts in his Filmography and uses Depp’s appearance to his advantage. Johnny Depp is then cast again by Burton in Sweeney Todd a film Frank Beaver said “offered up Burton and Johnny Depp at their most macabre extremes.” As Burton chooses and directs projects with similar narratives and characters he also chooses to cast people he is familiar with and have a passion for the project over and over as he says in ‘Burton on Burton’ “I try to work with people who want to do what I want to do” this is also the case with Helena Bonham-Carter and Winona Ryder. Burton describes the casting process for his films as a “very case-by-case thing for me. It’s hard because it’s like a puzzle. You go with one person, then you try to find another person, but you don’t want to go too much in a certain direction” when casting Beetlejuice he said that “I met Michael and that’s when I started to see the character of Beetlejuice. I didn’t know him that well, I didn’t know his work, but he’s crazy. Michael is manic, a livewire”. Tim Burton makes it clear that he doesn’t like to cast people who are popular in mainstream media and prefers to choose people who themselves are outcasts and have something to relate to the characters with.

The most obvious branding of ‘burtonesque’ in Burton’s films is the mise-en-scene, a mixture of surreal fantasy gothic visuals that give his works the ocular link audiences recognize. This distinguishable appearance is clearly displayed in the pastel coloured suburbia of Edward Scissorhands although fantasy appearing the pastel colours of the houses and clothes show the mundane lives those in the suburbia live in comparison to Edward as they have no individual identity. This is also autobiographical to Burton as he says “growing up in suburbia was like growing up in a place where there’s no sense of history, no sense of culture, no sense of passion for anything”. Visually Burton alienates Edward Scissorhands character by giving him a black leather and PVC costume and a dark gothic castle on a hill as a home as a very clear contrast from the coloured houses of the suburbia he soon finds himself in. Tim burton describes Edward Scissorhands as being “seen from Edward’s point of view, a slightly more romanticized view of the world. I like dark colours better, but they weren’t too dissimilar from what was already there. And although the production designer Bo Welch ainted all the houses different colours, it was important to me that the area still remain a community. We hardly touched the insides of the houses. What you see is pretty much what was there.” Burton through Edward Scissorhands shows that he doesn’t need to colour scheme all of his films to be in dark colours like the blue and black colour palette of Sweeney Todd he can incorporate pastel shades and his work ‘Beetlejuice’ according to Yvonne Tasker “employed self-consciously ‘cheesy’ special effects (delivered on a mini-budget in relative terms)” Burton’s “brand” is so unique that a still at any point of any of his films can be recognized as one of his works. Burton said of Beetlejuice “we wanted the effects to be kind of cheesy, and they were. We just tried to be fairly matter-of-fact about it. I didn’t want to make too much of a show of it, in a way.” this is meticulously achieved with Bo Welch with the sandworm scene and the waiting room scenes as the characters involved are suitably both low budget looking creations as well as typical Tim Burton style. Such as a man who travels through a gap on the wall attached to a coat hanger-like contraption and a man with a shrunken head that fittingly looks low budget and not realistic at all staying true to this style. Yvonne Tasker says of the special effects “the effects and imagery are firmly integrated within the fantasy world, as in the comic/grotesque physical transformations of Beetlejuice”. Burton says of Beetlejuice “I always had my own ideas about the way it should be: if there’s darkness there should be colour and light. Beetlejuice was a real mix of colour and dark to me, and I wanted to temper a lot of the darker aspects and make it a bit more colourful.” Tim Burton successfully does this throughout the film even with characters mixing the bright Miss America’s appearance of blue skin and bright pink hair with the more macabre reason for being there of suicide. There are similarities within costume between the characters Lydia Deetz and Mrs Lovett as they both dress in dark colours and all black ensembles with the exception of a bright red outfit in both films for Lydia this is her wedding dress which is an entirely bright red outfit a stark contrast to her previous costumes, for Mrs Lovett this outfit is when she has her fantasy of herself and Sweeney on a pier where she is wearing a red and white polka dot and striped outfit complete with a matching umbrella. These similarities also spread to the characters of Beetlejuice and Sweeney Todd both adopting similar black and white striped outfits Burton comments on this in relation to Beetlejuice “As far as the black and white stripes are concerned, that one I have never been able to figure out. I guess there must be some sort of prison element involved in there somehow. I am drawn to that image, I always have been, it’s in a lot of drawings as well, but I don’t know why.”

 Finally there is the soundtrack that completes any Tim Burton film, both the soundtracks for Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands were written and arranged by Danny Elfman another one of Tim Burton’s favourites to collaborate with off camera scoring many of his films. Sweeney Todd however being part musical Burton collaborated with Sondheim the 1979 musical adaptation’s music composer. Tim Burton says of Beetlejuice’s soundtrack “the soundtrack also featured two calypso songs from Harry Belafonte, including the ‘Banana Boat Song’, which became the film’s unofficial theme tune” this scene of according to Tim Burton “Adam and Barbara being on vacation and this kind of calypso music which I liked” brings the blatant comedy into the film again rather than the comedy/drama mix of the previous events. Making the film although more “crude” than Tim Burton’s other films, universal to all audiences furthering his mark as an auteur who is a household family name. (Struggling to find sources that comment on Tim Burton’s use of sound)

 In conclusion Tim Burton is by definition an established auteur as many agree that his films have a distinctive appearance throughout his choices in casting, colour, costume, narrative and sound, giving them a distinguished “look” branded as ‘burtonesque’ by many. His auteur status is so great it has become a household name, a line from Frank Beaver’s article ‘Tim Burton: Auteur Fantastique’ states that “after 25 years of feature-film directing, Tim Burton certainly merits auteur status” more recent films such as Sweeney Todd demonstrate that even though many years have passed since earlier films such as Beetlejuice his auteur signature is still identifiable. Despite creating films for separate audiences for example child and young adult upwards, showcased with the heartwarming family aspects of Edward Scissorhands contrasted with the more macabre horror aspects of Sweeny Todd. Burton still remains a director both child and adult alike recognize, his films such as Edward Scissorhands have a universal appeal when shown to audiences, that both the children and adults equally enjoy such narratives and visuals. Even darker films such as Sweeney Todd and the more comical Beetlejuice are still very successful despite being produced on varying budgets the Tim Burton “signature” is still there showing that there is more to his style than fancy Hollywood Special Effects, the fantasy and dramatic elements paired with the characters make his style truly unique, gaining him a cult following as well as mainstream popularity.

  Annotated Catalogue

Introduction

•          Film Studies The Essential Resource- Peter Bennett, Andrew Hickman and Peter Wall. Chapter 6 Quote by Nelmes 1996.

•          Tim Burton: Auteur Fantastique- Frank Beaver May 12th 2010

•          Burton on Burton revised edition Foreword- Johnny Depp Edited- Mark Salisbury written- Tim Burton (first published revised edition 2000 copy I own published 2006)

Narrative

•          The Monster and the Crowd: A Post-Jungian Perspective- Tim burton published 2006 (December 16th)

•          Tim Burton: Auteur Fantastique- Frank Beaver May 12th 2010

Characters