Bloody songs

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street | Reviews |

Not being sure that I have ever heard a Sondheim song or bit of music that I particularly liked, I am in no rush to see a movie that combines his musical oeuvre with Tim Burton's Goth sensibility and lots of blood. Peter Bradshaw (above) has this to say in his review:

Depp stars in Tim Burton's screen version of Stephen Sondheim's neo-Victorian horror panto Sweeney Todd, for which critical superlatives more appropriate for the Sistine Chapel ceiling have been lavished. I have to admit to being agnostic; for me, Sondheim's music, though forceful and fluent, slides through the mind leaving me with a faint hankering for the vulgar satisfactions of memorable tunes.

And Anthony Lane wrote:

So, how do you rescue the hell brew from absurdity? The answer, for Sondheim, is dexterity: the unstinting sophistication of his wordplay and his flirtatious harmonies—forever hinting at the sweeping show tune, only to duck away into discord and off-key fretfulness—is a riposte to his silly plot.

Hmm. It seems a fairly common assessment that much of Sondheim's music is clever, but not "hummable", and people expecting a memorable show tune often feel "cheated". The Wikipedia entry about him is interesting: he's had his fair share of failed musicals, and there is this odd line:

The failure of Merrily greatly affected Sondheim; he was ready to quit theater and do movies or create video games or write mysteries.

A video game by Stephen Sondheim?

The other mystery about his Wikipedia entry is that it says nothing about his adult personal life. Looking at some other websites indicates that the issue of his sexuality has been pretty complicated (one site says he didn't come out as gay until he was in his 40's, and even then he didn't fall in love with a man 'til his 60's. He also nearly married actress Lee Remick when he was younger.) So why is there is absolutely nothing in his Wikipedia entry about this part of his life?

Despite it getting a very high rating on the Rottentomatoes scale, I think I'll give Sweeny Todd a miss. (It's taken nearly $50 million at the US box office after a month, which suggests most people have decided the same.)