4) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Adapting popular stage productions into cinematic offerings seems like difficult territory to tread. Translating any story from one medium to another comes with a host of challenges, but particularly when going between two mediums that rest on the strengths of acting, albeit two very different types of acting. Then there’s the pressure that comes with providing an acceptable treatment to material that countless fans take ownership of, a task that’s virtually impossible. Movies like Sweeney Todd tend to be met with reviews questioning why something that people can see on stage needs to be presented on screen.
The obvious answer, to me, is that relatively few people are able to see the material performed live. There is value in the movie musical’s ability to democratize stage shows that are only seen by a select few. For as little as ten percent of the cost of a Broadway ticket, any Midwesterner can enjoy Chicago as if they were in the front row, or even in the middle of the stage themselves. When a musical adaptation is as outstanding as Sweeney Todd, which uses the tools of cinema and every ounce of Tim Burton’s aesthetic mastery as well as any other film, it’s an illustration of the powerful potential within any such adaptation, a best case scenario that ought not be dismissed on the basis of supposed unoriginality. The originality comes in the way the story is told, not the mere details of the story itself.
