Sweeney Todd Compare And Contrast

613 Words3 Pages
After viewing many times the film of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, I would say that this is really worth watching. It is not a good movie, it is a great one. The movie of Tim Burton is the adaptation of the same titled musical of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. It is as much a horror film as a musical. In the essay I will give several reasons why one should spend time on watching this film. The main character is a unique one. The protagonist is Sweeney Todd. He is a man tortured by lost love. He was unjustly imprisoned and he is driven to madness by his desire for revenge. Because of this his heart and soul is dark. As Burton says “We always saw him as a sad character, not a tragic villain or anything. The only thing that is keeping him going is the one single minded thing which is tragic.” He is a violent and unremorseful character, but still able to attract the sympathy of the audience. Probably this duality captures the viewers because it is hard to decide whether he is just the victim of the circumstances or he is a really bad character.…show more content…
It is not a traditional musical with a lot of dialogues and then singings. As each of the characters is repressed and has their emotions inside, the music is the way to express their feelings. There are certain clever but slight pieces of love songs and quasi-comic odes to murder. The composition of these parts, the shifting between them creates rhapsodic feelings and makes the audience feel the significance of the story. The voices of the actors also give more shades to the songs. Their singing voice reflects perfectly the traits of the characters. For example, Johnny Depp’s singing voice is harsh and thin, but amazingly forceful which gives back the emotions swirling in the heart of Sweeney Todd. When the audience hears the songs, they not only hear them, but feel them as
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    Throughout Sweeney Todd the plot is consistent. There are two main storylines (Todd and his revenge and Anthony and Johanna) that propel the action. Both storylines are easily to follow, making the flow of the piece stable. This stability provides a sense of continuity to Sweeney Todd. Sondheim communicates through Sweeney Todd with his use of leitmotifs and dialogue. He uses leitmotifs to communicate the relationship between the beggar woman, Johanna and Todd, although it may not be obvious. In

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