Attend This Tale

Overheard last week: one guy talking to another about a screening he'd seen of this film called Sweeney Todd. He was incredulous--it's about a barber who kills his customers by slashing their throats and then the bodies are turned into meat pies!

Okay, I can see an average American (even one who attends screenings) not knowing that the story's been around since the 19th century, but is the 1979 Stephen Sondheim musical that unknown? It practically swept the Tonys and has had many major productions around the world since.

I'm not even saying the guy had to see the show. Just, maybe, he could have heard about it, and had an inkling of the plot. Perhaps they should have renamed it There Will Be Blood.

PS Similar reactions reported at Hollywood Elsewhere.

PPS The LA Times got a couple letters on Sweeney from shocked readers. One says:

For a blood-saturated musical "based on a 19th century legend of a serial killer who slices throats" to be called a "Sondheim masterpiece" is sick, perverse, ghoulish and tastelessly subjective, offering no redeeming social value and serving merely to generate profit for its demented producers. Just what this country needs: more slice-and-dice gore for gore's sake. Next up could be a G-rated romp featuring Jeffrey Dahmer's favorite recipes, or an insider's template on how to present your very own Columbine or Virginia Tech massacre.

A few points.

1) The widespread judgment that this is a Sondheim masterpiece may be subjective (because such judgments are always subjective) but I don't find any tastelessness in how subjective the judgment is.

2) I don't think complex art that entertains millions has no redeeming social value.

3) Anyone familiar with Sondheim's work would know it's not created "merely" to generate profit.

4) I don't get why people bring up the point that its investors want to make money. Would the reader change his mind about Sweeney Todd if it were being presented by a not-for-profit organization?

5) "Demented" producers? Gilding the lily, aren't we?

6) You don't spend a year writing an operatic score because you're presenting "gore for gore's sake."

7) It's wrong to imply the movie is symbolic of the age we live in. Blood-soaked entertainment has always been popular. Homer and Shakespeare provide ample evidence, as does the continued popularity of Sweeney Todd in one form or another for over a century and a half. (I can't be sure, but the letter writer seems to think the creators of the musical--or maybe just the creators of the movie--plucked this legend out of nowhere as an excuse to create gore.)

In the other letter, we get this unfortunate quote from producer Richard D. Zanuck: "The blood splatters all over the place. . . . But the whole thing is obviously tongue-in-cheek."

More like tongue out of cheek.