Into the Woods 90's film script — Page 2

I think having the Witch start changing back to ugly would have helped it make a lot more sense to people. A common gripe I've seen from people reacting to the movie is that her disappearance makes no sense to them, and I can't really blame them for saying that.

Still not sure how I'd feel about the mother dragging her down, though. I think that almost takes the disappearance from too vague to too literal, whereas just starting to change back to ugly would put it somewhere in-between.

I assume she is making a deal with her Mother, "Give me claws and a hunch BUT away from this bunch" and her mother decides to give her her wish...

A friend of mine has always surmised the Witch's Mother was "Mother Earth" (thus the obsession with plants). Is this a common thought?

Does anyone know if Lapine or Sondheim ever discussed what actually happens to her?

I don't think the witch is killing herself... As for the baby it is most definitely the bakers child. Once they get the objects and the witch gets her potion the curse is reversed. The infertitly one and the one that caused the witch to become ugly. I always thought enough time had passed in the stage show for the baker and his wife to conceive etc. The movie was an interesting take.

What makes this even worse is that reportedly Sondheim thought the script was "really, really good" What the hell was he on.

Sondheim has said that about every movie adaptation of his shows. Either he's a pushover or easily pleased or knows which side his bread is buttered (i.e. appeasing the studio). He's not really reliable.

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From what I can tell Steve had planned on cutting certain things for years in the eventual movie adaption. He for sure planned on doing away with Rapunzel's death in both versions of the movie (current and failed 90's) I was reading an article about the current adaption and apparently after they cast Meryl, Sondheim had the director and her over at his house to play the song written for the Witch about Rapunzel leaving. Even though we all agree the 90's version would have been a hot mess, I'm really curious to see how Cher would have done the Witch. (Still looking for the script btw)

I love the show, but "Last Midnight" has never made sense, not from day one and frankly not really in the film (which at least makes it a genuine showstopper, with Streep pulling out terrific stops matched by inexplicable special effects). The song remains a strained, self-annotating summary of the Witch's role in the story ("...I the Witch, I'm the hitch..."), rather like singing the Monarch notes on her character as she tries to drive home the show's themes, not successfully tethered to the plot point in the moment.

As catchy as the song is, with its rush of words, as storytelling, it's baffling as hell, and the revision for the Vanessa Williams edition was the most bizarre, when she held the baby yet sang about withholding Jack (this almost happens in the film, but is abandoned quickly). Too many children in jeopardy, too many confusing stakes for the Witch (who has to be a being of some sort, not just a device); and why is the Witch even having a son e lumiere meltdown? What has happened that gives her no option but ... whatever the hell she does? And then, as everyone here notes, her addressing her own mother is the last obfuscating reference to an off-stage character. Audiences in the theater don't feel her absence the same way, as the actress always returns, calm and serene, to admonish us with "Children Will Listen." The film makes a bigger case for the mortality inherent in her exit; Meryl never appears, even as an image, as the Baker's wife does. She's dead-dead, seemingly. But I will underscore: that doesn't make "Last Midnight" clearer. (If she "dies," wouldn't it be cleaner and more dramatic to have The Witch see the Giant coming, and then stand so the Giant can step on her? Maybe that would be doubly baffling.)

I certainly appreciate songs that invite speculation and interpretation. But it's not like the lyrics to "Last Midnight" are especially eloquent or witty. They merely explicate away a character. It never hurts the show, but it's an engimatic doozie of a number.

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Updated On: 2/3/15 at 10:08 AM

Well I'll say it sure works better in the moment than Boom, Crunch...

"What has happened that gives her no option"

Absolutely nothing. This is made more apparent in the film. In the show you could pass off Rapunzel getting killed as the Witch's motivation to commit suicide. But not in the film. Nothing happens to the Witch that takes her to the edge. Last Midnight is so out of place in the film because there is no build up. The film completely missed the mark.

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^the most intriguing explication of her character I've heard. I appreciate, too the mention of the low stakes just before "Last Midnight." She is a part of the cross-accusatory "Your Fault" and she holds the Bakers' baby. But her exit feels oddly arbitrary, as if she makes a capricious decision on par with some of her erratic behavior when she appears before the Bakers in act one. Yet the song lyrics are measured and painstakingly explanatory. At odds with her volatile behavior. If she's together enough to annotate the other characters and understand herself as their counterpoint -- again, that strange sense of standing on the periphery of her own character -- why the hell does she get hysterical and let the ground swallow her up? Just typing that out I'm freshly aware of how it doesn't add up. But I appreciate much the cycle of life motif, which does seem to at least hold the show together rather poetically.

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Updated On: 2/3/15 at 06:18 PM

@themysteriousgrowl I absolutely love that idea for an ending. And it makes sense. How many beans did that witch have? It sounded like too many for them to pick up every single one.

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I would argue Last midnight is one of the most impactful and important songs in the show. The Witch is the truth teller (except to herself about Rapunzel, which I'll get to later). When she proclaims the characters "liars and thieves"...it's true. She exposes their darkness to them, and they realize their mistakes as a community. Sondheim said the 2nd Act was about community anyway.





Why does the Witch sing Last Midnight and what happened to her?

Well, it is a combination of many things...one of the great things about the film's Witch is Streep's portrayal: she plays the Witch so that it is no question that she actually loves Rapunzel. Her "Stay With Me" has to be the most powerful version I have ever seen. It is also obvious that the Witch really jumped all of these hurdles to regain her beauty *for Rapunzel*. Now, in the play, Rapunzel dies, and The Witch is hurt/mad/sad...and she ended up being right about the world. In the film, Rapunzel basically told the Witch, "You are wicked! You have stripped me of my happiness, and I hate you!". Rapunzel then leaves. This hurts the Witch. She was just "trying to be a good mother."


All of these emotions breaks the Witch. She is sick of the world...she is sick of everything. She throws away the beans knowing that throwing them away would be her end. The screenplay for the film actually says, "She knows this will be her end." I like to think her mother took her away and killed her, or just vaporized her.




I find this excellently handled in the stage play, and the film totally HIT the mark in the Witch's motivations!

I never thought she killed herself. I thought it was always more along the lines of she throws away the beans so she can get cursed and get her powers back thus having the ability to leave and get away. I think the motivation is strong actually. Its not in that exact moment but at least in The stage version she has lost her powers, her daughter no thanks to an annoying child, and when you take away all that she holds near and dear (powers and daughter) she has very strong motivation for Last Midnight. And even in the song the emotions are gradual. At the beginning of she's clearly trying to get them to change there minds to give Jack to the giant. No one listens to her because they know she's right and that I think is the climax of the song. The Witch is a very emotional character.