James Lapine and INTO THE WOODS- Page 2

[Hex3]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 4:01pm

I do agree somewhat with that. No matter how much I liked the Sweeney film, I always felt that cutting the "bookend" title songs was a HUGE mistake. I remember their concept in the script and I think that they would really have completed the film.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 4:08pm

Someone in a Tree2--I completely agree with "just your opinion" about the Sweeney film. Cutting the choral singing because "real people don't sing together like that" (says Tim Burton) ruined the movie for me. I hope he is kept far away from future musical projects.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 4:59pm

Didn't they also HAVE to cut it because of Jonny Depp having to be with his daughter when she was in the hospital?

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 5:04pm

My theory? Burton cut it so he could be close to Johnny in the hospital, and then later they found an artistic reason to justify it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 5:36pm

I think Burton was beaten up by a choir when he was a kid.

This was his revenge.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 6:21pm

"Didn't they also HAVE to cut it because of Jonny Depp having to be with his daughter when she was in the hospital?"

This is a story I don't know, matt. Elaborate, please?

[Showghost]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 6:23pm

"To the best of my knowledge, via a friend who has read a draft of the script, the boy as narrator concept is not being used."

YOU SHOULD NOT BE POSTING THIS!

I undertand that this is a gossip feed and everyone wants big credit for being "the one in the know", but in reality you are going to lose the trust of whoever was telling this to you as an actual human being. The internet is not as private as you think.

Be careful what you post.

[Brick]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 6:29pm

"Didn't they also HAVE to cut it because of Jonny Depp having to be with his daughter when she was in the hospital?"

That is true and I think Burton's later comments were made to justify those portions being cut, even if he thought of doing so earlier.

Production was shut down for a couple weeks when Johnny Depp's young daughter took very ill. To accommodate the shut-down, the chorale sections were cut. They were to be ghosts of Todd's victims. Christopher Lee was cast as one of the them and gave an interview around the time about it.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 6:40pm

^ Thanks Brick. Eye opening and such a shame-- sounds like it would have been a terrific idea and very cinematic. But even having a lone organ grinder singing the verses while cranking out the theme on a hurdy-gurdy a la Threepenny Opera would have been enough to establish the song in a realistic milieu. Seeing what magic Burton could create for the "By the Sea" sequence made me all the sadder at the opportunities missed elsewhere in the film.

Sorry for the threadjack. Back to castigating Rob Marshall prematurely like we're supposed to be doing.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 8:28pm

Or the chorus could have sung off-screen, as choruses do in hundreds of films. The movie would still have had a leading lady on quaaludes, but at least the choral singing would break up the tedium.

[all that jazz]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 9:35pm

I was obessesed with the Sweeney film until I listened to the full score and Patti's and Angela's Worst Pies in London. But overall I think it's a stunning film.

And I know I'm in the minority here, but I Loved Rob's Nine, I thought it was divinely decadent.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 9:45pm

I like NINE a lot better than most people do (or did). I still had major problems with it, most notably Daniel Day-Lewis who nearly killed the film with his heavy-handed approach to Guido.

I've actually watched the movie at home, skipping that very first pretentious scene where he's talking about his films in a B&W interview. I start it right when he walks into the sound stage alone and the Overture starts.

The entire movie plays better if you take that first scene out, because it instantly sets a "weighty" tone that is SO wrong for that film and that story. If Guido takes himself that seriously, we're all doomed.

(A reminder that Fellini hung a sign on the camera while he was making "8 1/2" saying, "Remember, this is a comedy." I wish Rob Marshall had remembered that, too. And I wish anybody were playing that part other than Daniel Day-Lewis.)

[all that jazz]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 9:55pm

Without a doubt the highlights of the film were the musical numbers, which were all masterfully staged and filmed IMO. Follies Bergere, Be Italian, Take it all, and Giudo's song were all show stoppers, and My husband makes movies was just heartbreaking.

Updated On: 5/14/13 at 09:55 PM

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 11:09pm

If it makes anyone feel better, there's apparently a version of the screenplay out there that was NOT written by James Lapine. It was written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel in the nineties.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 5/14/13 at 11:34pm

Thank you, Brick. Also, Anthony Head was meant to be another one of the singers but he still shows up in the marketplace scene.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 5/15/13 at 12:14am

best12, I remember you posting your thoughts on Nine in another thread in the past and watched the movie that way after doing so. You are right that it does work a lot better without starting with that scene.

And really, for as much as people like to make fun of Marshall and his "musical in the mind" approach to both Chicago and Nine, I do think that neither would have worked cinematically without making the songs part of an entirely separate fantasy world. With Nine, even on stage a lot of the songs (especially the ones that did make it into the film) are often staged as fantasy sequences and internal monologues, so in retrospect Marshall really did not do anything new by doing them that way on screen.