Today in London...SWEENEY TODD begins principal photography!- Page 5

[Oliver Brownlow]

Posted: 2/9/07 at 12:51am

Let's face it -- this is either going to be one of the greatest film musicals of all time, or the biggest bomb since MR. QUILP.

[worrell4077]

Posted: 2/9/07 at 1:25pm

"I think that could be a scary aspect. People probably aren't used to rooting for the psychotic killer, so his being the "hero" might be quite unsettling."

Well, I think most audiences might get past him being a psychotic killer barber seeing that he only truly wants to get revenge against Turpin and The Beadle.

There are characters like Sweeney that most audiences do feel sympatheic towards. These characters weren't always deranged or psychotic, something happens to them and causes them to become that way. One of the best examples of a character who wasn't always a psychotic killer would be Harvey Dent in Batman. He was a great DA, he had a wonderful wife and was nicknamed "Apollo" and then had acid thrown in his face and became the psychotic killer known as Two-Face, but despite everythin he's done in the comic books or the cartoons or even in the movies, you feel empathy towards him that this had to happen to him. So, I think Sweeney killing people won't really affect the audiences at the movie for feeling sorry for him, they may not root for him to accomplish his goal, but they will feel sorry for him
Updated On: 2/9/07 at 01:25 PM

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 2/9/07 at 3:32pm

Yeah.

Don't act like y'all weren't rooting for Sweeney the first time you saw the show. I know I was.

[worrell4077]

Posted: 2/10/07 at 12:43pm

"Don't act like y'all weren't rooting for Sweeney the first time you saw the show. I know I was."

You don't root for him, you just feel sorry for him. He had a normal life with a wife and baby and then the Judge takes it away that away from him by falsely accusing him of something and then banishes him away from his loved ones.

[Oliver Brownlow]

Posted: 2/10/07 at 11:53pm

So he's a serial killer. Nobody's perfect!

[Craww]

Posted: 2/11/07 at 12:23am

You don't root for him, you just feel sorry for him.

I think the point of view of just feeling sorry for him greatly underestimates the significant part of the piece that's rooted in black comedy and gothic thriller. I really think you are supposed to kind of root for him, in that wholly nasty way that's kind of implicit to those genres.

[Raviolisun]

Posted: 2/12/07 at 8:47pm

For those who were happy that Tobias is actually a kid in the film...I actually like that he's normally played an adult, because the way he's an adult and acts like a child seems to add to his insanity.

[wickedfan]

Posted: 2/12/07 at 9:18pm

But that doesn't make sense. Tobias isn't insane. He goes insane in the end, but he doesn't start that way.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 2/12/07 at 9:58pm

Exactly, at the beginning Tobias is merely an innocent child who sees a motherly figure in Mrs.Lovett, he's not insane. Ultimately, this sort of innocent figure is corrupted by all the darkness that pervades the musical, that's what makes his insanity so painful and wrecking, and the fact that he is child makes it more powerful and sad.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/12/07 at 10:03pm

The film script does a very nice play on the Tobias man/child/sane/insanity thing.

[Wildcard]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 12:33pm

Can you expound a little bit more on that, MB?