Friday, March 28, 2008

A Little Priest

Here is the new film version of the song "A Little Priest" from Sondheim's grisly musical, Sweeney Todd. I wanted to include both this version and the original theatrical version of the song because, in comparing them, it is (to me) glaringly obvious which is the better version.
Here Bonham Carter and Depp sing a macabre song about killing various types of people and turning them into pies. They hypothesise on the different tastes that different types of people would have, for example the idea that Royal Marine would taste of wherever it's been!
While this film version is clearly trying to make a point of how grotesque the story is, it seems a waste not to play up the obvious comedy in this scene. The idea of killing people to bring more business to your shop is horrendous, but to then sing about it and draw it out for so long just makes it hilarious. I think it is a great shame that this version did not play up the comedy, as it makes it seem as though Helena's character really has no idea what she's singing about and is just saying her lines in a robotic fashion. And she has no sympathy from me! Do it properly, or don't do it at all!

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