Not to be a snob, but it’s funny to read anecdotes about people who went to see “Sweeney Todd” this weekend and walked out after figuring out that it was a musical.
…about 15 people walked out of the theater during the film. When it started one of the three *loud* women behind me said “Sh!t, this ain’t a Goddamned MUSICAL is it?” then they proceeded to giggle and moan for the next 20 minutes until they finally left. (Thank GOD!)
Wow, interesting reading. I’d forgotten what snobs some New Yorkers can be. Just because someone doesn’t share your viewing tastes, doesn’t make them a “yokel”. I live in Ohio, saw the play at The University of Michigan and knew it was a musical. I don’t follow movie releases, but I heard plenty about how Depp sang his own songs. Also, any TV watching Midwesterner knows that J.B. Fletcher from MURDER SHE WROTE starred on Broadway in Sweeney Todd.
I haven’t seen it yet, but I plan to do so this week. I was trying to explain it to a dear friend of mine who is NOT a moron, but she just wasn’t cottoning to the idea. When I started to describe the plot to her she said, “How do they make that funny?” and I said, “Eerm, well, it isn’t, really, it’s horrifying and tragic and scary.” And she said, “But I thought it was a musical?”
I am looking forward to it, because I really do like Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, but I am also trepidatious (is that a word?) because it just seems such a downright shame, an awful waste, to not put people in the roles who can SING. I know Depp is an actor of exceptional calibre and that DOES count for something, but the snippets I heard on NPR were distressing, and not in a good way.
I think it speaks volumes about the status of the fine arts in this country that reasonably intelligent people think “musicals” are “funny” and that directors don’t think to look for singers who can act (presumably because they think they don’t exist) and feel that actors who can’t sing for shite are a minor compromise.