Critical Analysis Of Sweeney Todd

Analysis of Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber on Fleet Street is a 2007 musical horror drama film directed by Tim Burton. I believe this film is the only musical Burton ever directed. Sweeney Todd is a dark film that explores the idea that evil is inextricably connected with the human condition. When the story begins, it is clear that the past overshadows the present in such a way that the characters live in permanent darkness. In a grim analogy with the victims consumed in Mrs. Lovett’s pies, Sweeney Todd is consumed by revenge. He starts out as a respectable and respected barber with a loving wife and a beautiful baby and ends as a murderous demon guilty of acts so abhorrent that he and the man he once was share on common ground.

Tim Burton said in an interview that when he was a kid he would watch all kind of monster movies. “My parents said I started watching those movies before I could even walk.”As a kid he loved horror movies and he liked drawing pictures. He said he did not care what people thought of his drawings and just drew them his own way. His drawings also show his love for horror because they are all unique and creepy looking. Some of his pictures are based on the movies he directed. He started directing at twenty years old. He was very interested in animation. One of his first films was Batman. Most of the films he directed have a gothic horror aspect. I believe since his childhood was all about horror movies, he gained an appreciation for those films and applied his passion in the films he directed. "Vincent Price, Edgar Allan Poe, those monster movies, those spoke to me. You see somebody going through that anguish and that torture –things you identify with –and it acts as a kind of therapy, a release. (Tim Burton 17).”Besides the fact that he watched horror movies, the place where he lived influenced him as well. The dark and light aspects of life have always fascinated Tim Burton, consistently arguing that one cannot exist without the other: ‘life is an incredible jumble of being funny and sad and dramatic and melodramatic and goofy and everything’. During his childhood in suburban Burbank, Burton found the

Animation and horror films were an inspiration to him growing up and becoming a director. The films that I analyzed were Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice, Frankenweenie and Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. As well as my research I was able to get different people’s look and opinion on Tim Burton’s gothic style. I was able to take their thoughts and incorporate them into what I mentioned about the films. The films that I analyzed have some gothic aspects but they all have a theme of death incorporated in some way. As was stated in a review by American critic Roger Ebert, “Burton uses special effects and visual tricks to create sites that have never been seen before. The movie takes place in an entirely artificial world, where a haunting gothic castle crouches on a mountain-top high above a storybook suburb, a goofy sitcom neighborhood where all of the houses are shades of pastels and all of the inhabitants seem to be emotional clones of the Jetsons.”So in what ways does Tim Burton 's use of the gothic genre affect the cinematic aspect in his films? He uses many ways, whether it is costumes, makeup, camera shots, setting, lighting and so on. However, I believe he always has at least a theme of death revolving each film. The main thing that shaped his films and his career is his influences. I noticed that in some films he portrays his childhood and his influences in his