Sweeney Todd. Tim Burton’s two-hour-long film version of Stephen Sondheim’s greatest musical is a devastatingly concise, horrifically bloody exercise in neo-Gothic naturalism from which all the stage-specific presentational elements of the original production have been trimmed away. The results are effective in the extreme, not least because of Johnny Depp’s cold, hard, unrelenting performance of the title role. No, the singing isn’t great, but it’s still the best film of a Broadway musical ever made, Cabaret included (TT).
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
