On Sweeney Todd

Ed Wood may be one of my favorite films of all time. The way Johnny Depp and Tim Burton (who should have a clever name a la Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez due to their long relationship) pay homage to Ed Wood is anti-Hollywood in the way that Hollywood was anti-Ed Wood.

For me, the film makes visible, or brings to life how I'm interested in both understanding the things I like and how that plays a role in criticism. I'm learning that criticism always come second. We make up our minds about something and then find ways to justify those opinions.

As much as I enjoy Ed Wood, Deppberton may not play as big a role in that as I had thought. Sweeney Todd's placement along the slope of poorly executed projects is no surprise. And maybe through an outdated and dusty lens of auteur theory we can make sense of Deppberton as guys who like to play dress up. The failure is of course the lack. Johnny Depp is not a character actor. He's not much of an actor; his career flip-flopping between over the top characters (Pirates of the Carribbean) and understated apparitions (Edward Scissorhands, Gilbert Grape, Benny & June) is the result of overcompensation and in ability to ever say something true. And I would like to find a kernel of his attractiveness lies in this overcompensation and understatedness as version of the modern American male symptom. The overcompensation as a performance of gender and the understatedness as a fear of impotence.

As for Tim Burton, similarly to Depp's weak points being extreme points, Burton doesn't play to his strengths. He's spent so much time in the dark that his style seems obvious and boring. How we forget his first film was the bright and colorful Pee Wee's Big Adventure. How we were only reminded of this for a second in Big Fish. And that Edward Scissorhands only worked so well because it contrasted the american gothic with suburban plasticity. Undermining the real horror better than Stepford Wives. Without that contrast, Burton's work suffers.

It's not that Sweeney Todd was bad, it was that I didn't like it. This reversal is important and I think it's something that people get wrong. The performances were stale as the air in old London and songs bored me to the point of fast-forwarding through them.