(Spoilers ahead! Also, the above image collage was swiped from ArtInsights Magazine.)
I saw Into The Woods on Christmas, as part of my annual “Chinese food & a movie” Christmas tradition. Some thoughts:
1) Johnny Depp played the Wolf as well as anyone who can’t sing could play the Wolf. Which, put another way, means that there were a thousand actors who could have played the Wolf much better. But, fortunately, it’s a small part. And I’m sure that having Depp’s name on the project helped get the movie financed, and there aren’t a thousand actors we could say that for.
2) Let’s face it, Meryl Streep can’t sing as well as Bernadette Peters (who originated the part on Broadway) did. But “doesn’t sing as well as Bernadette Peters” is hardly an insult! Streep doesn’t have that kind of powerhouse voice, but she sings well. What she brought was a acting performance that was nuanced and made the Witch into a fascinatingly eccentric character who could also be heartbreaking. This was a movie performance, full of tiny tics and quick expressions that only a camera could catch, and I thought it was enjoyable as hell. (I loved the moment when the Witch punished Rapunzel cruelly and unjustly – we could see on Streep’s face that it was breaking the Witch’s heart to do it, but also that she wouldn’t relent.)
3) Say, was it just me, or did the Witch’s exit seem less like she got her powers back and teleported away from this mess (which is what happens to her in the stage show), and more like she died by being sucked into a tar pit?
4) There is no reason in the world, other than Hollywood’s endless racism and lack of imagination, for this movie (or the original play, alas) to have an all-white cast. Why do movies feel like they’d rather die than show us a diverse cast? (And please don’t say “they cast the best people for the roles.” I thought the whole cast was good, but Streep was the only one who turned in a performance so unique that you couldn’t imagine anyone else doing the role.)
5) I really can’t see why they wrote Rapunzel’s PTSD and death out. It didn’t seem to gain them anything, and it made what the Witch did to Rapunzel less harmful, as well as lowering the Witch’s emotional stakes in the last act. As it is, I honestly can’t remember what happened to Rapunzel and her Prince. Did they even appear in the second act of the movie? Did they just escape the giant and run off?
6) The child (well, early teen) actors who played Red Riding Hood and Jack both sang very well, but having them look that young meant that the sexual awakening elements of both their adventures had to be deemphasized in the staging (especially with Disney as producer). Oh, well.
7) Really loved the decision to have the costumes be from centuries apart – ranging from the Renaissance-era Rapunzel all the way to the Wolf’s zoot suit. Not locking the costumes down to any one period is a really cool approach for a fairy tale movie, since fairy tales take place in all periods.
8) The only person from the original Broadway cast I missed was Joanna Gleason. Emily Blunt did a fine job as the Baker’s Wife, but I don’t think anyone will ever match Gleason’s performance.
9) I thought Anna Kendrick (Cinderella) and James Corden (the Baker) were, alongside Streep, the stand-out cast members.
10) I was kind of surprised at how little I missed the Mysterious Man and “No More.” I did miss the reprise of “Agony,” but as funny as it is, it doesn’t add all that much to the story, so I can see why they cut it.
11) I’m planning to see this again, probably next week.
Your thoughts?
I saw Into the Woods on Christmas. I thought it was good, but not great. I missed several of the bits they cut, and I thought that, while there were lots of individual good scenes, it didn’t hold together as well as I would have liked. Johnny Depp and Meryl Streep were both badly miscast, I thought — if you’re going to cast Little Red as a 12-year-old, then having the Wolf be that old takes it beyond the sort of creepy that it’s supposed to be, and into the realm of just gross. And they seemed to realize that in the way they staged “I Know Things Now,” which ended up making very little sense at all, because they really couldn’t do “Isn’t it nice to know a lot … and a little bit not” the way it was meant with that casting.
I saw Into the Woods today. I think it had some notable flaws, but I still like it better than any of our recent crop of movie musicals except perhaps Les Mis–will need some time to distinguish those. I think Into the Woods has a leg up because it’s made by people who love and understand musicals, instead of the Les Mis folks who seemed to be trying desperately to be a Serious Film despite the fact that the characters were singing. But ITW is trickier in terms of story because of the structure meant to hide what they couldn’t feasibly show in a theatre.
I mean, both “I Know Things Now” and “Giants in the Sky” are basically narrative songs, describing what’s just happened; they’re also two of the most awkwardly filmed songs (along with, alas, “Agony”–why were the princes frolicking in a stream?!). I haven’t seen ITW live, unfortunately, but it seems to me those can be staged just with the interaction between the characters; the decision to show the flashbacks was just distracting. (It worked a bit towards the end of “Giants in the Sky”, but there was way too much screen time of Jack climbing the beanstalk and Jack climbing the tree…) “Agony,” too, suffered from trying to give the characters something to do, rather than letting them interact with each other sort of naturally–the best bits were not the princes jumping around the waterfall, but playing off each others’ body language. Some of that’s in performance, too, of course (Anna Kendrick and Emily Blunt both managed to make some clunky choreography in solo scenes seem naturalistic–but also in more typical musical theatre songs, commenting on the emotional impact of recent events, rather than describing those events after they’ve happened).
But I teared up during No One Is Alone, so clearly they did something right :)
There’s a recording of the Broadway cast performance available streaming on Amazon.
“I Know Things Now” was much more awkward than it needed to be, in the movie. It was originally staged as being sung from inside the wolf, so it was “These are the things I’m feeling now,” rather than “These are the things I was feeling a few minutes ago.” But I really felt that the casting choices (actual kid for Little Red, and guy old enough to be her grandfather for the Wolf) removed a whole lot of the point of that song — every staging I’ve ever seen, it’s done as a sort of sexual awakening metaphor — “He’s scary, but I kind of liked that, and what am I feeling here?” — but there was no way to do that with this casting without it being gross. (I was discussing better casting with some of my friends, and after considering a couple of people where that kind of reaction from a 13-year-old would be appropriate — a Jonas brother, or Zac Efron, or Taylor Lautner if he can sing, or one of the One Direction guys — we hit on the idea of traumatizing an entire generation by casting Daniel Radcliffe, and I still think that would have been perfect casting.)
Briefly. The Prince rescued her from the island, and then they rode off to … somewhere.
There was a Broadway revival a few years ago with Vanessa Williams as the Witch.
I quite liked Meryl Streep as the witch as well. I was surprised by her singing, in fact–didn’t remember it being that good in Mamma Mia!. I wasn’t sure about Chris Pine in Agony, but he really nailed Any Moment.
Actually, a question about the stage show: do Jack and Red go to live with the Baker in the stage show? Because while I can see that their songs work better with older protagonists (and I think, probably, they should’ve been rewritten here, or at least, um, re-lyriced?) the bit where they go to live with the Baker would probably also read different on screen if they were closer to 18 than 12.
Ruchama, still laughing about the idea of Daniel Radcliffe in that part…
(And I did know about the recording of the B’way cast, but haven’t gotten a chance to see it yet, alas.)
(Now I’m wondering if I use “alas” so often when I’m writing in other locations, or if the name of the blog subtly influences me!)
The original casting of Little Red was Sophia Grace Brownlee, which would have just been terrible. I’m glad they went with a kid who was at least a little older and had actual musical theatre experience (Lilla Crawford was Annie on Broadway a few years ago.)
They do have Little Red and Jack go to live with the Baker at the end of the musical. The musical casting allows for some flexibility, though — they usually cast people in their late teens, but have them act much younger for most of the show. Having the older actors allows them to go to more mature themes when they need to, though. Stuff like that works fine on stage, but I think it would have looked silly in a movie to have an 18-year-old acting 10.
I hate to disagree with Harlequin, but I thought staging “Agony” on a waterfall was wonderfully over-the-top (especially when the brothers tore open their shirts). The entire theater was loudly cracking up, so at least in Portland, we’re pro-waterfall.
In a live staging, “I Know Things Now” and “Giants in the Sky” are both staged without flashbacks (in the productions I’ve seen). Also, at least in the original Broadway cast, “I Know Things Now” is basically a monologue to the audience, rather than being directed at the Baker as it was in the movie. That changed it somehow, although I can’t quite put my finger on why it mattered.
* * *
Ruchama, you’ve misremembered the staging of “I Know Things Now” in the original production – the song was written to be told after-the-fact, and as far as I know there’s no this-is-happening-now version of the lyrics. But you’re very much right about the song being a sexual awakening metaphor.
I think they should have had the kid characters look, dress and act as 15 or 16 year olds, and gone with a younger (but still adult) actor for the Wolf. Daniel Radcliffe is a hilarious and wonderful idea! LOL!
The tearing-open-the shirts moment was one of the things I was thinking of when I referred to mirrored body language. :) I guess, maybe, it’s not the waterfall I object to so much as the choreography: some of it was funny, some of it was…why are they climbing vines now?? It seemed like they felt they had to give the actors something to do, rather than letting them play off each other in a more natural way, even though they were great when they were playing off each other. Perhaps I’m just being miserly…
I just now noticed that Jack was also Gavroche. And Frances de la Tour has now been a giantess in 40% of the things I’ve seen her in…
Hmm. I’ll have to watch the Broadway version again, but I’m almost certain they changed:
“So we wait in the dark
Until someone sets us free,
And we’re brought into the light,
And we’re back at the start.”
into past tense — something like “So we waited in the dark, ’til you came and set us free…” I remember being kind of thrown out of it because the rhythm didn’t quite work. The song before that was always past tense.
I think it’s because, the original way, she was working through her own feelings — you can do stuff like “excited — well, excited and scared” when you’re talking to yourself. Kind of the little things that you might admit to yourself but you know you’re not supposed to say. It just sounded weird to have those little moments when she was talking to someone else, since in all of her interactions with the Baker other than that one, she was somewhat sly and hiding things and definitely not saying everything she was feeling.
New Jersey’s Christmas-movie Jews were also pro-waterfall. That scene got a ton of laughs.
I missed “Ever After.” I felt like that song gave a nice conclusion to the first act, and also a good transition between the acts. I didn’t think that the wedding scene was enough of a transition. Did they do the “Once upon a time…” bit at the beginning of Act II? I can’t remember. I mostly found Act I enjoyable (except for the Wolf), but Act II was where it fell apart for me. That was where it really started feeling like a series of disjointed scenes, rather than anything thematic, and I think the lack of “Ever After” (and, to a lesser extent, “So Happy”) and “No More” was a big part of that — they kind of bookended the “Yay! Fairy tale magic!” and “Oh, crap. Magic means deadly giants and curses and all of that, too,” ideas.
3) Say, was it just me, or did the Witch’s exit seem less like she got her powers back and teleported away from this mess (which is what happens to her in the stage show), and more like she died by being sucked into a tar pit?
Not just you. I thought it was an odd choice.
There’s a recording of the Broadway cast performance available streaming on Amazon.
OMG thank you for letting me know that. I know what I’m agitating to watch tonight at our little NYE house party.
I am not sure whether it’s safe for me to go see this in the theatre. I played Little Red back in the day (when I was… 19? 20?) and I am afraid I’d sing along with all the songs, and then get pissed about what’s missing.
This is my first exposure to “Into the Woods.” I could not read the wolf’s song as being about anything but child molestation. And then to have that assault portrayed as a “sexual awakening” (scary but exciting??) was very off-putting. In general I was pretty skeeved out by the movie.
Johnny Depp is not white.
Me, too! I enjoyed it about as much as I enjoy most other musicals-turned-movie – even without Chinese food.
I didn’t experience nearly as much frustration as I did with the Les Miz movie — in part because I have never loved Into the Woods as much as Les Miz. I’ve seen (and worked on) various productions of the show. I love its moments. I really enjoy its message on an intellectual level. But somehow for me it has never added up to a powerful show on a visceral level. Sondheim is famous as the troubadour of ambivalence, and Into the Woods abounds with ambivalence. Yet I enjoy singing “Do You Hear the People Sing” more than “Steps of the Palace.”
Why did the movie differ so much from the show? All the usual reasons – but most prominently, to cut its length by about a third! It was inevitable that songs and storylines would be eliminated and shortened.
My hero in the show was always the Mysterious Man/Father – a character all but eliminated from the movie.
The Baker ends up being the (most) central protagonist. Many stories depict the chief protagonist at a dramatic point of decision. (Think “Defying Gravity” or “Let It Go” or, oh, every third song in Les Mis.) In contrast, the Into the Woods stage show has the Baker sings “No More” – a despairing song of his exhaustion in the effort to cope. Intellectually I understand this to take the place of the dramatic resolution song; he would thereafter resolve to fight back, not run. But the song has another purpose: it demonstrates his coming to terms with a father he had never identified with, and thus never forgiven. His father had also felt overwhelmed under somewhat similar circumstances. So intellectually, I get it. Yet viscerally, it’s BOR-ING. So I can’t say I’m surprised it got cut from the movie.
Alas, the Baker’s song is coupled with the Father’s song “Running Away,” which I find delightful. So “Running Away” became collateral damage.
Uh … no.
I don’t get people’s beef w/ Depp. He performed the role better than any I can recall seeing – and I saw the show when it opened on Broadway. (To be fair, I can barely remember that production.) I don’t recall it being a vocally demanding part. It’s just a creepy part, and Depp delivers creepy as well as anyone. Maybe I need to see that Amazon version.
And I was blown away by Streep’s singing. Was that really her voice? She’s come a long way since Momma Mia!
I understand the words of “I Know Things Now” as a kind of sexual awakening, but perhaps just because I expect any young female role in a fairy tale to involve sexual awakening. But I don’t find Little Red’s song especially upsetting on that basis; following the Wolf’s song, my Discom-Fo-Meter is pretty much maxed out.
It had not occurred to me that the Wolf would be depicted as young as Little Red (or that Little Red would be as old as the Wolf). Maybe that would give the dynamic between them some different dimensions.
I had the good-/misfortune of seeing a production with a Little Red Riding Hood that has ruined me for all other Little Reds. She was a college student, but played the role quite young. She just has such a HUGE personality, with a brassy, loud voice and a sense of entitlement that never stopped. She dominated every scene she appeared in – she obviously dominated the Baker – but also seemed like a fair match for the Wolf. Or the Giant.
Insightful!
I disagree. You’re right that in the stage productions, these songs are delivered as characters regaling others with their tales. We’re accustomed to that on stage — but would grow weary of that on film, when we’re accustomed to seeing camera angles change every 7 seconds. I thought Jack’s stuff was entirely appropriate — and much more interesting than just watching him tell his story. And I even liked Little Red’s flashback. It was campy but fun!
Not as young as Little Red, but young enough that her having some kind of attraction to him would make sense. Young teenage girls often have crushes on actors and singers in their early twenties. The last time 12-year-old girls were fawning over Johnny Depp was when I was 12. There needs to be SOMETHING there to justify the “and he made me feel excited” parts.
I would have preferred an older Little Red — closer to 16 or so. But, if they were set on casting her this young, then I think they needed a younger Wolf. (And the original casting was even younger — I think Sophia Grace Brownlee was about 10 at the time.)
I hate to disagree with Harlequin, but I thought staging “Agony” on a waterfall was wonderfully over-the-top (especially when the brothers tore open their shirts). The entire theater was loudly cracking up, so at least in Portland, we’re pro-waterfall.
I agree with all this. I think that the waterfall worked well with the over-the-top body language, etc.
Cutting the “Agony” reprise may not have changed the plot all that much, but cutting it allowed Rapunzel’s prince to be The Good Prince instead of basically the same as his brother. (Also, I was disappointed that they didn’t cast the same actor as the wolf and Cinderella’s prince, as is traditionally done, which highlights the similarities between the two.) That change plus the change where Rapunzel apparently survives and is not traumatized by her upbringing lowered the stakes for the witch, but also took the witch’s ability to think that she was right to lock up Rapunzel because the world is a dangerous place and Rapunzel DID die. Still, I think I like the original version better, because it makes the witch seem more morally ambiguous, and because the reason the witch was wrong to lock up Rapunzel is certainly not that she was wrong about the world being a dangerous place.
When I watched the movie, I was like, “wait, I don’t think the witch dies at the end, does she?” Shortly after seeing the movie I watched the DVD with Bernadette Peters again, and she does sink down into the floor, and I thought “maybe she is supposed to be understood as dying”. I’m not actually sure what’s supposed to be happening. Maybe we’re not supposed to be sure.
I think that in a lot of movies (I think this movie isn’t the best example; Frozen might be a better one) you can make a good case that an all-white cast makes sense, and the way to get a diverse representation of actors is in movies that are set in different times/places, rather than adding them to that particular movie. I don’t think you can make that argument about your movie while also throwing in some token POC in crowd scenes (as this movie and Frozen and a bunch of others do).
In the DVD with Bernadette Peters, Little Red Riding Hood is cast with a not-thin actress, and I felt kind of ambivalent, since her typical-kid greediness about sweets can read as a fat joke with that casting (but ambivalent because, at least there’s a bit of body diversity). It was nice to see a not-thin actor in one of the roles that was not Little Red Riding Hood.
I agree, this movie isn’t a good example; once you’ve decided to have characters who are obviously from different centuries (or at least, obviously do their clothing shopping in different centuries) interact, the “it wouldn’t be realistic to have any non-white characters” argument seems arbitrary.
However, I think there’s a good argument that a movie like Frozen should have had diverse characters as well.
First of all, there’s no reason to be limited by “realism” in casting a magical fairy tale movie set in a fictional country.
Second of all, even if we want to do a “realistic” casting in Frozen, that doesn’t mean all-white. If the fictional country of Frozen is based on Denmark (as it appears to be) – Denmark isn’t 100% white, and hasn’t been for centuries. (This is true of most of the European countries Disney has set its animated films in.)
Third, Frozen includes a Sami character, Kristoff. There certainly are Sami who are light-skinned and very blonde, as Kristoff was, so there’s nothing inaccurate about how they drew Kristoff. However, there are also Sami who don’t appear white by US standards, and Kristoff could have been “cast” that way with equal accuracy.
Good point.
Not to digress to Frozen, but here’s a neat collection of “racebent” fan drawings of Frozen characters.
@16 – Johnny Depp is not white.
Yeah, he really, really is.
Re: Red and the Wolf, Danielle Ferland was 16 when she originated the role on Broadway, and Robert Westenberg was 36. Red and Jack were both written as of indeterminate age, but as being on the verge of that transition from a child’s view of the world (very black and white, good people get what they deserve and bad people get comeuppance, etc.) to an adult’s “awakening” – bad things happen to good people, good and evil are complicated and don’t always sort into neat little boxes, etc.
Red’s storyline with the Wolf has overtones of danger – both the literal danger of “wild animal versus human,” but also the more implied danger of “seduction of the innocent.” The Wolf is bursting the bubble of her childhood by proving that bad things can happen to good people, that staying “on the path” doesn’t necessarily protect you, that being protected isn’t necessarily a good thing because it keeps you ignorant of the complex dangers and opportunities out in the world, but also that “experience for the sake of experience” isn’t necessarily a great idea either, because everything has a price. You learn new things but you feel jaded, the world is disappointing or frightening, you and others get hurt: opportunities have costs. And so whereas childhood means you can see decisions as simple – do what’s expected of me, or rebel? listen to others, or shut them out? – adulthood means that decisions are much harder. Does the good of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Is “sadder but wiser” worth it? And so on.
All of which is to say, playing Jack and Red as pre-teens is a bad decision because it flattens out the complexities of their journeys by making the audience focus mostly on the dangers to them, rather than seeing the costs of safety (you can’t stay a child forever and live in the world) and the benefits of growth (at least you get wiser even if you do get sadder).
Amp:
I guess “there’s no reason to be limited by “realism” in casting a magical fairy tale movie set in a fictional country” isn’t exactly how I’d put it. I think that you can get a certain feeling or atmosphere from basing a fictional setting closely on a real one. (There’s a bit of a continuum there–Frozen is set in a more specific place than Into the Woods is, but I’ve seen other works go further.) But there are still ways to do that without having an all-white cast. As you point out, simply being truly realistic about what races were present would help. Setting it among Inuit people (as some of that very nice fanart does!) would be one option. But you could also a choose more cosmopolitan setting–in the case of Frozen, you could argue that the capital city, with a seaport, already is a cosmopolitan setting, and that especially during the queen’s coronation, they would have some visiting foreign dignitaries from far-enough countries to get some racial diversity. (In the case of Frozen, though, the two existing foreigner characters are the bad guys, Hans and the Duke of Weaseltown, and I can see why they didn’t want to make them POC.)
TL:DR–I think aiming for realism can be valuable, but there are usually ways to achieve realism while avoiding an all-white cast. The reasons why people think it would not be realistic often have to do with underestimating historical racial diversity.
I was thinking about what kinds of POC castings you would NOT want to do in Into the Woods, and the most problematic I could think of is casting The Wolf as black, and everyone else/everyone else except Cinderella’s prince as white.
I’ve always interpreted the witch’s departure as her mother dragging her off somewhere to be punished for losing the beans rather than as her own magic. Bernadette Peters’ scream in the original production makes much more sense that way.
Is it just me, or is it the case that “Into the Woods”, as a show, doesn’t actually contain particularly memorable music? There’s no one song that turns into an earworm and sticks with me. Most of the songs seem to function to advance the narrative rather than to be a song that you sing to yourself as you leave the theater…
So, I saw the movie.
I kind of regret losing the reprise of “Agony” in the film – it shows that the Princes also weren’t happy having gotten what they wished for, because they were only interested in chasing the unobtainable rather than in being with a real person. Once the Princes actually *had* Cinderella and Rapunzel, they stopped being interesting.
And is it just me, or was “Children Will Listen” something of a bust? They have the Baker’s Wife singing it over the Baker telling his story to his infant son, so it’s almost like background music rather than a finale that makes an important point.
It’s just not a hummable melody?
Yes, exactly! It’s dramatic and even moving at times, but not “hummable.” (Is that a famous statement?)
It’s a line from “Merrily We Roll Along,” another Sondheim show, in which a struggling songwriting team plays their score for a producer, and he responds (Joe is the producer, Charley is the composer):
JOE
That’s great. That’s swell.
The other stuff as well.
It isn’t every day
I hear a score this strong
But fellas, if I may,
There’s only one thing wrong:
There’s not a tune you can hum.
There’s not a tune you go bum-bum-bum-di-dum.
You need a tune you can bum-bum-bum-di-dum ?
Give me a melody!
Why can’t you throw ’em a crumb?
What’s wrong with letting ’em tap their toes a bit?
I’ll let you know when Stravinsky has a hit ?
Give me some melody!
Oh sure, I know,
It’s not that kind of show.
But can’t you have a score
That’s sort of in between?
Look, play a little more,
I’ll show you what I mean ?
CHARLEY
“Who wants to live in New York?
I always hated the dirt, the heat, the noise.
But ever since I met you, I ? ”
JOE
Listen, boys,
Maybe it’s me,
But that’s just not a hummmmmmmmmmmmmable melody!
(as he leaves)
Write more, work hard ?
Leave your name with the girl.
Less avant-garde ?
Leave your name with the girl.
Just write a plain old melodee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee ?
Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee ?
Sondheim was essentially mocking a pretty common criticism of his own music, which is exactly what you said — you don’t come out of his shows whistling any of the tunes.
“Send in the Clowns” being the startling exception.
Is it just me, or is it the case that “Into the Woods”, as a show, doesn’t actually contain particularly memorable music?
You don’t get earwormed by the theme song??
I think the title song earworm is probably stronger in the musical than in the film, since the musical repeats it approximately 700 times, while the musical keeps it to just the opening and closing.
Here’s a clip of the song I was quoting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5OI8xlM-a0
Heh. I love that clip, Ruchama.
As well as the title song, I’ve always found “I Know Things Now” and “Your Fault/Last Midnight” very earwormable. Part of that may be how often I’ve listened to the album of ITW, though. Sondheim often says that the main thing that makes a song “hummable” is repetition during the show (both in the form of reprises and in the form of super-extended songs), and he usually finds that sort of repetition boring.
Sondheim’s songs also tend to have pretty complicated rhythms, which interfere with hummability. (I’ve got a bit of a stutter, and when I was younger, I realized that I didn’t stutter at all when I sang, and that, if I sang for a while, something where I really had to concentrate on breathing and phrasing, then I’d stutter a lot less for a little while afterwards, because I’d keep up the habit of focusing on the breathing and phrasing even when I was speaking. The effect wore off after a while, but since my stutter embarrassed me when I had to give a presentation in class, I’d always try to time things so that I’d have time to shut myself away somewhere and sing along to either Into the Woods or Merrily just before I gave the presentation. I can probably sing both of them straight through from memory by now. Little Red’s songs are perfectly in my range, so I know hers the best, which is why the changed verse in “I Know Things Now” jumped out at me so much.) (Nowadays, I’ve realized that my students don’t really care if I stutter, as long as they can understand what I’m saying, so if I stutter while I’m teaching, I just get through it, repeat the sentence, and continue, and none of my students have ever said anything about it.)
Hmm, the rhythm interfering with hummability is interesting. I find much, though not all, of Jason Robert Brown’s work very earwormy, but the rhythms are actually pretty complex; it’s just that they somehow mimic English speaking patterns so it’s not so noticeable. (Basically, singing a song of his you’ve heard is easy; singing one directly from the sheet music is difficult.)
I suppose I’ll have to stand alone in my little “the waterfall scene was silly” corner. :D
Yeah, “Last Midnight” is indeed a song that sticks with you… I sort of wanted more of it…
Yes, the waterfall was indeed silly, but it seemed appropriately silly…
I just got back from seeing it and really enjoyed it. I also thought there wasn’t enough transition between what were Act 1 and 2 in the musical, and the whole sense of “We got what we wanted and it wasn’t what we thought” was totally missing.
I *loved* the waterfall scene because it was so over the top and ridiculous.
And yeah, I also thought the witch died being sucked into a tar pit.
I avoided reading any reviews before seeing this film, so I’d have no expectations or prejudices. And in the opening moments, I thought I’d been rewarded. This was clearly nothing typical from Hollywood. The characters in period dress, singing their dialog, and the surprise of seeing Tracey Uhlman! I was delighted to see her attached to this project. It bode well! The camera focused on the actors, and not the CGI. Since I knew nothing of the story, I wondered if it would be another LES MISERABLES. But as it unfolded, the “sing-song” lyrics that I hoped would evolve into grand musical numbers got a bit tiresome, and a slow leak began to hiss from my enthusiasm. It needed more…something. OK, so we’ve been introduced to childhood fairy tale themes, and maybe they’re going to weave them together somehow. Well they attempted to, but not in an imaginative way. Merle Streep as the witch. I thought there might have been a dash of Margaret Hamilton in her initial appearance, but no…Streep was taking it elsewhere. The first glimmer of genuine music came with Johnny Depp as The Big Bad Wolf. Cheesy makeup, but I can overlook that, the scene still works. I thought Chris Pine as the Prince was the stand-out performance. My guess is that this characterization is what the screenwriters had in mind for the entire project…funny, hammy, over the top, but enjoyable. And consistent. But the other characters, with their occasional surprisingly bad dialog, never attained it. Streep’s performance became irritating. The other characters bounced between light comedy and out-of-place drama. I gave up any hope of this being an actual musical, and over half-way through, the sing-songy dialog ceased all together, for no apparent reason. It was like the assistant director took over while the big guy went to lunch. Eventually, we the audience stumbled out of a forest of confusion, and see what looks like the end of the story. I resisted looking at my watch the whole time, and thought, well that wasn’t bad, but…wrong. The story plunged back into an irritating forest of heavy-handed seriousness, with thorns of what again attempted to be musical dialog. I had had enough. This could have been spin on the PRINCESS BRIDE, but it got LOST (somewhere) IN TRANSLATION. On the plus side, I was impressed that this thing got the green light from an industry that loves formulaic stories that at least promise to get production costs back. I hope they will with this one. Thirty minutes too long, and btw…Stephen Sondheim? Really?