Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street June 17, 2011

In choosing to film Stephen Sondheim's dark and audacious 1979 Broadway hit Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Tim Burton not only made one of the most successful screen musicals of the last 10 years, he also brought to life a character who is, even for Burton, an extreme outsider. Johnny Depp's Todd—whose factual existence is debated but whose legend dates from the early 1800s—is a man consumed with grief and driven by revenge: returning from years at sea to a London he views as a cesspool, Todd re-establishes himself as a barber par excellence in an upper atelier that he rents from Mrs. Lovett (Bonham Carter), the slatternly proprietress of a meat pie shop. Though furtive and withdrawn, the glowering Todd does not long escape the romantic attentions of his avaricious landlady who will stop at nothing to peddle her foul pies to a dwindling clientele. In an alliance made in hell, Todd and Mrs. Lovett stumble onto a scheme designed to satisfy his bloodlust while saving her failing business.

This program is in conjunction with the current Tim Burton exhibition on view at LACMA.

Official Website: http://www.lacma.org/event/sweeney-todd