August Rush
Kirsten Sheridan's new film AUGUST RUSH has gotten a critical thrashing, likely due in no small part to her being the product of nepotism to some degree as her father is the acclaimed director Jim Sheridan of MY LEFT FOOT, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, and the Sheridan father-daughters collaboration IN AMERICA.
However, petty jealousies aside, at a certain point, as a viewer and reviewer, one must let the work stand on its own, apart from the films of the father or any help he might have given his offspring's ability to burst into feature filmmaking.
While not as magical as it wishes to be and stretching the bounds of believability more than once, AUGUST RUSH has its own merits as a musical fantasy. Following the unfairly disregarded ONCE, this is the second film this year to feature the Irish and the power of music. Only 31, Kirsten Sheridan is a Dublin native (setting of ONCE), and has crafted a film that speaks to the ability of music to find us, bind and connect us, regardless of our place of birth or current whereabouts. What many reviewers seem to be missing is that she has made a film that freely acknowledges its fantastical roots.
Of note, Sheridan did not write this screenplay which is instead credited to James V. Hart (BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, CONTACT and HOOK) with story and screenplay credit to Nick Castle (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK) and story also by relative newcomer Paul Castro. Does one see a common theme among, at least, CONTACT, HOOK, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, DRACULA, and AUGUST RUSH? Yes, they are all based in fantasy worlds, wholly separate from reality, making no bones about their setting.
Like IN AMERICA, which was an autobiographical account of the Sheridan family's stay in New York, Kirsten Sheridan has created an unreal New York where squatters live in the Fillmore East, and artful dodgers populate Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, playing guitar for coins instead of snatching them, all working for a modern day Fagin, curiously played by Robin Williams in one of his more infrequent serious roles, this time playing the shady Wizard.
That orphaned August Rush can unite his separated parents from the remote locales of San Francisco and Chicago, immediately master any instrument he plays, and conduct a Central Park Juilliard-driven symphony all within six months time further speaks to Sheridan's obvious pushing of her imaginative worlds on her audience. Whatever filmgoers took these elements to be too large a stretch of imagination probably failed to comprehend the magical qualities, arguable as to their success, that Sheridan aimed for in her depictions.
That said, Sheridan is a competent director of her actors, as she showed in delivering another knockout performance from Freddie Highmore (FINDING NEVERLAND) who is just 15 and can seemingly play any role. In other parts, her adult actors give fine readings and ably tell her story. Any issue taken with their seriousness in going forth with Sheridan's narrative is also likely a case of reviewing what is not on the screen in lieu of merely what has been put there.
Far from perfect and sometimes too syrupy for its own good, like ONCE, this film should resonate with any potential viewers who have ever held an instrument or listened to their headphones late at night and been transported to another reality.
Tim Burton’s Nightmares
REVIEW OF SWEENEY TODD – THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
At a telling dramatic point in Tim Burton’s new film adaptation of the 1979 Broadway horror-musical, SWEENEY TODD, a main character states that she doesn’t have dreams — only nightmares. As he has once again brought his idiosyncratically branded gothic vision to the screen, the same could likely be said about Burton himself.
With this, his 13th (!) feature film as director, Burton conveys what could be his most complete vision of his unmistakably bleak bleached worlds to film. SWEENEY TODD spiritually follows his other fully-realized gothic works, namely aspects of BEETLEJUICE and EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, BATMAN and BATMAN RETURNS, the entirety of NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and ED WOOD, and even more fully and most pronounced in SLEEPY HOLLOW. One is hard pressed to name directors with any type of specific stamp on a large body of their films, let alone one which communicates the cinematic power and emotional connection of a particularly dark and simultaneously beautiful universe. Through his career, Burton has regularly scored on both counts.
In SWEENEY TODD, it is all there in full force – the darkly clouded skies above a grimy Victorian London; the washed out haunting faces of the lead actors, accented by darkly circled eyes; the inventive camera position and moves, framing the action as if it were a portrait in Burton’s mind; and, of course, the perfectly fitting Burton onscreen alter-ego persona of Johnny Depp, now appearing in his sixth Burton project. Again, Depp fully inhabits Burton’s world and manifests Burton’s quirky picture of cinematic fantasy.
Burton has always made creative and somewhat unconventional choices with his casts, but he has learned to fluidly express himself through Depp, both a convincing actor and weighty onscreen presence. Like Scorsese and DeNiro, Burton and Depp complement each other in the best sense and have formed that rare creative partnership which seems to work regardless of the roles that the director poses to his lead actor.
Unexpectedly, let it be said that SWEENEY TODD is, via Stephen Sondheim’s songs, a musical first, but is also a slasher film in the truest sense of the word. Razors slash away at unwitting victim’s throats with regularity, and Burton doesn’t spare on offering his goriest and bloodiest film yet, to say nothing of the dungeon-esque basement below Depp’s character’s demonic barber shop.
Audiences not anticipating a musical may be surprised to find most of SWEENEY TODD sung both in song and dialogue, but more often than not, Sondheim’s music provides an ideal counterpoint to Burton’s mystical scenes, though not as effectively as, for one, NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. In fact, the group of songs is the one element that comes across as not fully produced of Burton’s own volition, as opposed to Danny Elfman’s usual slot in Burton’s features. Nevertheless, Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and a few new young faces make the most of their turns with the sung material.
Ultimately, SWEENEY TODD plays like the best of Burton’s films, especially including SCISSORHANDS, NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, and ED WOOD, in their ability to coalesce as the select masterworks of a truly visionary director. Both gorgeously grotesque and delightfully horrible, SWEENEY TODD further elevates the Burton canon of personal films into a league that is wholly his own.
Scott Essman is currently writing a book about the career of Tim Burton for Praeger Publishing.
Scott Essman
VISIONARY MEDIA
scottessman@yahoo.com
P.O. Box 1722 Glendora, CA 91740
Ph 1 (626) 963-0635
FX 1 (626) 608-0309
August Rush
