I feel as if I should begin this with a bit of a caveat: I genuinely do enjoy musicals. I love Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Cry Baby, A Nightmare Before Christmas, and The Blues Brothers.
As a narrative form, the musical is a great way to give us an insight into the motivations of a particular character. It provides us an inner monologue without having to contrive a reason for them to orate to another character, or force us into a voice over. The character is simply overwhelmed and breaks into song, giving us all the exposition we need. The musical form creates the context at the outset, and in and of itself answers the question of “Why?” We accept it because it is a musical.
That being said, I felt Into the Woods failed to tell a good story and was mired in its translation from stage to screen. Bogged down rather than enhanced by its narrative form, the film left me cold.
Into the Woods shows us a different story interwoven with traditional fairy tales. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Bean Stalk and Rapunzel all tie into the new story of a baker and his wife. A witch has cursed the baker's house, declaring that no child shall ever be born within those walls. The witch gives the baker an out, and tells the couple that they can remove the curse if they bring the witch four items: a cape as red as blood, a cow as white as milk, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold by midnight of the blue moon. It's essentially a new spin on old stories.
Unfortunately for the narrative of Into the Woods, this is not something new. In recent years there have been numerous times where the traditional fairy tale has been updated and modernized, told from a different angle, and/or “re-imagined,” (a phrase I particularly loathe.) Between Wicked, Maleficent, Once Upon a Time, and the new Hansel and Gretel, we have been given new angles on the villains of the old tales, a new world where they all co-exist in the same world, and a world where they are turned into action heroes. The new take on the old fairy tale is no longer something interesting and unique, it has become common place. Now I acknowledge that Into the Woods was originally performed in 1986 on Broadway, and at that time it may have been a little more unique. But by this time even if the audience hasn't read Bill Willingham's Fables, they have seen more than enough fairy tale re-treads.
Read more (there's even a wrestling reference) after the jump!
As a narrative form, the musical is a great way to give us an insight into the motivations of a particular character. It provides us an inner monologue without having to contrive a reason for them to orate to another character, or force us into a voice over. The character is simply overwhelmed and breaks into song, giving us all the exposition we need. The musical form creates the context at the outset, and in and of itself answers the question of “Why?” We accept it because it is a musical.
That being said, I felt Into the Woods failed to tell a good story and was mired in its translation from stage to screen. Bogged down rather than enhanced by its narrative form, the film left me cold.
Into the Woods shows us a different story interwoven with traditional fairy tales. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Bean Stalk and Rapunzel all tie into the new story of a baker and his wife. A witch has cursed the baker's house, declaring that no child shall ever be born within those walls. The witch gives the baker an out, and tells the couple that they can remove the curse if they bring the witch four items: a cape as red as blood, a cow as white as milk, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold by midnight of the blue moon. It's essentially a new spin on old stories.
Unfortunately for the narrative of Into the Woods, this is not something new. In recent years there have been numerous times where the traditional fairy tale has been updated and modernized, told from a different angle, and/or “re-imagined,” (a phrase I particularly loathe.) Between Wicked, Maleficent, Once Upon a Time, and the new Hansel and Gretel, we have been given new angles on the villains of the old tales, a new world where they all co-exist in the same world, and a world where they are turned into action heroes. The new take on the old fairy tale is no longer something interesting and unique, it has become common place. Now I acknowledge that Into the Woods was originally performed in 1986 on Broadway, and at that time it may have been a little more unique. But by this time even if the audience hasn't read Bill Willingham's Fables, they have seen more than enough fairy tale re-treads.
Read more (there's even a wrestling reference) after the jump!
Disney takes the bold choice of casting Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, and Tracy Ullman, among other accomplished Broadway actors, giving us more of the same old, same old. Maybe cast someone who isn't a white person who can do an English accent if you want to shake up the tradition?
As far as the musical aspect of the film, it appears that Into the Woods suffers from its translation from Broadway to the screen. Not only has it come in well behind the trend of revisited fairy tales, it also wears its stage pedigree on its sleeve, to the detriment of the narrative. Everything is so much “tell” and not nearly enough “show.” In a stage performance, showing the audience everything is difficult, as the stage has many limits. The film narrative doesn't necessarily suffer from these limitations, so when we are told that something really interesting and exciting has happened off screen and we aren't shown what it was, it just feels lazy.
Not only that, I also felt that there were only a few actual musical numbers in the film, most of it being just sing-talking. Now, credit where credit is due, the song “Agony!” where the two princes are trying to one up one another is pretty great. It is funny and gives us all we need to know about the characters and their motivations. Design-wise, I personally had trouble with Johnny Depp as the Big Bad Wolf. The design they chose deliberately invoked the old Tex Avery cartoon Red Hot Riding Hood which featured a very sexy Red Riding Hood singing a sexually charged song about a wolf, and the Wolf in the cartoon losing his mind. Eyes popping out, tongue lolling, howling, smashing himself with a giant hammer, all because Red Riding Hood was incredibly sexy. In this narrative, Depp as the Big Bad Wolf was given a zoot suit and very little makeup to indicate that he was in fact an animal. It's basically Depp with stylized eyebrows and a crappy mustache. In addition, his song seems very sexually charged. “Look at that flesh, tender and plump! Hello little girl!” The lines are all delivered with a leering undertone. Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods is clearly around 10 or 11 years old. So not only is the song just a little rapey, it's sung to a child! That just gave me the jibblies.
With a fractured and poorly constructed plot, unremarkable musical numbers, and a bunch of accomplished, serious white actors being very serious about ACTING, Into the Woods leaves a lot to be desired. It made the translation from the stage to the screen almost 30 years too late, and suffers for it immensely.
I'm sure Disney fans will enjoy it, if only to mark out for their favorite fairy tale characters. “Oh man, that's Cinderella! I know who she is! Yay!!” It's like when WWE wheels out Hulk Hogan, and I am supposed to super excited to see 60-year-old man fumble around at something he was good at 30 years ago when all I really want to see is Sami Zayn wrestle Cesaro. Okay, with that I managed to make an incredibly inside professional wrestling reference in a review for a Disney musical. Merry Christmas, everyone!
--Eric Harrelson
As far as the musical aspect of the film, it appears that Into the Woods suffers from its translation from Broadway to the screen. Not only has it come in well behind the trend of revisited fairy tales, it also wears its stage pedigree on its sleeve, to the detriment of the narrative. Everything is so much “tell” and not nearly enough “show.” In a stage performance, showing the audience everything is difficult, as the stage has many limits. The film narrative doesn't necessarily suffer from these limitations, so when we are told that something really interesting and exciting has happened off screen and we aren't shown what it was, it just feels lazy.
Not only that, I also felt that there were only a few actual musical numbers in the film, most of it being just sing-talking. Now, credit where credit is due, the song “Agony!” where the two princes are trying to one up one another is pretty great. It is funny and gives us all we need to know about the characters and their motivations. Design-wise, I personally had trouble with Johnny Depp as the Big Bad Wolf. The design they chose deliberately invoked the old Tex Avery cartoon Red Hot Riding Hood which featured a very sexy Red Riding Hood singing a sexually charged song about a wolf, and the Wolf in the cartoon losing his mind. Eyes popping out, tongue lolling, howling, smashing himself with a giant hammer, all because Red Riding Hood was incredibly sexy. In this narrative, Depp as the Big Bad Wolf was given a zoot suit and very little makeup to indicate that he was in fact an animal. It's basically Depp with stylized eyebrows and a crappy mustache. In addition, his song seems very sexually charged. “Look at that flesh, tender and plump! Hello little girl!” The lines are all delivered with a leering undertone. Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods is clearly around 10 or 11 years old. So not only is the song just a little rapey, it's sung to a child! That just gave me the jibblies.
With a fractured and poorly constructed plot, unremarkable musical numbers, and a bunch of accomplished, serious white actors being very serious about ACTING, Into the Woods leaves a lot to be desired. It made the translation from the stage to the screen almost 30 years too late, and suffers for it immensely.
I'm sure Disney fans will enjoy it, if only to mark out for their favorite fairy tale characters. “Oh man, that's Cinderella! I know who she is! Yay!!” It's like when WWE wheels out Hulk Hogan, and I am supposed to super excited to see 60-year-old man fumble around at something he was good at 30 years ago when all I really want to see is Sami Zayn wrestle Cesaro. Okay, with that I managed to make an incredibly inside professional wrestling reference in a review for a Disney musical. Merry Christmas, everyone!
--Eric Harrelson
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