THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
presents
AN EVENING WITH
TIM BURTON
CINEMA’S DEMON BARBER
November 14, 2007
8:00pm
Frederick R Rose Hull
Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center
CINEMA’S DEMON BARBER
Witty, often elegant and always unpredictable, the films of Tim Burton have created a special niche for themselves within contemporary cinema. A born spinner of tall tales, whose subjects have ranged from Martians to Z-list Hollywood directors to, now; the Demon barber of fleet Street, Burton takes audiences places they’d never thought they’d go—and in ways they couldn’t have imagined. We’re delighted to welcome Tim Burton for an evening of conversation, clips featuring some of the greatest moments from his films, and a “first look” at footage from his eagerly anticipated screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon barber of Fleet Street, marking his sixth collaboration with Johnny Depp.
Richard Pena
Program Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center
From the dark, Gothic imagination of director Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp comes Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a bloody tale of music, murder, melodrama, meat pies and one man’s desperate desire for revenge.
Arriving back in London after escaping from 15 years of false imprisonment in Australia, Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) vows to kill the evil Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and his nefarious henchman Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall), who shipped him off to the other side of the world on a trumped-up charge in order to steal his wife, Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly), and his baby daughter from him. Adopting the guise of Sweeney Todd, Barker sets up shop in his old Barber Shop above the pie—making premises of Mrs. Nellie Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who tells him that his wife poisoned herself after Judge Turpin took advantage of her. But when a rival barber, the flamboyant Italian Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen), threatens to expose Sweeney’s real identity, Todd kills him by cutting his throat. Not knowing what to do with the body, Mrs. Lovett sees this crisis as a potential solution to her ailing business—and suggests using human flesh as the filing for her pies.
Sweeney discovers that the Judge has turned his amorous affections towards Johanna (Jayne Wisener), Sweeney’s now teenaged daughter who has become Turpin’s ward. lmprisoned in his house, Johanna is noticed one day by Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower), a young sailor who rescued Sweeney from the sea. Hopelessly in love, Anthony vows to rescue Johanna and marry her himself. Meanwhile, Mrs. Lovett’s pies soon become the talk of London and as business booms, she dreams of respectability and a life at the seaside, with Sweeney as her husband, and her young charge, Pirelli’s former assistant Toby (Ed Sanders), alongside as her adopted son. But Sweeney has only revenge on his mind—to the detriment of anyone or anything else.
