The forest is atwitter with enthusiastic word from tonight’s screening of Rob Marshall’s Into the Woods at the DGA theater. Someone calling herself Sasha Stone was in attendance.
“You could call this a darker interpretation of Into the Woods. Chris Pine and Anna Kendrick standouts. And Streep. Of course.” — Sasha Stone @AwardsDaily
“Streep’s first big song is just a shot to the heart. Better as witch than post transformation but she’s always great.” — Sasha Stone @AwardsDaily
“The play #IntoTheWoods seemed perversely funny. The movie is pretty serious with some laugh lines for levity.” — Sasha Stone @AwardsDaily
“Rob Marshall’s Into The Woods is the most dazzling screen musical since his own Oscar winning Chicago. Sublime Sondheim. A true winner.” — Pete Hammond @DeadlinePete
“Meryl Streep on whether she ever considered keeping the Witch’s makeup on after hours: ‘What makeup, darling?’ ” #IntoTheWoodsEvent — Yahoo Movies @YahooMovies
“#IntoTheWoods has made the transition to screen intact and full of life. A real pleasure, both clever and heartfelt.” — Gregg Kilday @gkilday
“Bravo! #MerylStreep #jamescorden #EmilyBlunt #annakendrick @IntoTheWoods #IntoTheWoods BEYOND! Saw on Broadway 1987, film worth the wait.” — Brad Bessey @BradBessey
“I think @AnnaKendrick47 is the MVP of INTO THE WOODS but a lot of the cast members were good. #IntotheWoods” — Nathaniel Rogers @nathanielr
“Depp is fine in short bit as The Wolf. This is gorgeous & expensive Sondheim. Applause for Streep and the opening number. @IntoTheWoods” — Anne Thompson @akstanwyck
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Just saw this movie tonight. As someone who isn’t big on musicals, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It starts to get a bit unbalanced in the third act and sort of drag, but the good stuff far outweighs the weaker elements. Meryl Streep was good (when is she not?) but Emily Blunt was the real standout for me. She’s the one I think is really deserving of the awards attention, but the whole cast was good. Welcome back to making a solid movie again, Rob Marshall. It’s been a while.
Thanks for the auspicious writeup. It in fact was once a enjoyment account it.
Look complex to far delivered agreeable from you!
By the way, how can we keep up a correspondence?
I know that in certain colleges and universities there are entire classes devoted to dissecting the musical elements of just one Sondheim musical. One musical, one class for the whole semester I don’t try to even think how complex his musical motifs are, I just enjoy them. For me, his strength is his commitment to character. Sometimes he can define and deepen a character in just a couple of minutes. A Little Night Music is great for this. The show’s stoyline (based on Bergman’s Smiles on a Summer Night) is slight and fun. But those songs are genius and they bring a depth to the show that every romantic comedy should have.
“I always found the Baker’s storyline to be the heart and soul of the show.
Even with my weak grasp of understanding the way all the elements of Into the Woods are meant to come together and interact, it feels fundamentally implicit to Sondheim’s design that the one couple who are NOT familiar fairy tale characters are the people with whom we are meant to explicitly identify… um, right? More than any other fantastical plot strand we try to follow, it’s the baker and his wife who take us down the path that leads to understanding the whole show.
As for the fate of humanity, it’s in the Academy’s hands now. Never has so much rested on the nominations!
rufussondheim,
whatever happens (though I know this will be scant consolation) I can’t get the 1991 production of Into the Woods out of my head — and I have you to thank for that.
I’ve had the DVD for weeks but didn’t even take it out of the shrinkwrap until the day of the DGA screening. I was saving it because I wanted to watch it fresh when all the major movers and shakers were getting their first look at the movie.
It exceeded my wildest expectations — and I’m a notorious hard-sell when it comes to high-concept musicals.
Without enough prior exposure, solid background or adequate education to fully appreciate what I’m seeing and hearing, I’m not ashamed to say that I’m out of my depth. But I sort of adore the sensation of being dropped in the middle of an ocean so awesome.
Even though I can’t yet get a handle on how the music and lyrics lit these fireworks inside my head, it’s the first time in my life that I’ve felt this kind of magical complexity happening with any musical. It’s pretty much life-altering, no joke. I would never have expected that, would never have investigated it, and would never have let myself open up to it without your influence the past few months.
No idea if this adaptation has done justice to everything Stephen Sondheim gives us. I hope the movie got it right. But whether or not this version works, I’m really looking forward to finding more ways figure it out on my own.
I guess these could be called spoilers, but probably not since they cut the Mysterious Man. Knowing he’s been around all this time it intensifies the feeling of loss the Baker feels. What’s worse? Thinking your father died all these years, or learning he abandoned you? I can’t answer that question, but I am guessing the first option. And with the father guiding them towards the elements needed to fulfill the witch’s spell as a form of redemption there’s some thematic closure. there that’ll be missing from the film. I always found the Baker’s storyline to be the heart and soul of the show. And it’s been gutted.
But, yes, it’s a different entity and should be judged on its own merits. We’ll always have the OBC filmed and available!
As for the fate of humanity, it’s in the Academy’s hands now. Never has so much rested on the nominations!
DFA, thanks for the clarifications. I saw Rob Marshall explain the song’s absence, but I still feel that moment in the play is a key to his character’s transformation from a state of fear and resignation to taking responsibility for the others around him, all conveyed in song. I suspect an abbreviated instrumental version won’t provide that moment of catharsis for the character of the Baker that the song could.
Let me correct some misapprehensions: they didn’t cut the Prince’s second number. They cut the reprise of Agony, but “Moments in the Woods” is very much intact, and the depiction of the Prince (and his scene with the Baker’s Wife) is one of the best parts of the movie.
Also the action from Act Two is mostly intact. The biggest change narritively is the transition from Act One to Act Two, leading to some cutting of the original Act One Finale and Act Two opening scenes/music from the stage version and an altered resolution to the Witch/Rapunzel storyline (which may even be considered an improvement to the original by most).
We hear the narrator in voice over, and the back story of the Baker’s Father is still included (and Simon Russel Beale plays the father in flashbacks and the Baker’s memory). But we don’t have a visible narrator or “Mysterious Man” anymore.
The biggest “painful” cut is that “No More” isn’t sung, although the Baker does have a moment alone where we hear the melody instrumentally. For what it’s worth, Rob Marshall explains in the Q & A, now online, why they felt it wouldn’t work in the movie version (because they cut the mysterious man); I’m inclined to think they could have found a way to make it work as a sung moment, even if altered from the stage version.
“Had I known that, I never would have predicted James Corden would get a nomination.”
Rufus you’ve been one of the biggest reasons I’ve actually taken interest in this movie. Keep the faith, brother. I remember you said “I’ll bet the entirety of humanity Corden gets a best actor nomination. If he’s out…we lose. But really though, just prepare for Into the Woods falling short with the academy. We all have at least one or two movies that we are so damn sure is going to land in the biggest way imaginable only to drop short of the runway. I’ve had those few already. That new trailer for Into the Woods really looks amazing and I think Streep is on her way for another nomination.
OT: Saw Whiplash and Jesus Christopher Columbus on a Ritz cracker that was one of the best movies I’ve seen all year long. I haven’t seen Brolin or Hawke or Norton but J.K. Simmons at least deserves a nomination or a win. As an Interstellar fan I’ll say…Chazelle directed one helluva movie. I think he deserves a nomination over one of my favorite directors.
What commercials I’ve seen of this movie, does not show it to be a MUSICAL, but more like the Maleficient-themed movie, a fantasy type movie. I guess that’s the only way they can get people to see it.
Les Miz was not written as a musical at all but as an arena show series of star turns depicting big scenes in a story its French audience knew by heart. The stage show is nearly unintelligible to anyone not grounded in French history, but became widely beloved on the strength of its music. “Chanson”, a word that means much more than “song”,
The question though is how a musical is filmed. Les Miz was widely criticized for its long close-ups, really about the only choice for a show with no dancing and so many introspective songs. Chicago was widely criticized for its jumpy music video editing which chopped up the dancing, but made it visually interesting to audiences immersed in music video visual idiom.
Again the question….; how was Into the Woods filmed? I, personally, think musicals are a superior art form, far more expressive than drama, but also much more difficult to do well, so I am sincerely interested in this question.
People die in Into the Woods and it’s sad. Well the same elements were present in Les Mis and that movie did fine. And in this film the actors except for Johnny Depp have voices suited to their songs.
ScottD, you’re right on the money.
“Not every song and every moment in a musical has to be fast-paced. “
My only other experience with Into the Woods is the American Playhouse production preserved for posterity with Bernadette Peters. It races along at breakneck speed with a broad comic emphasis that approaches farce, with the rat-a-tat-tat delivery of screwball comedy. It’s wonderfully invigorating and energizing to watch and genuinely funny as hell, packed with bits that only be described as gags. It runs a brisk 2 hours and 30 minutes. There would be no way to pack all those numbers into the 2-hour running time that Disney has chosen to give us.
But the frollicky gallop of the American Playhouse version does lose a lot of the deep dark richness that you get from simply reading the lyrics as poetry (or grim nursery rhymes) on the page.
And comparing one moment from the two interpretations: Bernadette Peters’ rendition of “Stay With Me” is great in its own way… but omfg what Meryl Streep does with a far darker and more desperate version of the same song is so Next Level genius that it gives me chills just thinking about it, hearing it keening in my head like a mythic nightmare of pleading, loss and regret.
Based on that comparison alone, I don’t think you guys could possibly be disappointed or prefer the funnier more farcical 1991 version that Sasha and I saw. (My only other frame of reference).
It’s my understanding that most of the West End productions of Into the Woods have been much darker and less comic than the original Broadway show.
Regarding the Les Mis comparison, Les Mis was touted/expected to be a front runner for BP, where as this never really was. People were just wondering if it could snag a BP nomination, plus whatever supporting/tech nominations seemed appropriate.
I don’t think all this hype is killing it’s chances, if anything it’s just locking it’s place in costume/makeup/art direction/supporting? categories.
Thanks, Bryce. That’s going straight onto my blog and straight into my wank bank.
And the link for it lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9MclJzXe9g
OT: Handsome, hunky first trailer for Thomas Vinterberg’ FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD!
Don’t worry about the fanboys Paddy, you’ll always be “The Brashest of Them All”! 🙂
From those tweets it seems like Anna Kendrick is getting a bunch of love maybe even as much as Meryl. That girl has a lot of Goodwill and a LOT of friends in the industry. I’m just saying!
Making changes in adaptations is nothing I’ll ever complain about in principle, but I’m a little concerned, and it’s because of something Sasha tweeted:
The play #IntoTheWoods seemed perversely funny. The movie is pretty serious with some laugh lines for levity.
I’d sooner take perversely funny than serious with moments of levity. Seems a much simpler, safer way to go, taking the perversity out of the tone. The musical might have been a riskier proposition for Oscar voters, but it sounds like a more interesting one to me.
fs I thought we had our hands full with Interstellar fanboys this season, but I dread to think what havoc the Into the Woods / Meryl Streep crowd is prepared to cause on AD over the coming months. Not to mention the Gone Girl haters…
“No More” is not the show’s best, most poignant song. That title goes to “No One is Alone” which is still in the film.
It’s really a shame they cut what I feel is the show’s best and most poignant song, “No More.” it’s akin to cutting “Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz,” which is something the producers were contemplating at the time. Not every song and every moment in a musical has to be fast-paced. Some songs can lead to moments of reflection and emotion and can deepen a character. I love the work of Sondheim, and I wonder why he would allow one of his best songs, and one of the highlights of this musical, to be cut from the movie version, which, after all, is the only version that millions of people will ever see.
The tweets are nice, but don’t really scream home run.
That’s good. Remember the ridiculous Twitter overhype when Les Misérables was first screened? The less scandalous the early reaction, the less room for future disappointment.
The tweets are nice, but don’t really scream home run.
I had no idea about this. I trust Sasha, but those other people, not so much. I guess I better do a twitter search. But what seems unequivocal is that Patricia Arquette can kiss good-bye to any Oscar hopes she might have been harboring. Meryl Streep becomes tonight the FRONTRUNNER to win her fourth statuette, I mean, her fourth Academy Award.