I'm Fine

The bloodiest scene of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is also the most truthful.

Our very first glimpse of Sweeney informed us that he was a man who had been irascibly wounded by the world.  Through the quick flashes of times gone by, we learn Sweeney was once another man, Benjamin Barker.  Mr. Barker was a lovely being; a happy soul with wife and daughter.  Unjust judgment comes.  He is sent away.  Many years have aged the once lovely Benjamin.

Somewhere along the years, lost in memory and hope, Barker chooses to change his name to Todd.

Upon returning to his native soil, Sweeney meets the strangely sick Mrs. Lovett.  More pain comes.  He is told a horrible tale.  The Unjust Judge had, upon Barker's absence, ravaged his wife and taken the unknown daughter as his own.

 Sweeney's future is made crystal clear; he is to seek revenge on his false accuser.  He will take the life of the Unjust Judge.

Did he think about it then?  Did he realize his fate?  A man cannot be fueled by revenge alone.  That is not a sufficient motive for living.  There has to be something else, something more.  What will happen to Todd after he kills the Judge?  What happens next?

Benjamin Barker only truly becomes Sweeney Todd seventy minutes into the film.  Listen to his words.

And in the darkness when I'm blind

with what I can't forget

It's always morning in my mind

my little lamb, my pet.

You stay Joanna, 

the way Ive dreamed you up.

A choice is made.  Sweeney chooses to die... he chooses to succumb to the true meaning of Todd.  To be Sweeney Todd is to die to Benjamin Barker.  And what is Sweeney Todd?  He is nothing.  He is a creation of the mind.  To choose Sweeney is to choose death.

"We have to go back!"

Benjamin wanted what many men want.  He wants to go back.

Of course, the harsh reality is that he can't go back to the way things were.  The choice is then to accept this and move on, or grasp only at memory and dream.

Talk to one who is truly heartbroken.  The great hope, and sadly the very thing that keeps the heart from healing, is to find a way back.  UNDO IT.

For Todd, he comes to realize he can't undo it, and yet, he refuses to move on.

He is Sweeney Todd now.  A Harbinger of Wrath.  

And when that wrath is quenched, so is he.

Choose His Destiny

 Judge Sweeney Todd for me.

A friend recently told me that a great evil of the world was the proliferation and glorification of the Antihero.  When I first heard that sentiment, I didn't know how to take it.

I don't know how to judge those words now.

Initially, when thinking of the Antihero, my mind drifted to the barber formerly known as Benjamin Barker.  The distinguishing principle about him, in my quick recollection, was that he was born out of pain.  I hastily then surmised that to be diagnosed as an Antihero, you have to have endured some great atrocity. 

I took this disposition into my maiden viewing of Gus Van Sant's sophomore flick, Drugstore Cowboy.

I looked and I looked and I looked... 

...But my druggie of a lead really didn't have much of a claim to be an Antihero.  No real wrong seemed to be thrust upon him.  

He just was what he was.  

Then a revelation came to me; it's not about the amount of pity that we have for the protagonist, it's about what we compare him to.  In the case of Drugstore Cowboy, we meet many worse druggies than our lead, as well as meeting the old clergyman that hooked our boy on narcotics from an early age.  Passing out doogies from the altar, now there's some villainy.

Then there's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.  He kills with relative abandon.  He slits the throat of many-a stranger.  And yet, we are given two (debatably three) characters who are far viler.  Mrs. Lovett, the pie maker herself, tempts Sweeney to eat of the sick fruit of murder from the very start.  She has no pity, no moral fiber.  And no bleak past that we are aware of.  Worse still is the Judge himself of whom Sweeney stalks.  He is a self-righteous evil.  Somewhere deep down we know pride to be the worst of all sins, for it came first.  And so we are happy when Todd catches his man.

If the Antihero is just the guy who is least evil, what does that mean?  What are the ramifications?  Is my friend right?  Should such creative constructions be undone?

It's a question of levels, no?

This rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed.  This is the first resurrection.  Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.  Revelation 20:5-6

Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.  If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.  If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.   1 Corinthians 12-15

It would appear then that there are two resurrections, 

and various degrees of reward in heaven....

...So, can the Antihero be that guy that gets into heaven by the skin of his teeth?

Please.