Whether it is the Berlin Film Festival or "Barber Todd", Lance is not pretentious. He knows clearly that after the promotional period of "Rampant Road" ends, the Marvel Universe is the top priority. Within this year, his energy will be focused on the two projects "Iron Man" and "Invincible Hulk" to ensure that Chaos Pictures and Marvel Studios' first shots can be fired.

What's more, whether it is the Berlin Film Festival or the "Barber Todd", it is a difficult project.

Adapting a drama into a movie is never a simple matter. In the final analysis, it is because these are two completely different ways of expression. Drama mainly relies on the art of lines and the performance of actors to present the story content. In a limited stage space, relatively monotonous expression techniques touch the height of art through rich performance levels; but the lens language of a movie is crucial. If the lens language cannot play a role, it is equivalent to recording a drama with a camera. However, there is a screen between the tension and conflict of the drama. If the lens language occupies a major position, then how should the ratio between the lens language and the line skills and the performance of the actors be balanced? It is definitely not that simple to truly interpret the charm of the drama in the form of a movie.

For example, in 2012, the whole movie is more in the form than the content, and the focus is seriously unbalanced. First, from the perspective of the script, the lack of detail mining leads to a sense of separation, especially the singing part is too focused, and the plot connection loses the sense of fluency, which is more like each character sings a song and then ends up, and does not present the rich background of the original story; second, from the perspective of performance, the actor's personal performance is commendable, but it completely uses the stage performance method of a musical, which cannot be integrated with the camera language, and loses the characteristics and texture that differentiates the movie from the stage. The world view is immediately confined to a screen, and is restricted.

Objectively speaking, for audiences who like musicals or are curious about musicals, "Les Miserables" is a good work, but for professional drama audiences and professional film enthusiasts, this work is a quasi-nothing and difficult to satisfy.

The same is true for the work "Barber Todd".

In the last life, "Barber Todd" was joined by two old partners Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, and was joined by a group of outstanding British actors such as Shanghai Lena Bornham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy-spall. In terms of cast, it is definitely worth looking forward to. But the final product is difficult to satisfy.

"Barber Todd" tells a not-so-complex story. The barber who was exiled because the judge fell in love with his wife and was framed by the judge. After being imprisoned for fifteen years, he returned to London with the pseudonym Todd, preparing to take revenge. However, Todd heard that his wife had committed suicide by taking poison, while his daughter was imprisoned by the judge in the deep courtyard. Todd reopened a barber shop upstairs of the pie shop, and joined hands with the pie shop owner to make pies with human flesh while waiting for the opportunity to revenge.

Simply put, this is a story of a serial killer who was covered in blood because of revenge and was eventually swallowed by a demon. At the end of the story, Todd not only killed his wife with his own hands—it turned out that his wife failed to commit suicide, but also killed his admirer, the owner of the pie shop, and almost killed his daughter. In the end, Todd was ended by a small worker of the owner of the pie shop.

There are countless similar serial killer movies in film history, including classics, "Silence of the Lambs", "Seven Deadly Sins", "American Neurosy", etc. "Barber Todd" has the factors that become classics, but unfortunately, Tim messed up this script.

First of all, the core of the story of "Barber Todd" is locked on Todd. The 1973 drama version explores the mental journey of Todd's journey into the path of no return for the first time. The process of the soul being eaten up little by little in the transaction with the devil is undoubtedly a shock to the soul. In the end, watching Todd lose his mind and kill all the people he loves and loves himself, the entire process of destruction is a whip and test of human nature. To go closer, is it a judge, society, or other reasons that push Todd into the abyss of sin? If you can explore in depth, then "Barber Todd" can completely become a work that is comparable to "silence of the Lambs" or "flying over the mad asylum".

But Tim is not a director who is good at digging out the core of the story. Even the "Scissor Hand Edward" who established his master status, he did not show much depth. What Tim is really good at is maintaining pure naive romance in the dark reality, from "Scissor Hand Edward" to "Big Fish", to "Zombie Bride", "Alice in Wonderland", etc., all of which are all. This fragile naivety has a touching effect. Therefore, Tim is a director who relies heavily on art, and Gothic style and visual images are what he is good at. Under his directing, the originally simple story of "Barber Todd" has become very weak, and the beginning, ending, turning and turning lacks support, let alone the pale and powerless character - this also means that the most important core of the movie is squandered.

Secondly, the separation of the song and dance part and the plot part is also the biggest problem in all musical adapted movies. The reason why "Chicago" can become a classic is because it finds the most appropriate proportion at this balance point, and thanks to the story's background focusing on the song and dance stars, this allows the director to find a balance effortlessly in the combination of song and dance and plot. But "Barber Todd" is not the case.

The songs and dances of musicals are all plot-based. Songs and dances not only show the character's situation, psychology and state, but will also become part of the plot and even promote the development of the plot. There is no problem with the music and dance on the original stage play of "Barber Todd". They are all classics that have been verified by time and tested professionally. But the problem is how to integrate with the camera language after being moved to the big screen and how to integrate with the plot.

Tim performed very badly in this regard, almost copying the structure of the stage play, and neither using mirror nor composition made a breakthrough. What's worse is that Johnny Depp is not an excellent musical actor, and his singing and dancing performance is a complete failure in the eyes of professionals. This can be said to be devastating for a "music".

Finally, it is too stylized to put the cart before the horse. In fact, this is also Tim's usual problem. He always likes to make a big fuss about visual gothic style. It must be admitted that he has created countless classic character styles. Every character style in "Alice in Wonderland" is worthy of a big book, but this means that Tim gave up the role of styling and environment in the story. For example, the use of light in "Borrowing a knife to kill people", and the use of extreme background in "City of Sin" is ultimately hope that these shots can become part of the plot, but Tim will not consider these.

The stage play of "Barber Todd" has nothing to do with Gothic style. Of course, the dark colors of the story seem to be suitable for Gothic style, but in Lance's view, it is too "Tim Burton" to use Gothic style to express dark stories, just like "Zombie Bride". If Tim chose the colorful colors like "Alice in Wonderland" and "Big Fish" to contrast the darkness of "Barber Todd", the effect might be better.

Johnny Depp's performance also made things worse. Johnny's personal style was always limited to the scope of neuroticism. It was like this since "Edward Scissor Hands", with almost no breakthroughs. Later, it became famous because this style gave Captain Jack Sparrow enough charm. But objectively speaking, this neurotic performance not only lacked changes, but also lacked depth. It firmly framed the expansion of the character, which was terrible.

Such a situation can be forgiven for being in "Looking for Dream Island" because the story has other important characters to rely on; but in "Barber Todd", it is fatal, because this movie requires Todd's image to become rich and full.

If the role of Todd in "Barber Todd" can be found to be played by an actor like Daniel Day Lewis, the quality of the whole movie will be completely different, even if the director is still Tim.

Although it seems to be very clear from the perspective of the bystander, if Lance personally takes the adaptation, the work will be extremely difficult. First, he may reorganize the cast lineup and change the performance style. After all, the role of Todd is the soul of the entire movie, and once the performance is outstanding, it is definitely a difficult character that can be recorded in history.

Second, he might abandon all Gothic styles and instead interpret them with a style similar to "fruit hard candy" that hides darkness in the brightness, because in Lance's view, what created Todd's tragedy was actually the power of society. Whether it was the judge's hand covering the sky or the indifference of the social atmosphere at that time, because people were unable to eat, the only thing people were concerned about was their livelihood and had no intention of paying attention to the so-called moral depravity. This seemingly surging under social peace caused countless tragedies, and Todd was just one of them.

Third, he may also abandon the singing part because Lance really doesn't study much about this. Even if he is from the stage, stage actors are divided into drama actors, musical actors, ballet actors, opera actors, etc. Lance is a traditional drama actor. He knows nothing about musicals. If he wants to copy them, it is best to be at the level of "Les Miserables". He cannot integrate songs and dances with the plot, and will only become a burden.

But even so, it is still not easy to re-adapt the work "Barber Todd". If Lance is the producer, his first consideration is David Finch, or David Lynch, rather than himself. So, today, Lance is not just polite when talking to Laurie.
Chapter completed!