{"id":2919,"date":"2015-01-10T14:41:32","date_gmt":"2015-01-10T19:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/tatar\/?p=2919"},"modified":"2015-01-11T10:38:34","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T15:38:34","slug":"jerry-griswold-on-into-the-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/2015\/01\/10\/jerry-griswold-on-into-the-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Into the Woods&#8221; Reviewed by Jerry Griswold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Sunse<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-2920\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/tatar\/files\/2015\/01\/download.jpeg\" alt=\"download\" width=\"253\" height=\"374\" \/>t Boulevard&#8217;s largest\u00a0billboard featured Meryl Streep at her scariest, and the oversize image inspired me to see\u00a0<em>Into the Woods\u00a0<\/em>as soon as possible. \u00a0Imagine the shock of realizing that the reviewers had been way too kind.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/cultural-comment\/why-into-the-woods-matters<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000\"><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/svc\/oembed\/html\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F12%2F25%2Fmovies%2Finto-the-woods-disneys-take-on-the-sondheim-lapine-classic.html#?secret=zkD3bGeQi4\" data-secret=\"zkD3bGeQi4\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000\">Vanity Fair\u00a0had what seemed like a more honest assessment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000\">http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/vf-hollywood\/2014\/12\/into-the-woods-review<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000\"><em>While the film respectably keeps some of the original show\u2019s darkness, it skimps on the Witch\u2019s character arc and so Streep simply vanishes toward the end of the film, not getting to deliver the Witch\u2019s true gut punch of a song. I also don\u2019t like the way she\u2019s costumed\u2014her glam second-act makeover has her looking like Madame Morrible\u2019s blue sister, not the sudden seductress she\u2019s supposed to be.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000\"><em>But these are quibbles next to the film\u2019s harder to define central problem, which is that there simply is so little heat or passion to be found anywhere. Marshall has m ade a technically assured film that does the difficult work of taking Sondheim\u2019s tricky music out of its original context. But it rarely feels imaginative. It\u2019s cautious and reserved, cramped where the stage show, when done right (and, honestly, even when\u00a0<a style=\"font-weight: inherit;font-style: inherit;color: #e00000\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/08\/10\/theater\/reviews\/into-the-woods-by-stephen-sondheim-and-james-lapine.html?pagewanted=all\">not done right<\/a>), is expansive. After all this is a show that\u2019s all about\u00a0life, the experience of being alive, the lessons and trials and journeys and setbacks. All that elemental, universal stuff, shrewdly molded into tweaks of familiar fairy tales. It\u2019s an ingenious show, and a profound one. But in film form, in this particular film form anyway, the story is small and inert, it\u2019s too specifically about these people, when really the show is supposed to be about all of us. That problem is owed partly to the film\u2019s rushed pacing and too-stringent edits, but there\u2019s something more ineffable going wrong here, too. There\u2019s no genuine heart beating at the center of the film. It\u2019s a dutiful but perfunctory adaptation, sapped of vim and spirit.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000\">Jerry Griswold has weighed in on the film, and I&#8217;m thrilled to\u00a0present his work here.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000\"><b>Who is Disney\u2019s \u201cInto the Woods\u201d For?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">By Jerry Griswold<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">For their musical \u201cInto the Woods,\u201d which premiered at San Diego\u2019s Old Globe Theater in 1986, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine seemed to draw primarily on two then popular books about fairy tales. Bruno Bettelheim\u2019s \u201cThe Uses of Enchantment\u201d took these childhood stories seriously, analyzed and linked them in a psychological manner, and won a National Book Award in 1976. Ann Sexton\u2019s \u201cTransformations\u201d (1971), on the other hand, was a collection of comic poems where she retold the fairy tales in adult and cynical ways. Her poem about \u201cCinderella,\u201d for example, ends on this note of sarcasm:<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Cinderella and the prince<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">lived, they say, happily ever after,<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">like two dolls in a museum case<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">never bothered by diapers or dust,<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">never arguing over the timing of an egg,<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">never telling the same story twice,<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">never getting a middle-aged spread,<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Regular Bobbsey Twins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">That story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">When I saw the musical on stage in the 1980s, I liked the first act but not the second. Critics agreed. Something changed after the intermission. Act I is a wonderfully clever mash-up that links the fairy tales (primarily \u201cLittle Red Riding Hood,\u201d \u201cRapunzel,\u201d \u201cJack and the Beanstalk,\u201d and \u201cCinderella\u201d) and behind which you can sometimes detect knowing nods to Bettelheim. Act II, however, is \u201cdark\u201d and meant to undeceive those who believe in \u201chappy endings.\u201d We learn that loved ones often die, cruelty is rampant, orphans abound, people cheat in their marriages, princes can be jerks, and so forth. In this you can hear Sexton\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Disney\u2019s new film version of \u201cInto the Woods,\u201d directed by Rob Marshall, is largely faithful to the eclectic musical by Sondheim and Lapine. Moreover, this Whitman Sampler of fairy tales is brought to you by a sizable ensemble\u2013including Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Johnny Depp, Anna Kendrick, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, James Corden, and Chris Pine. All over the place, the movie\u2019s very fecundity suggests how difficult it is to identify the intended audience for what might be described as a galloping musical fantasy crossover comedy-drama film.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">It is rated PG. But kids watching the film in my local theater seemed dampened by the mopey second half. They laughed at the cleverness of the first act, as well known storybook characters crossed into each other\u2019s stories and interacted; still, it should be said that when it comes to clever fairy-tale mash-ups, \u201cShrek\u201d does it better. But as for the second act\u2019s dreary sharing of existential facts (regarding mortality, adultery, etc.), all in the name of growing-up and becoming undeceived, well, kids aren\u2019t big on Weltschmerz. And that\u2019s because, as James Barrie complained in \u201cPeter Pan,\u201d the young are gay and heartless.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">But, alas, making kids\u2019 stories \u201cdark\u201d seems <i>de rigueur<\/i> these days. While the original fairy tales are violent and contain the supernatural, they weren\u2019t meant to be categorized as \u201cGothic\u201d; it\u2019s only in recent years that they have been Twilight-ed and pitched to brooding teens. But it\u2019s not just fairy tales that have been \u201cdarkened.\u201d Consider the difference between Disney\u2019s original \u201cAlice in Wonderland\u201d and Tim Burton\u2019s creepy version. Or Spike Jonze\u2019s film \u201cWhere the Wild Things Are\u201d which took Maurice Sendak\u2019s beloved picture book and turned it not into a children\u2019s film but \u201ca film about childhood\u201d by replaying Jonze\u2019s own feelings about growing up as a child of divorce and resulting in a movie full of misunderstandings, hot tears, anger, home-wrecking, and injured recriminations. (I once saw a teacher leading a line of fourth graders down the sidewalk to a theater to see Jonze\u2019s film and, like the Catcher in the Rye, wanted to jump out of the car and save them from what they thought was going to be a film version of their favorite book.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">So, who is Disney\u2019s \u201cInto the Woods\u201d for? Maybe it\u2019s not fair to take kids, who will be lured by the clever first half and then bludgeoned by maturity in the second. Maybe it\u2019s for cynical grown-ups and teen goths\u2014in other words, those partial to moody decrescendo when innocence is \u201cdarkened.\u201d But as I sat in the theater, it became evident that the real enthusiasts for this film are fans of musicals, those who loved L\u2019Miz, theater majors, those who memorized the songs when their high school put on \u201cInto the Woods\u201d and now had the chance to sing along\u2014in short, those who have yet to reexamine their initial enthusiasm for the television series \u201cGlee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">* * *<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Jerry Griswold is the author of <i>Feeling Like a Kid: Childhood and Children\u2019s Literature<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Last week, Sunset Boulevard&#8217;s largest\u00a0billboard featured Meryl Streep at her scariest, and the oversize image inspired me to see\u00a0Into the Woods\u00a0as soon as possible. \u00a0Imagine the shock of realizing that the reviewers had been way too kind. http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/cultural-comment\/why-into-the-woods-matters Vanity Fair\u00a0had what seemed like a more honest assessment. http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/vf-hollywood\/2014\/12\/into-the-woods-review While the film respectably keeps some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2919"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2934,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919\/revisions\/2934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}