Falconer- Tim Burton's Moral Twists in Sweeney Todd

     

      Sweeney Todd starts off as the damaged hurt Benjamin Barker returning to London under a new alias with one thing on his mind: revenge. His anger and resentment is targeted towards Judge Turpin who had Benjamin falsely convicted for a crime and took his wife and daughter. He hears rumors that his wife killed herself from disgust for her life with the judge and that his daughter is still locked away in the judges home. His main goal is to coax the judge into coming into his shop for a shave only to slit his throat. Morally killing is wrong but from seeing the clear evil of what the judge did to Sweeney Todd you begin to justify his vengeance. When Mr.Pirelli comes in for a shave and recognizes Mr.Todd and threatens him Todd becomes nervous. He then impulsively slits the man’s throat. This is the first time you really question Todd’s morals. He was willing to kill an innocent man just to carry out his revenge with the judge. Then there is Miss Lovett. She gets little to no business in her pie shop and is experiencing financial troubles. She casually mentions a pie shop she had heard about that sporadically began to boom with business. The rumor was that the meat pies were made from human. This film takes place in a time in London where the economy was down and many people were struggling. Child labor was acceptable because it was cheap labor and anything cheaper helped.

            Soon the combination of Todd’s growing anger, shortening patients and Mrs.Lovett’s influence he turns into a heartless killer. At the point Tim Burton makes the audience see that his killing can no longer really be morally justified in any way. Miss Lovett isn’t bothered by it though because then her pie shop begins to thrive. Studies show that when people are starving to death they may eventually resort to cannibalism. Well her customers were unaware they were eating human it was Miss Lovett’s starving to make ends meat that lead her to be morally okay with all the murders. It is interesting how Burton can make his audience see and justify the murder of one man and then present more murders that the audience would have trouble justifying. Also although I could not morally justify the cannibalism in the film Burton shows us how one person’s greed can lead to the decline of their moral values.