Into the Woods

I suppose you've noticed that the stories we call "fairy tales" always depict the eventual triumph of someone poor, neglected, or oppressed. The character's lives and adventures in the tales involve surviving some trial or risk. Steven Sondheim noticed. He wrote the music and lyrics for his 1986 musical Into the Woods by compressing several of these familiar stories into a single narrative.

Rob Marshall's film of Steven Sondheim's 1986 musical Into the Woods is better than the stage-version, despite the to-be-expected excesses of a Disney production.

The movie's story is a compilation of familiar "fairy tales," which are, like "Litte Red Riding Hood," from the Mother Goose morality stories written in the 18th century by Charles Perreault, or else, like "Cinderella," come from interviews with German village women by the Grimm brothers in the 19th century.