Stephen would have loved this.

Truly outstanding. Sondheim is impossible to put into words and yet here you are. Sunday at the park with George, now my favorite musical ever that I sing on a daily basis, constantly thinking about it, initially seemed... boring... strange... a bit uninteresting and hard to understand on first viewing. But like all things Sondheim, I needed to work a bit, to reflect a bit, and truly LISTEN. Congratulations for an amazing video. Count yourself one subscriber richer!

This is an excellent video. I don't think I've every cried this much to a video essay. Sondheim gave us so much, and this video has inspired me to take what he gave us, learn from it, and turn it into something new. Thank you.

Brilliant.

Very well said. Stephen is an idol for me. He gave us so much incredible music and lyrics and his voice is not silenced. ZT'l Stephen.

Excellent video - thanks so much for making it.

Does anyone know the music at 17:21, it's so enchanting and I nearly started crying hearing about Takahata's vision for Princess Kaguya.

Kevin, just watched your wonderful video on Sondheim. IT IS JUST WODERFUL.

This is a truly beautiful look at the work of Sondheim. Just excellent. Looking back now on the Here We Are run at the Shed, I wish I could say that it was a glorious last work, but to me, it just felt like someone made a hat where there shouldn’t be a hat.

This video reminded me a lot of my favorite novel, "Umineko: when they cry" it is a reaaaaaally long japanese visual novel, but it touches a lot on the themes of this video, of magic and beliving, of authors inviting others to their stories in particular ways, on the ways one story might change when written in such a way, I think if whoever reads this has the time (qnd... It is a LONG TIME) they should try and read it, it really will give you tons of what the video talks about (specially when you have in mind it was realesed episode by episode, instead of all together as it is today)

Great analysis on a great author, many thanks. Please can we tell where the footage of 18:25 comes from? thanks in advance.

the art and overall aesthetic of this whole video is so fucking cool!!!!

Thank you for making this elaborate essay💯

Are you gay, straight or bi?... also, Amanda Seyfried has been trying to get her big A-list career break for over two decades. People don't like her face. She needs to riff on this fact, but keeps trying to avoid it. 19:57 - that's just a parasocial relationship, those lead to bias, and that's exactly what you're describing.

I was too young when i watched the movie and the marketing to it had always made me uncomfortable due to the over sexualization of Megan Fox. So watching it then, I misunderstood the movie. It isnt until seeing everyone talk about it that I am thinking, "Did I watch the same movie?" I cant understand how I completely missed the point of it, but i guess i just believed the marketing.

Thank you for the “nice”-girls-who-Hulk-out representation

The intro hooked me so I’m gonna go watch this and finish the vid then brb

1:46 Ik what they are! ARGs is short for arguments! I cracked the code, yay

i want you to know that stockroach genuinely made me cry and that i love everything you do.

I LOVE THIS VIDEO. I LOVE SONDHEIM!

Just looking at pieces of the film and listening to its music, the emotions are still there, still drawing deep from the wellspring of memory.

There is a live-action Grave of the Fireflies but I do prefer the anime version.

I came here (as many did i assume) from Sagan’s video and I wanted to say how glad I am to have been introduced to your work. Hope you get the recognition you deserve and more, man.

Awesome video!! Loved your analysis!

This is probably one of the most beautiful pieces of KZbin content I've come across in a long time. Well done, and thank you.

You just gained a subscriber. A beautiful essay, just like the subject deserves.

I hope you keep expanding the subject matter of your videos, each one is delightful in different ways

This is not the direction I expected this video to take. Mostly because I think GDT's special effects and attention to visual detail is in fact astounding, but I find his plots... kitschy? Cliche? Whereas, I find Miyazaki's stories bigger than themselves, universal, timeless. After Ryū to Sobakasu no Hime / Belle - I am more than ever prone to point at Hosoda. But, of course, it remains to be seen.

Yay! A new Kevin just dropped! Your videos get me excited to get back into Anime in a major way

💛

You had me until you referred to cast recordings as “soundtracks”. Sheesh!

Totally great KZbin!!!!! Thank you.

If there's any composer working primarily in the theatre today that gets up to Sondheim's level in terms of innovation and complexity, it's Dave Malloy. Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 is groundbreaking in it's blending of genres and it's adaptation of the source material. Ghost Quartet is a haunting, evocative spiritual experience that melds the forms of concert and theatre. Octet might be the greatest treatise on our relationship with the internet that will ever be written. Right now, he's working on an adaptation of Black Swan that I am *so* excited to see.

Beautiful, thank you

Loved the video! But I have to say that I don't agree with not including Hadestown with the "original musicals". It fits perfectly in, what I believe, what we're looking for in terms of being a original, innovative and objectively good (great even!) musical.

This video brought me to tears, thank you

Amazing work! I loved it.

How come you have so few followers? Amazing video - and all the others as well!

This. This, this, this. There is SO much that I have to do. So much that I have to write. This video encapsulates it all. Thank you, Sondheim. Thank YOU for this video. I can't wait to become one of the new voices in this world of creation. Perhaps I already am.

🎹 Bravo Kevin, for a thoughtfully crafted exploration of Sondheim and a concise look at the evolution of music in general. I have become a subscriber to your channel. For me the most radical and ever-enduring musical dramatist has got to be Richard Wagner. And the revolution that Beethoven bought to the symphony... and Wagner brought to opera... Sondheim brought to the American musical. As for those who will succeed Sondheim...who knows? There are a plethora of wannabee's... but only a scant few Titans. Hugs to all.

Thank you SO much for this video- I’ve thought A LOT about this topic since his passing

Re part IV, what about Guettel? Ahrens s & Flaherty? All the guys w 3 names?

Well spoken. Your video moved me to respond, and that’s a first! Our friendship, the time Stephen and I were together is a story I’ve never told, because it’s the thing I treasure the most. Perhaps knowing that will add gravity to a compliment. Videos like yours, the very skillfully done ones, don’t always have much to say. Yours , with unsuspected eloquence, is reaching toward the very complex heart of Stephen Sondheim’s art. If he saw your video he would say to you something he said to me once, “You get it, your really get it!”

I saw the Tale of the Princess Kaguya yesterday night, after I saw in the morning the new movie of Miyazaki at the cinema. This movie gave me the “courage” to watch the Tale, that I’ve never watched before, erroneously thinking it was maybe to heavy for me. From the first scene I got enchanted by the magical beauty of the movie and I remained till the end taken by its lunar beauty and the sadneds I felt for the princess.. it deserved the Oscar, absolutely. Of Takahata I watched very often Only yesterday that make me feel like to go back in a relaxed beautiful place where the time moves slowlier, like it would be a part of my memories of my own childhood, and I saw the Yamadas once and I found it incredibly funny and incredibly deep. I probably rewatch it tonight, Netflix shows all Ghibli movies, what a dream. The words of Miyazaki about Takahata made me cry.. the feeling of sadness the documentary about Miyazaki gave me when I watched it.. his world is disappearing, expecially now Takahata is gone.. thanks for the video, very beautiful.

4:04

Sondheim ain't my cup of tea and people who gush and swoon over him ain't either

This video has the kind of quality one would expect from a channel with +1 million subscribers. Beautifully done!

Such a well-made video. Beautiful graphics, coherent script, even your respectful and delightful personality. You are a positive gem .... and could even have been a viola player~

GREAT video!!

I read this back in the early 2000s and completely bought it 🤦‍♀️ What's more though, I had a friend that swore up and down to have read the original, unabridged version. To this day, I'm not sure if that was a lie, a misremembering, or playing along with the joke...