Obligatory Les Mis Movie Post
Dec. 31st, 2012 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiWhen I first went to see Les Mis in what must have been 1991, my program confidently assured me that “in 1992, she will going to the cinema” (image of little Cosette holding theater tickets). I was very excited, and I waited eagerly throughout 1992 and 1993 and 1994.... They are twenty years late, but they got there, and it was worth the wait.
I will try not to retread too much, but here are some overall thoughts:
* I was surprised by how much I liked it. My reaction in scene 1 was to stare quizzically at fake-looking galley stuff set to what seemed a rather quiet musical track (vs. seeing the play live). But early on, it carried me away, and I cried a lot. In fact, I had an odd dual sensation of being emotionally engulfed while simultaneously running precise technical criticisms in my head. Portrait of a true Les Mis fan maybe.
* It’s a great story. Victor Hugo was an exceptional writer, and Schönberg and Boublil did a very solid adaptation--as one friend said, better than most of the movie adaptations in terms of capturing the novel.
* It’s a very 19th-century story, not just set in the 19th-century but very 19th-century novelesque: the unironic praise for noble, good people and religious faith; the obligatory boring romance; the “lets lie to the womens for their own good” thing; the coincidental meetings with long-lost acquaintances; the almost complete absence of women as power players--all very 19th century. And oddly, I found this refreshing. I would certainly not want to live in that world, not in 19th-century France and not in a 19th-century novel, but after a long, long stretch of wading through indifferently written contemporary novels, just the taste of a real, consummately written classic was like a glass of water in the desert. Indeed, the unironic 19th-century moralizing seems to fit very well with the over-the-top Broadway musical-style narrating. This might be a large part of why the whole thing works.
* A perennial bemusement: With some partial American exceptions, it seems impossible to render Les Mis in English without turning most of the poor folk into Cockneys. Now, this makes linguistic sense for a European frame of reference, but it’s fascinating how it never applies to Valjean and Fantine, who are also poor folk, who are also undereducated, who grew up on or very close to the streets. But with the single (?) exception of Fantine’s “I never did no wrong,” their language is grammatically standard, and their accents seem always to be mid-Atlantic. To see this in a late 20th-century play (perpetuated in a 21st-century movie) really says something about the staying power of English language-based classism.
Movie specifics:
* The music overall suffered for me in comparison to live theater versions, but given the movie format, prioritizing up-close-and-personal renditions over musical virtuosity was a good choice. And a handful of the big numbers blew me away.
* Jackman was good as Valjean, but they didn’t age him enough.
* I like Crowe’s rather quiet, sympathetic Javert, but his voice isn’t up to the songs, and I’m not sure how one could effectively marry those songs to that quiet performance.
* I missed some of the old songs and lyrics, but in general, things were appropriately trimmed to bring the film at under 3-4 hours. Removing the line about Fantine from Valjean’s “It’s a story of those who always loved you,” though, was a major gaff. What was in their minds to complete a symbolically total erasure of the mother whose erasure has already been hurting Cosette for years and whose sacrifice as a parent is one of the main themes of the whole story?
* Odd choice, too, not to make Fantine a blonde when this is so symbolically important.
* I really liked Fantine overall, but twice they had people throw money at her, and she didn’t pick it up. I kept wanting to cry out, “You’re doing all of this for the money. Pick. It. Up.” (In contrast, at one point, she did carefully squirrel away 5 francs: well done.)
* In general, I’ll echo one criticism of the Hunger Games movie: it felt written by people who didn’t know what it’s like to be poor and hungry. Now, I don’t know either, but I do know you’d pick up the money. I know you’d bundle up in the rain, even in rags, and not wander around with bare shoulders (just look out your window at contemporary homeless people). And I know you’d look wan and sick, not just lightly shaded under the eyes. (And what is the point of adding Fantine selling her teeth if you never subsequently show her without perfect teeth?) Now, this adaptation is not realist, and too much gritty realism would have gone amiss, but these touches would have driven the message home. The story is, after all, about poverty.
* On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed how the movie medium allowed for a touch more intimacy and realism than we’ve seen on stage, especially in the Barricade bits, which were appealingly closer to the book.
* On which note, Enjolras made me very happy. I feel like I have waited my whole life for a well-cast Enjolras (in the movie medium). Aaron Tveit was visually straight out of the book and had a rock-solid grasp of his character, who is not a very complicated character (especially in a theatrical redaction) but is a bit of an atypical one and important to pitch just right. And he did. (I squeed.)
On that happy note, I’ll stop. This was a courageous undertaking and, in the main, a great success.
I will try not to retread too much, but here are some overall thoughts:
* I was surprised by how much I liked it. My reaction in scene 1 was to stare quizzically at fake-looking galley stuff set to what seemed a rather quiet musical track (vs. seeing the play live). But early on, it carried me away, and I cried a lot. In fact, I had an odd dual sensation of being emotionally engulfed while simultaneously running precise technical criticisms in my head. Portrait of a true Les Mis fan maybe.
* It’s a great story. Victor Hugo was an exceptional writer, and Schönberg and Boublil did a very solid adaptation--as one friend said, better than most of the movie adaptations in terms of capturing the novel.
* It’s a very 19th-century story, not just set in the 19th-century but very 19th-century novelesque: the unironic praise for noble, good people and religious faith; the obligatory boring romance; the “lets lie to the womens for their own good” thing; the coincidental meetings with long-lost acquaintances; the almost complete absence of women as power players--all very 19th century. And oddly, I found this refreshing. I would certainly not want to live in that world, not in 19th-century France and not in a 19th-century novel, but after a long, long stretch of wading through indifferently written contemporary novels, just the taste of a real, consummately written classic was like a glass of water in the desert. Indeed, the unironic 19th-century moralizing seems to fit very well with the over-the-top Broadway musical-style narrating. This might be a large part of why the whole thing works.
* A perennial bemusement: With some partial American exceptions, it seems impossible to render Les Mis in English without turning most of the poor folk into Cockneys. Now, this makes linguistic sense for a European frame of reference, but it’s fascinating how it never applies to Valjean and Fantine, who are also poor folk, who are also undereducated, who grew up on or very close to the streets. But with the single (?) exception of Fantine’s “I never did no wrong,” their language is grammatically standard, and their accents seem always to be mid-Atlantic. To see this in a late 20th-century play (perpetuated in a 21st-century movie) really says something about the staying power of English language-based classism.
Movie specifics:
* The music overall suffered for me in comparison to live theater versions, but given the movie format, prioritizing up-close-and-personal renditions over musical virtuosity was a good choice. And a handful of the big numbers blew me away.
* Jackman was good as Valjean, but they didn’t age him enough.
* I like Crowe’s rather quiet, sympathetic Javert, but his voice isn’t up to the songs, and I’m not sure how one could effectively marry those songs to that quiet performance.
* I missed some of the old songs and lyrics, but in general, things were appropriately trimmed to bring the film at under 3-4 hours. Removing the line about Fantine from Valjean’s “It’s a story of those who always loved you,” though, was a major gaff. What was in their minds to complete a symbolically total erasure of the mother whose erasure has already been hurting Cosette for years and whose sacrifice as a parent is one of the main themes of the whole story?
* Odd choice, too, not to make Fantine a blonde when this is so symbolically important.
* I really liked Fantine overall, but twice they had people throw money at her, and she didn’t pick it up. I kept wanting to cry out, “You’re doing all of this for the money. Pick. It. Up.” (In contrast, at one point, she did carefully squirrel away 5 francs: well done.)
* In general, I’ll echo one criticism of the Hunger Games movie: it felt written by people who didn’t know what it’s like to be poor and hungry. Now, I don’t know either, but I do know you’d pick up the money. I know you’d bundle up in the rain, even in rags, and not wander around with bare shoulders (just look out your window at contemporary homeless people). And I know you’d look wan and sick, not just lightly shaded under the eyes. (And what is the point of adding Fantine selling her teeth if you never subsequently show her without perfect teeth?) Now, this adaptation is not realist, and too much gritty realism would have gone amiss, but these touches would have driven the message home. The story is, after all, about poverty.
* On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed how the movie medium allowed for a touch more intimacy and realism than we’ve seen on stage, especially in the Barricade bits, which were appealingly closer to the book.
* On which note, Enjolras made me very happy. I feel like I have waited my whole life for a well-cast Enjolras (in the movie medium). Aaron Tveit was visually straight out of the book and had a rock-solid grasp of his character, who is not a very complicated character (especially in a theatrical redaction) but is a bit of an atypical one and important to pitch just right. And he did. (I squeed.)
On that happy note, I’ll stop. This was a courageous undertaking and, in the main, a great success.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 07:05 pm (UTC)Me too!
I would certainly not want to live in that world, not in 19th-century France and not in a 19th-century novel, but after a long, long stretch of wading through indifferently written contemporary novels, just the taste of a real, consummately written classic was like a glass of water in the desert.
Yeah, I feel you on that too.
Indeed, the unironic 19th-century moralizing seems to fit very well with the over-the-top Broadway musical-style narrating. This might be a large part of why the whole thing works.
Right, well said.
...their language is grammatically standard, and their accents seem always to be mid-Atlantic. To see this in a late 20th-century play (perpetuated in a 21st-century movie) really says something about the staying power of English language-based classism.
Damn right, and also not something I'd consciously noted.
Removing the line about Fantine from Valjean’s “It’s a story of those who always loved you,” though, was a major gaff. What was in their minds to complete a symbolically total erasure of the mother whose erasure has already been hurting Cosette for years and whose sacrifice as a parent is one of the main themes of the whole story?
I have no idea. I don't think we talked about this, did we? I went over it at length with my friend Sarah; we agreed that it was part of a continuing subtext that erased Valjean's moral debt to Fantine in favor of emphasis on his immediate love for Cosette -- which isn't too out of line, because Valjean assuredly loves Cosette as well, but it changes the story to so quickly drop the story of Cosette's origin and the central idea that Valjean has to atone for allowing Fantine's desperate poverty to become invisible to him. He becomes a good man and helps the poor once he rises from poverty, but when he's really tested, he fails, and he knows that for the rest of his life. The change makes it all more about Valjean, and about his emotions rather than his moral development, when they should go hand in hand.
* Odd choice, too, not to make Fantine a blonde when this is so symbolically important.
I opened my mouth to protest that they can't do that because they cut her real hair, but then I closed it when I remembered peroxide.
* In general, I’ll echo one criticism of the Hunger Games movie: it felt written by people who didn’t know what it’s like to be poor and hungry. Now, I don’t know either, but I do know you’d pick up the money.
Right, agreed -- I was protesting that she should have taken it too. Perhaps the intention was to contrast her with the later Fantine who says she's lost her pride, but I felt like Hathaway did all that with her face and bearing.
(And what is the point of adding Fantine selling her teeth if you never subsequently show her without perfect teeth?)
I did notice the flash of missing teeth towards the back when she bares them at the end of "I Dreamed a Dream," but it's pretty subtle. I liked that they put that back in, but in the book I'm pretty sure it's the front two...
no subject
Date: 2013-01-01 05:16 pm (UTC)I'll have to look more closely for the missing teeth next time. :)