Posted on 12/17/2012 9:31:42 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe sing -- and wage a Sisyphean battle against musical diarrhea -- in Tom Hooper's adaptation of the stage sensation.
A gallery of stellar performers wages a Sisyphean battle against musical diarrhea and a laboriously repetitive visual approach in the big-screen version of the stage sensation Les Miserables. Victor Hugo's monumental 1862 novel about a decades-long manhunt, social inequality, family disruption, injustice and redemption started its musical life onstage in 1980 and has been around ever since, a history of success that bodes well for this lavish, star-laden film. But director Tom Hooper has turned the theatrical extravaganza into something that is far less about the rigors of existence in early 19th century France than it is about actors emoting mightily and singing their guts out. As the enduring success of this property has shown, there are large, emotionally susceptible segments of the population ready to swallow this sort of thing, but that doesn't mean it's good.
The first thing to know about this Les Miserables is that this creation of Claude-Michel Schonberg, Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, is, with momentary exceptions, entirely sung, more like an opera than a traditional stage musical. Although not terrible, the music soon begins to slur together to the point where you'd be willing to pay the ticket price all over again just to hear a nice, pithy dialogue exchange between Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe rather than another noble song that sounds a lot like one you just heard a few minutes earlier. There were 49 identifiable musical numbers in the original show, and one more has been added here. Greatly compounding the problem is that director Hooper, in his first outing since conquering Hollywood two years ago with his breakthrough feature, The King's Speech, stages virtually every scene and song in the same manner, with the camera swooping in on the singer and thereafter covering him or her and any other participants with hovering tight shots; there hasn't been a major musical so fond of the close-up since Joshua Logan attempted to photograph Richard Harris' tonsils in Camelot. Almost any great musical one can think of features sequences shot in different ways, depending upon the nature of the music and the dramatic moment; for Hooper, all musical numbers warrant the same monotonous approach of shoving the camera right in the performer's face; any closer and their breath would fog the lens, as, in this instance, the actors commendably sang live during the shooting, rather than being prerecorded.
With Hooper's undoubted encouragement, the eager thespians give it their all here, for better and for worse. The “live” vocal performances provide an extra vibrancy and immediacy that is palpable, though one cannot say that the technique is necessarily superior in principle, as it was also used by Peter Bogdanovich on his famed folly, At Long Last Love.
One of the chief interests of the film is discovering the singing abilities of the notable actors assembled here, other than Jackman, whose musical prowess is well-known. Crowe, who early in his career starred in The Rocky Horror Show and other musicals onstage in Australia, has a fine, husky baritone, while Eddie Redmayne (Last seen in My Week with Marilyn) surprises with a singing voice of lovely clarity. Colm Wilkinson, the original Jean Valjean onstage in London and New York, turns up here as the benevolent Bishop of Digne.
On the female side, Anne Hathaway dominates the early going, belting out anguish as the doomed Fantine. These few minutes of heart breaking performance will boost her chances of winning the Best Supporting Actress trophy at the Golden Globes and Oscars. Playing her grown daughter Cosette, Amanda Seyfried delights with clear-as-a-bell high notes, while Samantha Barks, as a lovelorn Eponine, is a vocal powerhouse.
The problem, then, is not at all the singing itself but that the majority of the numbers are pitched at the same sonic-boom level and filmed the same way. The big occasion when Hooper tries something different, intercutting among nearly all the major characters at crossroads in the Act 1 climax "One Day More," feels like a pale imitation of the electrifying "Tonight" ensemble in the film version of West Side Story.
It's entirely possible that no book has been adapted more frequently to other media than Hugo's epic, one of the longest novels ever written. About 60 big- and small-screen versions have been made throughout the world, beginning with a representation by the Lumiere brothers in 1897, and Orson Welles did a seven-part radio version in 1937. In 1985, five years after the Paris debut of the French musical, the English-language production, with a new libretto by Herbert Kretzmer and directed by Trevor Nunn, opened in London, to less-than-stellar reviews, and is still playing. The New York counterpart packed houses from 1987-2003 and, at 6,680 performances, ranks as the third-longest-running musical in Broadway history (it reopened in 2006 and played another two years).
At the story's core is Jean Valjean (Jackman), a convict who has served 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread and trying to escape and, upon his release, redeems himself under a new identity as a wealthy factory owner and socially liberal mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer. But his former prison guard Javert (Crowe), now a police inspector, finds him out and, over a period of 17 years, mercilessly hounds him until their day of reckoning on the barricades in Paris during the uprising of June 1832. Woven through it is no end of melodrama concerning Valjean raising Fantine's beautiful daughter Cosette (Isabelle Allen as a tyke, Seyfried as a young woman); the latter's star-crossed romance with Marius (Redmayne), a wealthy lad turned idealistic revolutionary; his handsome comrade-in-arms Enjolras (Aaron Tveit) and the earthy Eponine, who woefully accepts that her beloved Marius is besotted by Cosette. Well and truly having rumbled in from the film version of Sweeney Todd, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen gallumph through as small-time swindlers in very broad comic relief.
Startlingly emaciated in his initial scenes while still on strenuous prison work detail, Jackman's Valjean subsequently cuts a more proper and dashing figure after his transformation into a gentleman. His defense of the abused Fantine and subsequent adoption of her daughter represent the fulcrum of Hugo's central theme that a man can change and redeem himself, as opposed to Jalvert's vehement conviction that once a criminal, always a criminal. The passions of all the characters are simple and deep, which accounts for much of the work's enduring popularity in all cultures.
But it also makes for a film that, when all the emotions are echoed out at an unvarying intensity for more than 2 1/2 hours on a giant screen, feels heavily, if soaringly, monotonous. Subtle and nuanced are two words that will never be used to describe this Les Miserables, which, for all its length, fails to adequately establish two critical emotional links: that between Valjean and Cosette, and the latter's mutual infatuation with Marius, which has no foundation at all.
Reuniting with his King's Speech cinematographer Danny Cohen and production designer Eve Stewart, Hooper has handsome interior sets at his disposal. However, with the exception of some French city square and street locations, the predominant exteriors have an obvious CGI look. His predilection for wide-angle shots is still evident, if more restrained than before, but the editing by Melanie Ann Oliver and Chris Dickens frequently seems haphazard; the musical numbers sometimes build to proper visual climaxes in union with the music, but as often as not the cutting seems almost arbitrary, moving from one close-up to another, so that scenes don't stand out but just mush together.
The actors are ideally cast but, with a couple of exceptions, give stage-sized turns for the screen; this bigness might well be widely admired. Jackman finally gets to show onscreen the musical talents that have long thrilled live musical theater audiences, Hathaway gamely gets down and dirty and has her hair clipped off onscreen in the bargain, and Redmayne impresses as a high-caliber singing leading man, but there is little else that is inventive or surprising about the performances. Still, there is widespread energy, passion and commitment to the cause, which for some might be all that is required.
RE: His publisher replied “!” They couldn’t print them fast enough.
I guess “:)” was just too expensive to telegraph back then? LOL.
“RE: I won’t pay to see anything Anne Hathaway is in.
OK, I’ll bite because I don’t know much about her political views — how liberal is she?”
I think some posters are not as concerned with Anne Hathaway’s political views but her penchant for taking her clothes off ....but I’m OK with that.
I would put her in close proximity of Jamie Foxx. But, I could be wrong; she is extremely liberal, though.
RE: after being a hardened criminal to start.
19 YEARS FOR A LOAF OF BREAD !! I wonder how many years a few crumbs would be worth...
Funny thing about the R&J story is it covers just a period of three hours. Well I guess WSS could last as long. I think a musical about Hamlet would be interesting. I’ve seen the movie Hamlet with Mel Gibson and also from a different perspective was “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” the dark parody of what goes on behind the scenes throughout the story of Hamlet is at times ingenious albeit occasionally tedious.
“Just saying that LM is just too happy”
I’m not sure how you got that impression. It’s a tragic & very poignant story with a kind of happy ending.
You’re really misinformed if you think it’s “too happy”.
Hmmm - I’m Hungarian decent and should have known that.
Was the ‘35 version the first of the three played on TCM? That was the one I loved best too! Though I was a big fan of beautiful Debra Paget as a little girl, who played Cosette in the second TCM movie, I liked the first one best.
The third TCM movie that night was four hours long! I had to record that one to avoid staying awake until 3:00 in the morning! And then, guess what— we had new DISH boxes installed this morning so I lost the 4 hour version along with all our recorded programing, so I missed the final show.
We got the DISH thingy called The Hopper, where you can record on all TV’s in the home and can watch live programming independently from all other tv’s.
Thx.
I’m saying the musical version of the book is too happy. I’ve been seeing trailers on TV the last couple of days. I’ve read and had to do a book report on LM.
I had to read it in French in HS - that was a drag.
The musical version is not “too happy”. You’re getting the wrong impression. It’s a tearjerker & very poignant. Don’t let a song like “Master of the House” mislead you. It’s actually there to provide some emotional relief.
It isn’t a “musical”, it is an opera. Opera can be quite full of drama and heart rending, complex, full of the deepest endearments of the heart.
Being from all redneck country, all the time, I can appreciate resistance to opera, but for seeing this production live on stage, it became a memorable experience, for me as powerful as Tom Hanks movie, oh, what was the name of it? You know, the real version of the US military landing on D Day?
I don’t know if I will enjoy an all opera version either, but the story is so magnificent that it may carry the movie on its own in spite of the lyrical dialogue.
Thanks. I’m collecting the responses and will try to form a better opinion of the musical. I don’t like reading or listening to professional reviewers because they impose their values into their critique. I like to read what the people who’ve seen them have to say about it.
Would that be “Saving Pvt. Ryan”? Anyway having to have to read the story to me it’s all about the poor guy stealing a loaf of bread and the detective chasing him all over the place to arrest him. Must have been a really valuable loaf of bread. Then too, the French Revolution happening about the same time ... great mix.
And it was those 19 years that made him a hardened criminal, not the other way around. Apologies if I wasn't clear on that. He robs the street urchin (a petty, but damning, in terms of timing, theft) after robbing the bishop (IIRC) -- it is upon being caught for with the bishop's silver that he is offered the chance at redemption.
If you are turning the book into a movie or play, it has to center on Valjean. He is the thread that ties the various pieces of the story together, and through them, his path to redemption, self-sacrifice, and righteousness is played. Because of the nature of the medium and time constraints, other parts of the story must be simplified -- so the stage musical (and now movie) centers on this road to redemption and the other players fleshed out only to the point that tells that tale.
Upthread, someone discussed that this would be better material for an opera than a musical, but Les Miserables blurs that line. The vocal and arranging style is musical theater, but it is through-sung and staged in an operatic fashion.
If the stage production ever comes to a city near you, do yourself a favor and go see it.
I’m not sure how much I’ll like the movie, but I’m going to see it, knowing it will be a totally different experience from the stage production.
I’ll give it a try. I live in the Seattle area and they have several places where they do live theater. Love going to them. Same too, may not go and see it in a theater but might “borrow” a DVD if and when it comes out. That way I can always shut it off if I don’t like it. I had to sit through “Moulin Rouge” at a friends house and almost had a fit with all that singing. LOL Every time someone even moved or said something they’d burst into song.
Thank you! Yes! Good grief, Saving Private Ryan! That’s it! Crap, I can’t remember anything.
The loaf of bread is the instrument depicting the extreme severity of times we have never had to live through. Yet.
You would like the 1935 screen version best. Please see if you can find it. Let us know. Merry, blessed Christmas! Rita
Amen. When the best we can do this Christmas season is Quentin Tarantino, we're in a bad way.
Thank you and a Blessed Christmas to you as well. Janey
You're wrong.
Checking the book, the marriage happened on Mardi Gras day, and the stage play appeared to be like a Mardi Gras celebration; but I'd forgotten the Mardi Gras touch. The book had said it all (to me) with two post-wedding lines: "The best way to worship God is to love your wife" and "A little after midnight, the Gillenormand house became a temple."
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