Les Miserables Movie Review
Dec. 25th, 2012 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatMerry Christmas or whatever you celebrate...
Had a lovely day, walked on the beach with my dad, went to Les Miserables with my mom.
Me: Well, that was definitely a tad better than The Hobbit.
Mom: A tad? It was WAY better than the Hobbit, they aren't even in the same ballpark.
Me: Yes, yes, you're right, of course. (It's Sad, but true.)
Les Miz is oddly 157 minutes to the Hobbit's 166, and one film not part one of a three part triology. This is odd, because Les Mis is based on a 3 and 1/2 musical adapation of a 1400 page novel that has a cast of thousands and multiple subplots, while the Hobbit is based on a book of maybe 3-400 pages if that, and maybe ten characters and one adventure. There is simply more story to mine in Les Miz than in The Hobbit. And you can tell watching the films.
Plus Tom Hooper who directed Les Miz (also the director of The King's Speech) cut two of the songs from the movie, while Jackson added unnecessary extraneous data from appendixes and The Silmarrion also by Tolkien. Rule of thumb - with movie adaptations, it works better when you edit information, not add it. The screen can convey things differently than books can, so you often require less...exposition. But enuf. It's all terribly subjective anyhow.
If you hate musicals, but love fantasy films - you'd love the Hobbit and not even bother with Les Miz, and if you hate fantasy films and love musicals, you'll do the opposite. I'm the rare breed who adores both. Went in with low expectations for both...because they are hard to do and I'd read mixed professional reviews. The Hobbit was okay. Les Mis blew me away at times. Don't get me wrong, it was far from perfect - all films are, but there are moments...that blew me away.
Les Miserables has been adapted into a film or tv series more times than I can count. Most recently for French TV by Gerade Depardiu and into a 1998 film starring Liam Neeson and Claire Danes. Neither were musicals. In the 1970s, it was a UK TV series with Anthony Perkins (Javert) and Richard Jordan (Valjean). According to the Wiki list the first adaptation on film was in 1897 by the Lumiere Brothers. Most recently there were two French adaptations - the aforementioned tv series in 2000 and the filmed version of a stage play.
It's no wonder... as:
Does the movie live up to the hype? Yes and no. Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe while superb in their roles, do not have the vocal pipes to handle the upper ranges of some of their songs, their voices do crack and rasp...but it hardly matters, in some respects the less than perfect vocals add a gravitas to the film, that is sorely lacking in dubbed musicals. In that respect it reminds me a little of Whedon's Once More with Feeling - the lack of perfect vocalist in the role lends it a sense of reality and gravitas that is often lacking from a more polished performance or rendering.
Hooper also trims two problematic numbers from the musical, while adding another. The numbers that get trimmed - we get a line or two, were more comedic in tone and jarring in relation to everything going on.
The number added is far from a show-stopper nor is it memorable, but it does work well as a nice bridge and demonstrates a secondary turning point for Valjean's character.
There was a point in the film, in which you could hear a pin-drop. The audience went dead silent. At the very end, many applauded. Last time I've experience such a moment was in Schindler's List. And many of the songs sent chills up my spine. Some of which were very, shall we say apropos? Or underlined current affairs quite adeptly. Specifically the songs - "Hear the People Sing", "Hatful of Rain", "I Dreamed a Dream", "Drink with Me", and "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables".
It is an opera, so not for everyone. If you don't like musicals or opera (or if you are a "pickbut" about opera and can only handle the perfect pitch of a Lucianna Pavoritti or Maria Callas), you most likely won't enjoy this. Dad stayed home, and I doubt my brother or sisinlaw will ever see it. But I adored every single moment. Some moments in fact worked better on screen than on stage - Fantine's numbers did, as did Cossett and Marius. Admittedly - The love story/triangel between Eponine/Marius/Cossett never moved or affected me much - and it doesn't really here, although I've always been moved by Eponine's two numbers. In some ways I liked the Cossett/Marius bit better here - which much like the stage presentation is seen largely through Eponine and Jean Val Jean's eyes. Another bit that worked better on screen was Javert. His character arc worked better -Russell Crow truly sells it. And Ann Hathaway's performance...simply blew me away. (Just wish they'd done a tad better job with her teeth - bit too white and distracting.)
I've seen Les Mis the musical twice. Saw the original London Cast perform it on the West End in 1987, with the original Jean Val Jean - who by the way makes a cameo in Hopper's musical film adaptation - and his cameo is pitch perfect casting on so many levels metaphorically speaking. I also saw an American Repertory Touring Company perform it in Kansas City. And yes, I'd say as a fan of both presentations, this version holds up, rare for a film - it's really hard to do a good film adaptation of a musical.
Will most likely buy it on DVD at some point.
Overall rating? A
Had a lovely day, walked on the beach with my dad, went to Les Miserables with my mom.
Me: Well, that was definitely a tad better than The Hobbit.
Mom: A tad? It was WAY better than the Hobbit, they aren't even in the same ballpark.
Me: Yes, yes, you're right, of course. (It's Sad, but true.)
Les Miz is oddly 157 minutes to the Hobbit's 166, and one film not part one of a three part triology. This is odd, because Les Mis is based on a 3 and 1/2 musical adapation of a 1400 page novel that has a cast of thousands and multiple subplots, while the Hobbit is based on a book of maybe 3-400 pages if that, and maybe ten characters and one adventure. There is simply more story to mine in Les Miz than in The Hobbit. And you can tell watching the films.
Plus Tom Hooper who directed Les Miz (also the director of The King's Speech) cut two of the songs from the movie, while Jackson added unnecessary extraneous data from appendixes and The Silmarrion also by Tolkien. Rule of thumb - with movie adaptations, it works better when you edit information, not add it. The screen can convey things differently than books can, so you often require less...exposition. But enuf. It's all terribly subjective anyhow.
If you hate musicals, but love fantasy films - you'd love the Hobbit and not even bother with Les Miz, and if you hate fantasy films and love musicals, you'll do the opposite. I'm the rare breed who adores both. Went in with low expectations for both...because they are hard to do and I'd read mixed professional reviews. The Hobbit was okay. Les Mis blew me away at times. Don't get me wrong, it was far from perfect - all films are, but there are moments...that blew me away.
Les Miserables has been adapted into a film or tv series more times than I can count. Most recently for French TV by Gerade Depardiu and into a 1998 film starring Liam Neeson and Claire Danes. Neither were musicals. In the 1970s, it was a UK TV series with Anthony Perkins (Javert) and Richard Jordan (Valjean). According to the Wiki list the first adaptation on film was in 1897 by the Lumiere Brothers. Most recently there were two French adaptations - the aforementioned tv series in 2000 and the filmed version of a stage play.
It's no wonder... as:
Upton Sinclair remarked that Hugo set forth the purpose of Les Misérables, "one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world," in the Preface:[2]
So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.
Does the movie live up to the hype? Yes and no. Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe while superb in their roles, do not have the vocal pipes to handle the upper ranges of some of their songs, their voices do crack and rasp...but it hardly matters, in some respects the less than perfect vocals add a gravitas to the film, that is sorely lacking in dubbed musicals. In that respect it reminds me a little of Whedon's Once More with Feeling - the lack of perfect vocalist in the role lends it a sense of reality and gravitas that is often lacking from a more polished performance or rendering.
Hooper also trims two problematic numbers from the musical, while adding another. The numbers that get trimmed - we get a line or two, were more comedic in tone and jarring in relation to everything going on.
The number added is far from a show-stopper nor is it memorable, but it does work well as a nice bridge and demonstrates a secondary turning point for Valjean's character.
There was a point in the film, in which you could hear a pin-drop. The audience went dead silent. At the very end, many applauded. Last time I've experience such a moment was in Schindler's List. And many of the songs sent chills up my spine. Some of which were very, shall we say apropos? Or underlined current affairs quite adeptly. Specifically the songs - "Hear the People Sing", "Hatful of Rain", "I Dreamed a Dream", "Drink with Me", and "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables".
It is an opera, so not for everyone. If you don't like musicals or opera (or if you are a "pickbut" about opera and can only handle the perfect pitch of a Lucianna Pavoritti or Maria Callas), you most likely won't enjoy this. Dad stayed home, and I doubt my brother or sisinlaw will ever see it. But I adored every single moment. Some moments in fact worked better on screen than on stage - Fantine's numbers did, as did Cossett and Marius. Admittedly - The love story/triangel between Eponine/Marius/Cossett never moved or affected me much - and it doesn't really here, although I've always been moved by Eponine's two numbers. In some ways I liked the Cossett/Marius bit better here - which much like the stage presentation is seen largely through Eponine and Jean Val Jean's eyes. Another bit that worked better on screen was Javert. His character arc worked better -Russell Crow truly sells it. And Ann Hathaway's performance...simply blew me away. (Just wish they'd done a tad better job with her teeth - bit too white and distracting.)
I've seen Les Mis the musical twice. Saw the original London Cast perform it on the West End in 1987, with the original Jean Val Jean - who by the way makes a cameo in Hopper's musical film adaptation - and his cameo is pitch perfect casting on so many levels metaphorically speaking. I also saw an American Repertory Touring Company perform it in Kansas City. And yes, I'd say as a fan of both presentations, this version holds up, rare for a film - it's really hard to do a good film adaptation of a musical.
Will most likely buy it on DVD at some point.
Overall rating? A
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-26 04:07 am (UTC)Silver Linings Playbook was just ok. The acting is great, but the story drags, it's very predictable, and I didn't think the dialog was great (or even all that funny, though that's very subjective).
no subject
Date: 2012-12-26 03:31 pm (UTC)But in stark contrast, Les Miz cuts the extraneous or unnecessary bits and in some respects works even better on the screen - Hooper's trick of having everyone sing as they are filming and not just lip-sync and dubb it in later really worked and may well change how musicals are done on screen.
Thanks for the review of Silver Linings Playbook - sounds like I can either rent or skip - that particular film genre has been a bit overdone, unfortunately, hasn't it?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-26 03:35 pm (UTC)Yes, I'd wait to rent SLP. Unless you REALLY like to watch actors. Mind you, it's not a bad as a movie, it's just not a very good one.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-26 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-26 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-26 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-26 03:11 pm (UTC)* the song that Thenardier sings as he is robbing the dead, just before he finds an unconscious Marius and Valjean - it is not so much cut as trimmed, we get the very last line of it- so they probably edited it out in the final editing stages.
First line of it is - "here's a pretty little bit..there' s a nifty little piece..."
* the other song that cut trimmed or edited was "Beggars at the Feast" - the big comic dance number at Cossett & Marius Wedding...we get the portion from when Marius and Cossett discover them to the being thrown out of the wedding - which actually works better film wise - on stage they needed the dance number - here it would not have worked.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-26 05:43 pm (UTC)Were the Eponine songs done well? I really like her usually. And I love the Javert songs. When I read about the cast I was quite happy with Jackman, but not so much with Crow as I don't really think he's that good and Javert is somehow my favorite character.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-26 11:16 pm (UTC)Eponines numbers are the same as on stage, good. The actress also performed the role in the london revival recently.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 05:22 am (UTC)