Les Mis

[cellio]

I never got around to seeing the Les Mis movie in the theatre, but I watched it on DVD last night. (Remember when we had to wait a year or more, rather than a few months, for a movie to come out on DVD? My, how times have changed.)

It appears that my standards for musicality, for a musical, are higher in a film than they are on a stage. On the stage you get one shot, and sometimes you have to sing in challenging postures (like while lying down or leaning over), and you have to account for the acoustics of the hall. None of these considerations apply on film. So while I enjoyed many aspects of the movie, particularly being able to see details of gesture and facial expression and setting that I would never be able to see on a stage, in the end I was disappointed because the singing was not, in general, as good as I had hoped it would be. I've seen three live productions, and all had stronger singers. So I'm disappointed; I guess I expected that to be even better in the movie. I'm not saying the singing was poor; most of it was quite serviceable, and Javert and Marius were consistently good. Oh well.

Every time I see this show my appreciation of Javert as a tragic character increases. Here we have someone who is so bound up in a worldview as to be harmful, yet he doesn't come across as a nut-case as sometimes happens.

One question: in every production I've seen (including the movie), the child at the barricade has a thick, exaggerated accent (which I would call Cockney were this not set in France). What's up with that?

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I don't know why it's traditional to make Gavroche Cockney, but everyone seems to do it.

[cellio]

Ah, so it's widespread and not just a quirk of the productions I've seen, then (all of which, other than the movie, were local to me). Good to know.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've listened to multiple cast albums, watched the 10th and 25th anniversary concerts, and so on. Gavroche always seems to be Cockney-flavored.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing the Cockney accent makes him sound "low class" to English speakers. But this is only a guess. Some of the prostitutes have the same kind of accent, though his is maybe stronger.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

I liked a lot of the same things you did -- it is a visually stunning movie. I was disappointed in several of the singers, and I was disappointed that they cut down Eponine's role a bit, possibly because she was played by a Broadway actress instead of a Hollywood star. That really annoyed me.

I really loved the visual of Javert walking his thin line on the Paris rooftops while he sang "Stars." I thought Anne Hathaway as Fantine was particularly overrated, but she got the Oscar for it, so maybe I'm wrong.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed this was the same convention of 'translating' an accent that occurs commonly in Anime with say, the Osaka accent, which is mean to be a 'hick' accent, and is often rendered in dubbed anime as a thick southern accent, so that the audience immediately mentally translates the accent to 'not from around here' which accounts for some of the things the characters say to that person, about their speech patterns.

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

I have never seen the stage production, though was familiar with some of the music from playing for voice students in festivals...but the movie disappointed me.

I keep coming back to a little behind-the-scenes feature which was shown before Les Mis when I saw the movie, and I think they fought so much for the emotion that they gave the music short shrift.

To be fair to the movie, I was glad I'd seen it and I enjoyed it, but I was disappointed by the music, and for me, that was my main attraction to seeing Les Mis.

But probably the only way I will ever see the stage version is if I am bizarrely given free tickets, since my expectations are now (after seeing the movie) low enough to be worth the ticket price I'd expect to pay.

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

I mangled that last sentence. Trying again:

But probably the only way I will ever see the stage version is if I am bizarrely given free tickets, since my expectations are now (after seeing the movie) low enough to not be worth the ticket price I'd expect to pay.

[cellio]

Oh, so it's a proxy. I hadn't heard of that convention before, but that makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

[cellio]

Javert walking the thin line was beautiful, yes.

I found Fantine disappointing too. If they cut Eponine's role because they got a singer instead of a conventional actor, that would be sad. :-(

[cellio]

I really enjoyed seeing it on stage. It's true that the first time I needed to read the program for the back-story first because the "bare" show doesn't give you things like those date/place transitions and it's not exactly obvious. Also, was not exactly up on 19th-century-French political turmoil. But you've got all that now if you didn't already.

You might try seeking out a soundtrack. Now that you've seen the movie you'll be able to follow, and that's a cheaper way (free if your library can help) to find out if you'll like a more-musical rendition.