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remindmeofthe) wrote2013-03-03 10:34 pm
remindmeofthe) wrote2013-03-03 10:34 pm
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So I FINALLY FINALLY got to see Les Misérables like months and years late (well, it seems that way anyway, since I was too broke to go see it when it was in theaters like I'd been planning) and omg I loved it. Loooooved it. I've never been all that passionate about the musical because the book is first in my heart - reading that fucker was a life-changing experience - so I didn't think I'd be more engaged by the movie than I am by any other movie I find interesting. Hahaha so wrong. I should probably note that I've never actually seen a performance of the play - there haven't been any I've been able to get to since I took an interest in it - so that probably influences my reactions here, since all I've had to go on are the soundtracks I've listened to and that one quasi-performance in 1995.
OKAY so I'm just gonna go ahead and get that one obvious, glaring complaint out of the way first so I can focus on all the epic goodness after. Javert is my favorite (well, in the book, I don't really have a favorite in the musical, I'll talk more about that in a bit) and Philip Quast is the reason I got into Les Mis, so I have shameless biases about what I expect. And even taking all that into account, RUSSELL CROWE STILL SUCKS.
What the fuck, Russell Crowe? Did he not think acting is required in a musical or what? Like, I'd heard he wasn't that good, and I knew from the start he was misfuckingcast, but I still physically recoiled in horror as soon as he opened his mouth. Nothing wrong with his voice, it's very pretty, it'd be perfect if I needed an ignorable pop album on in the background while I was doing my homework, but there is nothing pretty about Javert and he shouldn't be sung by some insubstantial light tenor, okay. And to get back to the acting, where was it? Everyone else is acting their faces off, even the extras with one line, even Amanda Seyfried is doing her damnedest with what has got to be the most boring and thankless role in the history of musicals, and Crowe barely even registers as being on the set. His solo songs are like nothing is even happening onscreen. It's like he was popping in from a different, really shitty production. And the couple of times where he does bother acting a little just makes it worse, because they afford some tiny glimpses of how it could have been he had just decided not to suck. I had to listen to Quast's rendition of "Javert's Suicide" from the Complete Symphonic Recording like half a dozen times after the movie was over to get the bad taste out of my brain.
*deep breath* Okay. Now I feel better. It's just, I think I would have been able to overlook it more easily had the movie as a whole been as mediocre as I kind of expected it to be? But it wasn't, it was gorgeous, so the awfulness of Crowe's performance stood out as (and forgive my metaphor, I couldn't think of a better one) this really sour off-key note in the midst of a symphony. BUT I'M DONE COMPLAINING ABOUT IT NOW.
So from there, I guess the obvious starting point is the performance no one fucking expected: Anne Hathaway. I like Anne Hathaway. I have since The Princess Diaries. I count on her to turn in a good performance and she always proves me right. And again, I'd heard she was amazing in this and of course there was that whole Oscar thing, though I don't put much weight in the Oscars because whatever.
And so I knew all that, and I also knew that Fantine doesn't do much for me in the musical. All the musical characters are pale shadows of their novel selves, and I feel like Fantine is one of the characters who suffers the most from loss of dimension. I like her in the book. I decided to buy the book because I was flipping through it and found the scene where she spits in Madeleine's fucking face and went, "Holy shit, book!Fantine has a backbone! :D :D :D" I also don't have any feelings about "I Dreamed a Dream," because we did this Les Mis medley when I was in middle school chorus, so the lyrics are so drilled into my memory and filtered through my young-adolescent grasp of them (ie, none, especially since I knew nothing about the play at that point) that they hold no meaning for me at all. The tigers come at night? That sucks. Your dreams turned to shame? Sorry about that. And then in the soundtracks, it tends to sound more like the actresses are just showing us what they can do.
So I thought I was ready to watch Anne Hathaway nail it yet again, this time playing a character I don't care much about and singing a song I always skip when I listen to the musical, and then I found myself fucking SOBBING during her "I Dreamed a Dream." She brings in all the stuff I love about book!Fantine and combines it with this rawness and a fearless performance and Jesus fucking Christ no wonder no one can shut up about her. I know this must just be another rendition of stuff everyone else has already said, but I can't not say it because she was that astonishing.
One thing I always forget about movie adaptations is the immediacy a good one will have. A successful movie adaptation of a story will bring in visual and aural dimensions that weren't there for me before, and that will blow my mind and add to the story's realness in a visceral way. I remember crying during the 2003 Peter Pan because they'd just gotten it so right. But I forget all that, and then it surprises me all over again and I wonder how I didn't see it coming, which is exactly what happened with this movie. I just stared at the opening scene and realized that it was going to feel a lot more real than listening to the musical has ever felt. So there was some of that going on with watching Hathaway, too.
Not to give short shrift to the rest of the castexcept for He Who Must Not Be Named. I enjoyed most of the performances, or at least had nothing much to complain about. As I mentioned above, the characters in the musical don't do much for me. I could write an entire post about why each of them is lacking in a fundamental way when compared to their novel counterparts, so it was kind of an uphill battle for each of these actors to make me care about their performances beyond their singing at all. Most of them did better than I expected!
Hugh Jackman is an entirely adequate Valjean (he doesn't do anything exciting with the role, but he doesn't fuck it up either), the dude who plays Marius is weird-looking but that seems appropriate somehow, and Éponine's actress can't really be faulted for the fact that the makeup crew made her look like the cover model for Waif Monthly (which is especially noticeable because Fantine shows the wear and tear of her life in a way that this Éponine doesn't; the comparison is maybe a little unfair, but I couldn't help it, especially since I really enjoy ugly pathetic little book!Éponine). I was vaguely disappointed by Amanda Seyfried, but only because she's someone else I've liked for years and I figured that if anyone could make me give two shits about Cosette, it would be her. I did not give two shits about Cosette, but I can't really blame Seyfried; like I said above, Cosette is boring as fuck and the only boon she offers the actress playing her is a chance to show off their soprano. I can't even blame Cosette's boringness on the musical, either. She is equally dull in the book, and arguably worse at the end when she literally (not figuratively, but LITERALLY, okay, I'm not exaggerating) forgets Valjean exists. At least musical!Cosette manages to REMEMBER the man who fucking raised her. This is the only thing the musical does better than the book.
And all the stuff they brought in from the book! Fantine losing teeth! Javert's confession to "falsely" denouncing Madeleine! That awkward moment where Valjean confesses in the courtroom and no one believes him! Fauchelevent! The convent! The sewers and that especially disgusting moment where Valjean is up to his chin in shit! (Fun fact: I first read that scene whilst eating breakfast, which happened to involve something brownish and lumpy. YUM.) Monsieur Gillenormand!! M Gillenormand is my favorite tertiary character in the novel, okay, I cannot express how much I love him and his Royalist ways and his profound gratitude for Marius's survival and how he tries not to be a Royalist because of it and oh oh oh so many feelings. I think it sucks that he got chopped from the musical and there he is in the movie and he gets to SING and I don't care if he doesn't do anything and he sings like four words because HE IS THERE. And there's a bunch of other stuff that I'm forgetting, but it all made a book purist like me so happy to see it. It helps the flow of the story and proves that the people making the movie genuinely cared about what they were doing and that above all is the kind of thing that makes a movie work.
I also liked a lot of the changes made from the stage musical. Some of them were just little twisting of words to make it smoother or justify the setting (Bamatabois walking in the dark rather than crossing from the park); some of them just make more sense, like getting rid of that weird branding Valjean supposedly has; some making more of an emotional impact, like placing "I Dreamed a Dream" after "Lovely Ladies." It gives a sense of freshening something old into something a little newer without losing the core of it.
One thing from the musical I have never before appreciated the magnificent ridiculousness of: the ending. It doesn't matter how stunning the production is, the ending will never not smack of desperation. "Shit, okay, so everyone is fucking dead, how do we deal with that without sending the audience home hating us? I know, let's show everyone in HEAVEN!" Not even Anne Hathaway could keep me from giggling at that just a little. Bonus hilarity: Javert does not appear in the movie's ending, so either they're going with the fact that he doesn't really fit thematically into this massive heavenly barricade, or they're cheerfully reminding us that suicide is a mortal sin, so Javert is burning in hell! :D! Either way, at least we don't have to look at Russell Crowe again.
OKAY so I'm just gonna go ahead and get that one obvious, glaring complaint out of the way first so I can focus on all the epic goodness after. Javert is my favorite (well, in the book, I don't really have a favorite in the musical, I'll talk more about that in a bit) and Philip Quast is the reason I got into Les Mis, so I have shameless biases about what I expect. And even taking all that into account, RUSSELL CROWE STILL SUCKS.
What the fuck, Russell Crowe? Did he not think acting is required in a musical or what? Like, I'd heard he wasn't that good, and I knew from the start he was misfuckingcast, but I still physically recoiled in horror as soon as he opened his mouth. Nothing wrong with his voice, it's very pretty, it'd be perfect if I needed an ignorable pop album on in the background while I was doing my homework, but there is nothing pretty about Javert and he shouldn't be sung by some insubstantial light tenor, okay. And to get back to the acting, where was it? Everyone else is acting their faces off, even the extras with one line, even Amanda Seyfried is doing her damnedest with what has got to be the most boring and thankless role in the history of musicals, and Crowe barely even registers as being on the set. His solo songs are like nothing is even happening onscreen. It's like he was popping in from a different, really shitty production. And the couple of times where he does bother acting a little just makes it worse, because they afford some tiny glimpses of how it could have been he had just decided not to suck. I had to listen to Quast's rendition of "Javert's Suicide" from the Complete Symphonic Recording like half a dozen times after the movie was over to get the bad taste out of my brain.
*deep breath* Okay. Now I feel better. It's just, I think I would have been able to overlook it more easily had the movie as a whole been as mediocre as I kind of expected it to be? But it wasn't, it was gorgeous, so the awfulness of Crowe's performance stood out as (and forgive my metaphor, I couldn't think of a better one) this really sour off-key note in the midst of a symphony. BUT I'M DONE COMPLAINING ABOUT IT NOW.
So from there, I guess the obvious starting point is the performance no one fucking expected: Anne Hathaway. I like Anne Hathaway. I have since The Princess Diaries. I count on her to turn in a good performance and she always proves me right. And again, I'd heard she was amazing in this and of course there was that whole Oscar thing, though I don't put much weight in the Oscars because whatever.
And so I knew all that, and I also knew that Fantine doesn't do much for me in the musical. All the musical characters are pale shadows of their novel selves, and I feel like Fantine is one of the characters who suffers the most from loss of dimension. I like her in the book. I decided to buy the book because I was flipping through it and found the scene where she spits in Madeleine's fucking face and went, "Holy shit, book!Fantine has a backbone! :D :D :D" I also don't have any feelings about "I Dreamed a Dream," because we did this Les Mis medley when I was in middle school chorus, so the lyrics are so drilled into my memory and filtered through my young-adolescent grasp of them (ie, none, especially since I knew nothing about the play at that point) that they hold no meaning for me at all. The tigers come at night? That sucks. Your dreams turned to shame? Sorry about that. And then in the soundtracks, it tends to sound more like the actresses are just showing us what they can do.
So I thought I was ready to watch Anne Hathaway nail it yet again, this time playing a character I don't care much about and singing a song I always skip when I listen to the musical, and then I found myself fucking SOBBING during her "I Dreamed a Dream." She brings in all the stuff I love about book!Fantine and combines it with this rawness and a fearless performance and Jesus fucking Christ no wonder no one can shut up about her. I know this must just be another rendition of stuff everyone else has already said, but I can't not say it because she was that astonishing.
One thing I always forget about movie adaptations is the immediacy a good one will have. A successful movie adaptation of a story will bring in visual and aural dimensions that weren't there for me before, and that will blow my mind and add to the story's realness in a visceral way. I remember crying during the 2003 Peter Pan because they'd just gotten it so right. But I forget all that, and then it surprises me all over again and I wonder how I didn't see it coming, which is exactly what happened with this movie. I just stared at the opening scene and realized that it was going to feel a lot more real than listening to the musical has ever felt. So there was some of that going on with watching Hathaway, too.
Not to give short shrift to the rest of the cast
Hugh Jackman is an entirely adequate Valjean (he doesn't do anything exciting with the role, but he doesn't fuck it up either), the dude who plays Marius is weird-looking but that seems appropriate somehow, and Éponine's actress can't really be faulted for the fact that the makeup crew made her look like the cover model for Waif Monthly (which is especially noticeable because Fantine shows the wear and tear of her life in a way that this Éponine doesn't; the comparison is maybe a little unfair, but I couldn't help it, especially since I really enjoy ugly pathetic little book!Éponine). I was vaguely disappointed by Amanda Seyfried, but only because she's someone else I've liked for years and I figured that if anyone could make me give two shits about Cosette, it would be her. I did not give two shits about Cosette, but I can't really blame Seyfried; like I said above, Cosette is boring as fuck and the only boon she offers the actress playing her is a chance to show off their soprano. I can't even blame Cosette's boringness on the musical, either. She is equally dull in the book, and arguably worse at the end when she literally (not figuratively, but LITERALLY, okay, I'm not exaggerating) forgets Valjean exists. At least musical!Cosette manages to REMEMBER the man who fucking raised her. This is the only thing the musical does better than the book.
And all the stuff they brought in from the book! Fantine losing teeth! Javert's confession to "falsely" denouncing Madeleine! That awkward moment where Valjean confesses in the courtroom and no one believes him! Fauchelevent! The convent! The sewers and that especially disgusting moment where Valjean is up to his chin in shit! (Fun fact: I first read that scene whilst eating breakfast, which happened to involve something brownish and lumpy. YUM.) Monsieur Gillenormand!! M Gillenormand is my favorite tertiary character in the novel, okay, I cannot express how much I love him and his Royalist ways and his profound gratitude for Marius's survival and how he tries not to be a Royalist because of it and oh oh oh so many feelings. I think it sucks that he got chopped from the musical and there he is in the movie and he gets to SING and I don't care if he doesn't do anything and he sings like four words because HE IS THERE. And there's a bunch of other stuff that I'm forgetting, but it all made a book purist like me so happy to see it. It helps the flow of the story and proves that the people making the movie genuinely cared about what they were doing and that above all is the kind of thing that makes a movie work.
I also liked a lot of the changes made from the stage musical. Some of them were just little twisting of words to make it smoother or justify the setting (Bamatabois walking in the dark rather than crossing from the park); some of them just make more sense, like getting rid of that weird branding Valjean supposedly has; some making more of an emotional impact, like placing "I Dreamed a Dream" after "Lovely Ladies." It gives a sense of freshening something old into something a little newer without losing the core of it.
One thing from the musical I have never before appreciated the magnificent ridiculousness of: the ending. It doesn't matter how stunning the production is, the ending will never not smack of desperation. "Shit, okay, so everyone is fucking dead, how do we deal with that without sending the audience home hating us? I know, let's show everyone in HEAVEN!" Not even Anne Hathaway could keep me from giggling at that just a little. Bonus hilarity: Javert does not appear in the movie's ending, so either they're going with the fact that he doesn't really fit thematically into this massive heavenly barricade, or they're cheerfully reminding us that suicide is a mortal sin, so Javert is burning in hell! :D! Either way, at least we don't have to look at Russell Crowe again.
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He didn't detract for me as the entire movie pulled me in and didn't let me go. I've never read the book but was weirdly hooked on the musical when at a summer camp, some friends had me sing The Song of Angry Men with them. I think at that point, I might have seen the musical but it didn't stick. I sang that song and heard the other songs and it became part of my head.
So yes, lots of feelings and they need to release the full soundtrack instead of just highlights.
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In another sort of musical, he could probably work well, but this wasn't it.
Agreed. He'd be a lot more fun to watch in a role more appropriate to that tenor of his, where his natural charisma could shine through. (3:10 to Yuma: The Musical!)
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*snerks* That would be something to see as Bale can kind of sing as well. And the thought is making my William headvoice give me looks of no, we're not going down that path.
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