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I watched Les Misérables fully expecting to be underwhelmed, pretty much figuring that there was no way a movie could match up to the musical. (Les Mis is, after all, my favourite musical, despite my brief flings with Chess and The Phantom of the Opera.) I eyeballed the cast list, made dismissive noises, and if I'd heard about all the hype (I hadn't, I've been living under a rock), I'd probably have shrugged it off as residue glitter from having such a star-studded cast.
...Against all expectation, I was very much not underwhelmed.
I ended up watching it twice in about two days and had to tear myself away from watching it three times in three days (with a promise to myself that I'd watch it again after I finished reading the book). And now I'm waffling about catching it again tomorrow, despite not having finished the book. Self-control, I have none.
I don't think the music can top the quality of the studio recorded soundtrack (match yes, at certain points), but that's not what the movie sets out to do. The movie sets out to inject the human element of the script into the music, something that's more difficult to do in a stage performance, and - let's just say that you could hear the audience crying throughout the movie. The music isn't perfect, because the circumstances aren't perfect - the emotion comes through so much more clearly, in a significant pause, a falter, the way the singer's voice crumbles and trails off brokenly. (Fantine's I Dreamed a Dream - you'll either love it or hate it. There appears to be no middle ground.)
Having said that, there is nothing, nothing like hearing the opening chords of the (heartrendingly familiar) symphony in surround sound - I was sent hurtling back twelve or so years to the time we performed the soundtrack for the national inter-school band competition (well, maybe that is the comparison - there's nothing like being in the middle of the band itself that's performing the piece, when you can feel the very stage vibrating under your feet from the force of the music. Not something I'll get to experience again, and this is as close as it gets.)
It took my shellshocked brain two-thirds of the movie to realise that the enormously talented actor playing Valjean was Wolverine. (There is no trace of Wolverine at all in Hugh Jackman's Valjean. You wouldn't believe it's the same actor). I have truly massive amounts of admiration for Hugh Jackman now.
The only bits that were a bit flat were Russell Crowe's Javier, whose performance came out rather passionless (I wail, since Stars is one of my favourite songs.) Everyone else was spectacular (all these A lister actors shouldn't be able to act and sing so well - it almost seems unfair. Not that I'm complaining in the slightest.) It felt a little draggy near the end, but I suspect this has a lot to do with short attention spans and being too used to movies where there's the big spectacular battle and maybe 10 minutes of epilogue.
After all the whirling special effects of movies like The Hobbit, Avengers, and all the other things I've seen on the big-screen this year, Les Mis' near complete lack of CG and special effects felt a little odd at first - but the movie works so much better for it (a single solitary shadow hurrying past on the rainy street when Eponine sings "And the streets are full of strangers", the way Valjean's Who am I starts out with the camera focusing not on him, but his blurred reflection in a mirror...)
After the movie ripped my heart out, I went back and read the book, which, just a hundred pages in (out of 1400), has ripped my heart out, torn it to shreds, and stomped all over it (the phrase that comes to mind is - Every word [they] say is a dagger in me). Difficult though it is to read, I'm in love with the writing, which is of a mode that you no longer get these days, and which I have no absolutely no hope of ever replicating (nor, I think, would I try - most audiences would probably term it unreadable, of a mode and an era that has passed beyond recall. Nevertheless, it makes me very glad that I'm not a professional writer, because everything I've written feels incredibly shallow right now, and my inability to write in three or four different languages or to drop references to philosophers left right and center makes me feel distinctly and ruefully unlearned.)
I want the free digital companion so badly, but it seems that it can only be downloaded from the US iTunes store. (I cry at the injustice - it's supposed to be free, after all, and they said it was available worldwide).
...Against all expectation, I was very much not underwhelmed.
I ended up watching it twice in about two days and had to tear myself away from watching it three times in three days (with a promise to myself that I'd watch it again after I finished reading the book). And now I'm waffling about catching it again tomorrow, despite not having finished the book. Self-control, I have none.
I don't think the music can top the quality of the studio recorded soundtrack (match yes, at certain points), but that's not what the movie sets out to do. The movie sets out to inject the human element of the script into the music, something that's more difficult to do in a stage performance, and - let's just say that you could hear the audience crying throughout the movie. The music isn't perfect, because the circumstances aren't perfect - the emotion comes through so much more clearly, in a significant pause, a falter, the way the singer's voice crumbles and trails off brokenly. (Fantine's I Dreamed a Dream - you'll either love it or hate it. There appears to be no middle ground.)
Having said that, there is nothing, nothing like hearing the opening chords of the (heartrendingly familiar) symphony in surround sound - I was sent hurtling back twelve or so years to the time we performed the soundtrack for the national inter-school band competition (well, maybe that is the comparison - there's nothing like being in the middle of the band itself that's performing the piece, when you can feel the very stage vibrating under your feet from the force of the music. Not something I'll get to experience again, and this is as close as it gets.)
It took my shellshocked brain two-thirds of the movie to realise that the enormously talented actor playing Valjean was Wolverine. (There is no trace of Wolverine at all in Hugh Jackman's Valjean. You wouldn't believe it's the same actor). I have truly massive amounts of admiration for Hugh Jackman now.
The only bits that were a bit flat were Russell Crowe's Javier, whose performance came out rather passionless (I wail, since Stars is one of my favourite songs.) Everyone else was spectacular (all these A lister actors shouldn't be able to act and sing so well - it almost seems unfair. Not that I'm complaining in the slightest.) It felt a little draggy near the end, but I suspect this has a lot to do with short attention spans and being too used to movies where there's the big spectacular battle and maybe 10 minutes of epilogue.
After all the whirling special effects of movies like The Hobbit, Avengers, and all the other things I've seen on the big-screen this year, Les Mis' near complete lack of CG and special effects felt a little odd at first - but the movie works so much better for it (a single solitary shadow hurrying past on the rainy street when Eponine sings "And the streets are full of strangers", the way Valjean's Who am I starts out with the camera focusing not on him, but his blurred reflection in a mirror...)
After the movie ripped my heart out, I went back and read the book, which, just a hundred pages in (out of 1400), has ripped my heart out, torn it to shreds, and stomped all over it (the phrase that comes to mind is - Every word [they] say is a dagger in me). Difficult though it is to read, I'm in love with the writing, which is of a mode that you no longer get these days, and which I have no absolutely no hope of ever replicating (nor, I think, would I try - most audiences would probably term it unreadable, of a mode and an era that has passed beyond recall. Nevertheless, it makes me very glad that I'm not a professional writer, because everything I've written feels incredibly shallow right now, and my inability to write in three or four different languages or to drop references to philosophers left right and center makes me feel distinctly and ruefully unlearned.)
I want the free digital companion so badly, but it seems that it can only be downloaded from the US iTunes store. (I cry at the injustice - it's supposed to be free, after all, and they said it was available worldwide).
