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Dec. 29th, 2012 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo now that I've seen it twice, because yes, I am that ridiculous, let's talk about the Les Miserables movie!
I cannot actually talk to its quality, because as soon as I sat down in the theater I immediately lost ten years of wisdom, cynicism and general life experience and became once again the shiny-eyed seventeen-year-old who haunted dead revolutionary fanfiction forums. Which is to say, I had a lot of feelings and I am UTTERLY INCAPABLE of making any kind of critical assessment of this movie whatsoever.
What I can say: this movie was clearly made by people who passionately loved both the musical and the novel and wanted to fit them together as much as humanly possible. Some noticeable touches:
- GAVROCHE LIVES IN AN ELEPHANT! No, you don't understand, Gavroche lives in a giant statue of an elephant. This is one of my favorite things about the book and I am so glad someone else thinks this is as important a detail as I do.
- Fantine loses her teeth! Poor Fantine. :( Though they make it the back teeth, because presumably however far Anne Hathaway went for the role she was not particularly excited about losing two front teeth and I do not blame her. Also, Fantine is angry. When Anne Hathaway sings "I Dreamed A Dream" it's full of rage all the way through, which is something I love, and not something you usually get to hear.
- Valjean gets rescued and smuggled into Paris by the dude he rescued from the cart, which is a nice karmic touch.
- The revolutionaries are PRIVILEGED IDEALISTIC DOOFUSES who have no idea what they are doing. OH KIDS. I am also sort of in love with the dude who played Grantaire, who was not onscreen enough, but fully allowed me to project onto his expressions my belief that he is feeling 'welp we're all going to die and it's all kind of pointless but I loveEnjolras you all too much not to stick around anyway . . . . MORE WINE!' at all times. I am really sad that they cut Grantaire's uber-cynical verse from "Drink With Me;" I am also really sad that they only did the first verse of "Turning," which is one of my favorite songs in the show because it's the one about how privileged idealists can make all the dramatic last stands they want, but it doesn't always change all that much for the people who are actually living the lives those idealists grandstand about, except make them a little sadder and give them a mess to clean up.
- Speaking of grandstanding: oh my God, they managed to combine the most gloriously melodramatic aspects of Enjolras' death in the book AND the musical! Like, Enjolras both gets pierced by six bullets in the Cafe Musain while Grantaire dramatically jumps in at the last minute and dies at his feet, and gets to dangle symbolically upside down from a window holding a flag. I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY WORKED THAT BUT IT WAS AMAZING.
And now I have decided to reread the book, which is going to take me the next, er, little while. Les Miserables the novel is divided into five books, and I think I might write it up book by book, since seventeen-year-old Becca has SO MUCH TO SAY about Les Mis the novel, like, you don't even understand. So fair warning! I will try to lj-cut my "EXHAUSTIVE DETAILS ABOUT LES MIS CANON" posts so everyone who has no interest (which is pretty much everyone) can scroll past them.
I cannot actually talk to its quality, because as soon as I sat down in the theater I immediately lost ten years of wisdom, cynicism and general life experience and became once again the shiny-eyed seventeen-year-old who haunted dead revolutionary fanfiction forums. Which is to say, I had a lot of feelings and I am UTTERLY INCAPABLE of making any kind of critical assessment of this movie whatsoever.
What I can say: this movie was clearly made by people who passionately loved both the musical and the novel and wanted to fit them together as much as humanly possible. Some noticeable touches:
- GAVROCHE LIVES IN AN ELEPHANT! No, you don't understand, Gavroche lives in a giant statue of an elephant. This is one of my favorite things about the book and I am so glad someone else thinks this is as important a detail as I do.
- Fantine loses her teeth! Poor Fantine. :( Though they make it the back teeth, because presumably however far Anne Hathaway went for the role she was not particularly excited about losing two front teeth and I do not blame her. Also, Fantine is angry. When Anne Hathaway sings "I Dreamed A Dream" it's full of rage all the way through, which is something I love, and not something you usually get to hear.
- Valjean gets rescued and smuggled into Paris by the dude he rescued from the cart, which is a nice karmic touch.
- The revolutionaries are PRIVILEGED IDEALISTIC DOOFUSES who have no idea what they are doing. OH KIDS. I am also sort of in love with the dude who played Grantaire, who was not onscreen enough, but fully allowed me to project onto his expressions my belief that he is feeling 'welp we're all going to die and it's all kind of pointless but I love
- Speaking of grandstanding: oh my God, they managed to combine the most gloriously melodramatic aspects of Enjolras' death in the book AND the musical! Like, Enjolras both gets pierced by six bullets in the Cafe Musain while Grantaire dramatically jumps in at the last minute and dies at his feet, and gets to dangle symbolically upside down from a window holding a flag. I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY WORKED THAT BUT IT WAS AMAZING.
And now I have decided to reread the book, which is going to take me the next, er, little while. Les Miserables the novel is divided into five books, and I think I might write it up book by book, since seventeen-year-old Becca has SO MUCH TO SAY about Les Mis the novel, like, you don't even understand. So fair warning! I will try to lj-cut my "EXHAUSTIVE DETAILS ABOUT LES MIS CANON" posts so everyone who has no interest (which is pretty much everyone) can scroll past them.
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Date: 2012-12-29 11:18 pm (UTC)It's one of the many, many scenes I have bookmarked in my raggedy, beloved copy.
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Date: 2012-12-29 11:20 pm (UTC)Also, the fact that Gavroche never finds his baby brothers again to take them back to live with him in his elephant is one of the saddest things in the whole book. :(
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Date: 2012-12-29 11:22 pm (UTC)(I am looking forward to your dissection of anything you care to dissect with the possible exception of Waterloo.)
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Date: 2012-12-29 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 11:26 pm (UTC)I remember there being snark in the Bishop of Interminable Lists, but I still don't know what's going on with Waterloo. Maybe if I reread it in my best Warhorses of Letters-Stephen Fry voice it will be tolerable. (Because yes, once I see the show, I am sure I shall also reread.)
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Date: 2012-12-30 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 12:22 am (UTC)well if you do decide to take this plunge we will have our shared hollow laughter to sustain us . . .?
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Date: 2012-12-30 01:17 am (UTC)I cannot freaking wait to see this movie.
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Date: 2012-12-30 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 01:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 01:41 am (UTC)This is so true. :(
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Date: 2012-12-30 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 04:51 am (UTC)Hahahahaha... I just saw it. For the first time ever!!! I knew the gist (Valjean steals bread, Javert is relentless), and I, uh, knew who Gavroche was, but that was it. So pretty much the whole film for me was grumbling about stupid, stiff-necked men who made things much more complicated than they needed to be. Including the frat boy revolutionaries!
But I adored Fantine. With great adoration.
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Date: 2012-12-30 04:55 am (UTC)I was not expecting to love Anne Hathaway's Fantine anywhere near as much as I did, but man! TOTALLY BLOWN AWAY. Where did that voice come from, Anne Hathaway!
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Date: 2012-12-30 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 05:11 am (UTC). . . and all of them are more interesting than Marius. >.>
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Date: 2012-12-30 05:38 am (UTC)YES PLEASE
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Date: 2012-12-30 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 07:27 am (UTC)THIS.
AND ALSO EVERYTHING ELSE IN YOUR POST.
I mean, I have all these ~FEELINGS~ about things I liked or didn't like, but none of it is remotely objective because my inner 16-year-old is just squeeing ENDLESSLY.
Also this:
this movie was clearly made by people who passionately loved both the musical and the novel and wanted to fit them together as much as humanly possible.
I have actually been reading/listening to actor/director interviews, which I don't normally do, and this shines through SO MUCH in that and in the movie itself, and for that alone I love it. I honestly can't think of the last time I saw a movie where everyone so clearly LOVED everything about it.
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Date: 2012-12-30 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 03:51 pm (UTC)And oh, man, yes, gosh, that makes me SO HAPPY. And, like, it's great, because I can see the reasoning behind all of their choices, even when they're not choices I would have made, because of how much I love it and how much they do!
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Date: 2012-12-30 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 04:53 pm (UTC)I am kind of wondering if there is something about teenagers and Les Miz, because the current Tumblr incarnation of the fandom seems rather teenaged, too.
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Date: 2012-12-30 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 03:15 pm (UTC)Ahaha I see now why people were complaining about the excessive closeups, and the story seems both more AND less ridiculous in movie form. And yet. AND YET. My tiny, first-live-musical-ever self still goes ;;;_________;;; right on cue.
I totally agree the anger Anna Hathaway brought to the part was a great touch. And the singing! This seems to be her year for surprising people, WOAH lady.
Now you've reminded me that I read the abridged version of Les Miserables and then tried to give the UN-abridged version a shot only to stall... somewhere in the middle. >_> Maybe I should try again. I think I wandered off in the middle of the exhaustive exposition on Paris sewers the last time >_>
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Date: 2012-12-31 04:41 pm (UTC)ahahaha I mean, I never blame anyone for stopping in the middle of Les Mis, because SEWERS, WATERLOO, Victor Hugo and his UTTER INABILITY not to go off on whatever shiny tangent has distracted him this time. But there are many bits that make it worth it!
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Date: 2013-01-25 09:39 pm (UTC)