Les Miserables: Just Keep Singing...

"Do You Hear The People Sing"
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On a scale from one to ten I give Les Miserables an eight.  The cinematography was amazing, thank you Danny Cohen. I truly believed and felt I was living in the time period and understood the nature of the world around me. Film editors Chris Dickens and Melanie Ann Oliver did a spectacular job as well (especially in some of the larger, more moving ensemble cast numbers) their work drove me to chills. Piecing together camera angles to display hte truth and meaning behind a dramatic song is tough, especially when not on a Broadway stage and these two pulled it off. A lot of intense close ups and characters reactions off one another made these songs a lot more powerful and I enjoyed them because of that. However, there were just certain cuts that disrupted the pacing a little that distracted me a bit. Like sometimes after a song was done it would immediately cut to another character or another location and I would go, "Woah, that was quick" and felt like I was just sucked out of a moment but overall, bravo.  Director Tom Hooper clearly wanted the symbolism of the movie’s hardships and sacrifices to be known; you can see it in the style it was edited (I’ll talk about his extreme close ups later) but also throughout the movie in very subtle ways. Showing policeman Javier (Crowe) as standing on tall ledges/walls and always from low camera angles shows authority and power and how we should feel small compared to him. In the opening scene with the cast of prisoners singing Look Down we have to look up at Javier in all his glory, and automatically I knew I was going to hate his character. Especially when he makes Jean Valjean carry the broken mast of a ship that had the French flag on it. It’s symbolic because Valjean shows that his strength could unfortunately be his weakness, which we will see later on in the film. It is only when outside his factory eight years later Valjean lifts a broken cart off of a man, in the presence of Javier, which causes him to start to recognize Valjean as the escaped prisoner.

Hugh Jackman is barely recognizable as the prisoner Jean Valjean in the opening scene and completely transforms himself throughout the movie. At first, when he leaves prison after nineteen years serving time for stealing a loaf of bread he finds himself at a church where a kind hearted priest takes him in. He shows Jean Valjean the way of God by giving him a set of pillar church candles and sings, ‘use this precious silver to become an honest man.’ It’s a symbol that Jean Valjean will use religion to become a good and disciplined man, and become righteous. When he rips his parole papers into the wind it is the end of the prisoner Jean Valjean and a rebirth to the wealthy businessman and mayor he becomes. Another symbol was Fantine (Hathaway) is first shown in a pink dress to show her innocence and youth but causes her to stand out in a factory full of bland blue and grey dressed older women. And as you will see, when she stands out bad things is going to follow.

Apart from my deeper levels of thinking on Les Miserables, let’s dive into the (mostly) good stuff that makes up 98% of this movie, which is the singing. Yes. They sing ALL the time and sometimes the jarring moments when they break in and out of song makes me just want to yell out JUST TALK! IT WILL BE MUCH FASTER THIS WAY! Already you are sitting through a 157-minute movie, the least they can do is speed up some of the singing that’s not needed.  Not only were there certain singing parts not necessary but also the camera angles it was shot in killed me as a theatregoer. I know Hooper was trying to keep these tight close ups on the actors while they sang so the audience can really listen to what the lyrics were and the messages behind them but it sometimes made me uncomfortable since I felt like I was staring into someone’s mouth or up their nose. Enter here: Anne Hathaway as Fantine. Who knew she had a set of pipes! Her monumental song I Dreamed A Dream was full of emotion, tears, passion and cries of despair (shot from the neck up) you know she is singing at rock bottom, she will never get out of this hole she is in and with her extreme close up singing and sobbing, it was the only time I was okay with feeling uncomfortable. I’m watching someone vulnerably sing her swan song and she even says before the song ‘making love to one already dead,’ which reinforces me, she knows she will die but she will die trying to keep her daughter Cosette alive.  I would of appreciated a little more change ups in the camera angles so I can see the actor’s body language and really take in everything, including the setting in which the actor is singing their heart out in, which doesn’t happen too often.

But of course there were some moments of singing that brought me to tears, Thank you Eponine. Her rendition of the tragic love song, On My Own in the rain is heart breaking, vulnerable, moving and beautiful. If any girl has ever experienced loving a guy who doesn’t notice how much she love him will truly connect with the piece and Samantha Barks as Eponine does the job. She also has the skinniest waist I’ve ever seen in my life! She would do anything for love, especially her secret love Marius (who loves Cosette), including risking her life in the barricade for Marius and dying in the rain with him holding her in his arms. Samantha steals the scene as Eponine and her performance was Oscar worthy to me.

Now to the man who impressed me the most: Hugh Jackman. His voice and expression of emotions truly hit home and I believe he was a man who suffered such sadness in his life, and thankfully he is also Broadway trained and really could work with the material and make the lyrics just as important as any dialogue in the story.  But Russell Crowe, to me he always seemed like he was bellowing his songs like a horn and not having any attachment to the lyrics at all. I thought he was a good Javert when he wasn’t singing. The scene where he is at the bloodied barricade after the fight and has a touching moment with the dead boys was purely silent but truly magical and moving.  Crowe’s subtle touches as Javier were much more powerful then any words he sang. Eddie Redmayne as Marius was good. He has a very powerful voice too, in the song Empty Chairs At Empty Tables it was truly moving to see him work the scene alone and I was moved and I felt I lost friends as well as he did after the battle at the barricade. The woman who changes his world though is Cosette, played by Amanda Seyfried and frankly folks I wasn’t that impressed. After seeing her in ABBA’s musical MAMMA MIA! I thought she would hit the nail on the head here but when she sang All My Life her voice to me was way too high for enjoyment and vibrated more then a typical singing bird. It got kind of annoying and I found myself cringing when she started to sing. She could of done a lot better, but she did connect to the scenes and material very well I have to say.

Last but not least, my favorite comedy relief pair: the Innkeepers. Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter play husband and wife and are the most ridiculous couple. Greedy, manipulating and basically common thieves they run an inn but it are definitely not worth your money and some precious possessions. Their song Master of the House totally distracted the audience from the death of Fantine with the playful upbeat and choreographed song throughout the movie they make their presence known and somehow manage to help the plot along it’s course when it is due. Overall the songs One Day More and Do You Hear The People Sing, made my heart start pumping and blow me away with the production quality. Even if you are not a musical person (even though I am) the story line is very interesting and easy to follow and you will still be able to appreciate the music and all that went into creating such an extraordinary film. It will definitely receive some Oscars for sure!