for all its flaws, the 1998 movie will always have a special place in my heart. it was my first exposure to les misérables, and the reason i decided to seek out the musical cast recording in the first place.
for all its flaws, the 1998 movie will always have a special place in my heart. it was my first exposure to les misérables, and the reason i decided to seek out the musical cast recording in the first place.
LES MISERABLES DYSTOPIAN FUTURE AU
ex-convict valjean finds that even after serving an extraordinary amount of time for a small theft he is unable to find any place where he will be accepted. not only that, but many of the towns he knew well before prison were abandoned or simply gone.
when he breaks parole inspector unit javert begins to chase his tail, and circumstances force him and the young child he takes into his care to paris.
once a shining cultural beacon and now a grey claustrophobic labyrinth where the curfew sirens and shriek of electric train rails taking the rich from party to party cover the wails of children as they starve and the cries of the poor in the undercity.
what valjean does not know is that there are whispers of a group of revolutionaries congregating below as well…
Les Misérables in more 2013 movie terms by Hugh Jackman & Anne Hathaway…
I think we’ve already covered pretty darn thoroughly that, as pretty as “Stars” is, it shows a pretty not-Hugolian Javert. The only religion that novel-Javert knows is legal authority.
But.
There is something wonderfully Brickish about the musical’s sense of, well, elevation. Javert looks upward for the right when Hugo’s pretty clear that truth comes from within and from below. Social progress is mined. The spirit of a city is in its suffering. If you want to know the reality of things, crawl into the sewers. Javert’s upward climb from his origins is so resolute that he forgets there might be something good to find in all those underground tunnels.
The musical captures this some in the spirit of “Look Down” (which I do think is an improvement from the “Pitié, pitié”/”Donnez, donnez” of the French). The recent film does an excellent job of contrasting Javert’s song with the ferment of the populace. It’s almost like the crowds of 1832 are rebuking the false direction of Javert’s gaze.
LES MIS: WHAT THEY WERE REALLY THINKING
who am i? who am i…? - i was expecting like cinderella or something what just happened here??
if you think cosette is bland i would like to remind you that growing up her only toy was a tiny sword that she used to cut the heads off of flies. that’s fucking metal
She also went off by herself in the pitch blackness in the forest by herself at midnight. If you don’t think that’s scary the only thing I can think is that you’ve never actually been camping outside of a local park.
