MOVIE: Les Miserables 2012

[dixieagle]

Peeps???

Squishy, sugary yellow marshmallow chicks that are popular at Easter. I think there are some pink Peeps as well.

 

[Sarabande]

Thank you for your informative and thorough response. I love musical theater and opera (although I am hardly an aficionado), and I do agree with you. That being said, I think some adaptations – Phantom of the Opera, Wicked – manage to pull off compelling stories with intelligible characters and have awesome soundtracks to boot!

You’re welcome!! I still haven’t had a chance to see “Les Mis” yet, so I still can’t give my opinion on it. With little ones, going to the movies is a luxury. My husband and I just saw “The Hobbit” for a “date”… the first movie we’ve seen in the theaters for a couple of years… so we had to save up a little more money for me to go see “Les Mis” with my cousins. (He doesn’t like musicals.)

I’ve never read “Phantom of the Opera” although I did like the musical as a girl, having seen it 4 times with all excellent broadway singers. Never saw it with Sarah Brightman, … too young at the time for my mom to take, but she got to see the original cast. (The movie was a disappointment, though, due to the actress who played Christine being an awful singer. Too ridiculous to be believable, but I digress.) I have never seen “Wiked” or read the book, although I have heard some of the music. I’m personally not a fan of that kind of music and singing (even though I do think they are talented), so I know I wouldn’t enjoy it. Even if the story was fun, the music would drive me nuts. lol! I’d only go if someone paid for my ticket or if my dearest best girlfriend really wanted to see with me for her 15th time. (She absolutely LOVES that musical.)

 

[DaveBj]

I just recently bought the DVD and watched it over this past weekend, so here’s my two sous:

1. Several times the lyricist would rhyme a word with its homonym, or with a word whose last syllable was a homonym of the first word (like rhyming “red” with the past tense “read,” or “led” with the name of the metal “lead”). Of course as I sit here now, I can’t think of any examples, but as I was watching and listening, they started popping out at me. That’s the kind of cheap rhyme the lyric writers are supposed to avoid.
2. What’s with the Hollywood idea that the French all speak with British accents? Numerous times in my movie/TV-watching career I’ve noticed that French characters seem to require Brit actors to portray them. The example that always comes to mind when I think of this is in Star Trek - The Next Generation. Capt. Jean-Luc Picard = Patrick Stewart, and when he returned to France to the family vineyard to recover from his encounter with the Borg, his brother, his sister-in-law, and his nephew were all portrayed by British actors. And so it was in Les Mis – the more viscerably French a character was, the sharper was the British accent, culminating in a very Cockney Gavroche. Couldn’t they find any street urchins in Paris to play him?
3. The performances of the main characters have been critiqued enough; I won’t go there. Of the lesser characters, Sacha Baron Cohen, whom I despise as an actor, seemed to be playing himself (again), which made it easy for me to not like Thenardier. Helena Bonham Carter seemed to be channeling a mix of herself as Bellatrix Lestrange, Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan in Annie, and Ron Moody as Fagin in Oliver. And as for Eponine – well, Marius was an idiot.
4. Regarding the musical performances, this was not opera. In opera, the musical performance is the most important thing, and everything else, including the plot, the acting, and the emotional content, is much less important. In this film, the opposite is the case: it is the acting and the emotional content are the important things, and the musical performances suffer in contrast. I am not saying that this is a Bad Thing; it is what it is. If I want to see a powerful musical performance of “I Dreamed a Dream,” for example, I can go on Youtube and watch Susan Boyle’s Britain’s Got Talent audition (which I just did; dang it, got something in my eye again )

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

I just recently bought the DVD and watched it over this past weekend, so here’s my two sous:

1. Several times the lyricist would rhyme a word with its homonym, or with a word whose last syllable was a homonym of the first word (like rhyming “red” with the past tense “read,” or “led” with the name of the metal “lead”). Of course as I sit here now, I can’t think of any examples, but as I was watching and listening, they started popping out at me. That’s the kind of cheap rhyme the lyric writers are supposed to avoid.

The song you refer to is “Red and Black.” It makes sense that you can’t think of any examples of rhyming homonyms, because there aren’t any rhyming homonyms in that song.

Cat:

In this day and age in the United States, many many people, including many young people, think “love” is the same as “making love,” or to put it bluntly, having sex.

So if they take this phrase seriously, a lot of naive and theologically-ignorant people will think that when they make love to their latest “honey,” that they are “seeing the face of God.” (Nonsense, of course.)

And then when the relationship goes bad, they wonder what happened to God.

IMO, the rather vague philosophy of this phrase could cause modern people (U.S.) to become even more hostile towards God and religion.

Eh, if people are really conflating love with sex, then it seems to me we’ve got a far bigger problem than a cute little phrase in a play/movie. Far bigger.

I don’t really get the phrase at all. I don’t think it makes any sense. I know plenty of people who truly love other human beings, without sex even, but yet they are atheists, or at best, believers in God but hostile to the Church and any other form of “organized religion.”

I thought it was straightforward?

I usually think of this passage:
Matthew 25:

37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[a] you did it to me.’

God is love. When we love one another as He has commanded, we witness a glimpse (the “face”) of God. God is more amazing than anything we can imagine with our current human limitations. To love Him is to love one another, and vice versa. It is to partake in the divine grandeur that is so much larger than us.

I’m reminded of a very sweet-sounding phrase that came out of another tear-jerking movie decades ago: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Very clever-sounding phrase, but of course it’s utter nonsense. There are a lot of divorced and separated people in the world today who wish that they or their ex had been willing to say, “I’m sorry” and mean it.

I think that phrase makes very little sense compared to the phrase above from Les Miz.

I’m wondering if perhaps the phrase loses a deeper meaning when translated from French into English? (I’m assuming that this phrase was part of Hugo’s novel.) Or perhaps it loses something when it’s taken out of context and put on a t-shirt.

IMHO, it works perfectly even without the context. Just my opinion.

 

[DaveBj]

The song you refer to is “Red and Black.” It makes sense that you can’t think of any examples of rhyming homonyms, because there aren’t any rhyming homonyms in that song.

snip

I’ll watch it again soon and take notes.

 

[KevinAK]

I just recently bought the DVD and watched it over this past weekend, so here’s my two sous:

1. Several times the lyricist would rhyme a word with its homonym, or with a word whose last syllable was a homonym of the first word (like rhyming “red” with the past tense “read,” or “led” with the name of the metal “lead”). Of course as I sit here now, I can’t think of any examples, but as I was watching and listening, they started popping out at me. That’s the kind of cheap rhyme the lyric writers are supposed to avoid.
2. What’s with the Hollywood idea that the French all speak with British accents? Numerous times in my movie/TV-watching career I’ve noticed that French characters seem to require Brit actors to portray them. The example that always comes to mind when I think of this is in Star Trek - The Next Generation. Capt. Jean-Luc Picard = Patrick Stewart, and when he returned to France to the family vineyard to recover from his encounter with the Borg, his brother, his sister-in-law, and his nephew were all portrayed by British actors. And so it was in Les Mis – the more viscerably French a character was, the sharper was the British accent, culminating in a very Cockney Gavroche. Couldn’t they find any street urchins in Paris to play him?
3. The performances of the main characters have been critiqued enough; I won’t go there. Of the lesser characters, Sacha Baron Cohen, whom I despise as an actor, seemed to be playing himself (again), which made it easy for me to not like Thenardier. Helena Bonham Carter seemed to be channeling a mix of herself as Bellatrix Lestrange, Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan in Annie, and Ron Moody as Fagin in Oliver. And as for Eponine – well, Marius was an idiot.
4. Regarding the musical performances, this was not opera. In opera, the musical performance is the most important thing, and everything else, including the plot, the acting, and the emotional content, is much less important. In this film, the opposite is the case: it is the acting and the emotional content are the important things, and the musical performances suffer in contrast. I am not saying that this is a Bad Thing; it is what it is. If I want to see a powerful musical performance of “I Dreamed a Dream,” for example, I can go on Youtube and watch Susan Boyle’s Britain’s Got Talent audition (which I just did; dang it, got something in my eye again )

If I want to see a powerful performance of I Dreamed a Dream Susan Boyle would be the last person I’d go to.

 

[louisak]

I’m reminded of a very sweet-sounding phrase that came out of another tear-jerking movie decades ago: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Very clever-sounding phrase, but of course it’s utter nonsense.

The movie was Love Story, made in 1970. The phrase has been criticized and ridiculed many times. I don’t think it’s fair to put this on the same level with “To love another person is to see the face of God”. The latter is capable of a valid Christian interpretation, even if it is also capable of other interpretations. The former is, as you put it, just nonsense.

I’m wondering if perhaps the phrase loses a deeper meaning when translated from French into English? (I’m assuming that this phrase was part of Hugo’s novel.)

I don’t believe it was. It’s been years since I read the book, but as I recall, Hugo is not so overtly sentimental. Neither does he express much religious conviction in the book - the episode with the saintly bishop comes from the book, but it is not given the overtly theological significance that it seems to have in the musical (I say “seems to have” because I have not seen the show). Hugo’s interests seem to have been on the purely moral plane, his concept of redemption is an Earth-bound one.

 

[DaveBj]

I thought of something else overnight – Jean Valjean was about 40 when he got out of prison, and then there were all those years building himself into a respectable Monsieur le Maire (sp?), and 10 more years growing Cosette into womanhood, and he didn’t seem to age a bit. One sort of had to suspend disbelief there.

This has nothing to do with Les Miz, but with reference to the Ryan O’Neal/Ali McGraw movie Love Story and the quote “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” the linked clip is the last scene from What’s Up Doc, which was a couple movies later for O’Neal. It provides a totally different take on “Love means . . .”

youtube.com/watch?v=kSuAqROfwWU

 

[DaveBj]

I just recently bought the DVD and watched it over this past weekend, so here’s my two sous:

1. Several times the lyricist would rhyme a word with its homonym . . .snip)

I just realized I used the wrong word in my long post. I should have written homophone, not homonym. My bad. D’OH!!!

 

[Sarabande]

I thought of something else overnight – Jean Valjean was about 40 when he got out of prison, and then there were all those years building himself into a respectable Monsieur le Maire (sp?), and 10 more years growing Cosette into womanhood, and he didn’t seem to age a bit. One sort of had to suspend disbelief there.

This has nothing to do with Les Miz, but with reference to the Ryan O’Neal/Ali McGraw movie Love Story and the quote “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” the linked clip is the last scene from What’s Up Doc, which was a couple movies later for O’Neal. It provides a totally different take on “Love means . . .”

youtube.com/watch?v=kSuAqROfwWU

Loved it! I guess people thought that was a silly phrase from the beginning.

I still haven’t seen the movie version of Les Mis. The night I was supposed to go out, my cousin got sick. I’m guessing we can now rent it?

 

[DaveBj]

Loved it! I guess people thought that was a silly phrase from the beginning.

I still haven’t seen the movie version of Les Mis. The night I was supposed to go out, my cousin got sick. I’m guessing we can now rent it?

Yeah, it’s rentable now. Don’t know who your TV provider is, but it might be on some of the PPVs, too.