The novel consists of five volumes, each of which are divided into several books and subdivided into chapters, totaling 48 books and chapters. Despite being a long read, Les Miserables is one of the most successful and timeless stories of the Romantic era. The plot of Les Miserables follows ex-prisoner Jean Valjean on his path to redemption and is well known today for its musical and film adaptations.
Throughout the story, the narrator follows Valjean on his journey to evade the law while caring for an orphaned girl named Cosette.
Themes present in this epic are religion, poverty, freedom, and young love. After serving a year prison sentence and suffering life as a poor ex-convict, Valjean violates his parole and assumes a new identity, becoming mayor of a small French town where he collects a large sum of money and lives piously for many years.
His immense physical presence and slow, controlled delivery, combined with his ability to express his inner feelings with little more than a look or a moment's hesitation command our respect and sympathy, making him the perfect incarnation of the tormented but determined Valjean.
It wreaks sincerity and a genuine desire to transfer not just the story, but the spirit of the original onto the big screen. Check out this link. Finally, a region 2 DVD will be available from December 8th Les Miserables Probably the best known of the cinematic adaptations, with Fredric March as Valjean and Charles Laughton as Javert, this is nonetheless a somewhat sanitised and flawed version. Short on detail and lacking in grit, this is a fairly blinkered if well-intentioned version, concentrating on legal injustice and the plight of released convicts.
Even Marius delivers a speech criticising the State for its treatment of ex-cons rather than broadening the canvas to discuss other social issues. Fantine's lamentable situation is sanitised to avoid all mention of prostitution, and while we still feel considerable sympathy for her, the "cleaning up" of her plight also has the effect of lessening the depth of our feelings for her.
The poetry and tragedy of the original are not well served as the storyline itself is cut short and characters disappear completely or are significantly altered to suit the "new" framework. Fredric March is sincere, but perhaps lacking in gravitas.
Laughton an actor I have greatly admired in other productions is just not right as Javert. Whether this is due to the script or his playing is open to debate, but to have Javert display emotion the trembling of the lip!
A more adolescent version than the altogether more rounded, complete, and adult French version which immediately preceded it. While it bears the title "Les Miserables" and the characters' names are the same, this film has very few other resemblances to the original story. While some changes must be made in adapting a book, it seems almost as if the writers and director were trying to see just how poorly they could represent the novel on film.
The changes they made detract from the story instead of clarifying or augmenting its themes. The beginning sequences are fairly true excluding that the baker shoots Valjean as he makes off with the loaf of bread, leaving the audience to wonder that he's still alive in the next scene , but the rest of the story wanders farther and farther afield, and the characters--especially Jean Valjean--only vaguely resemble their literary counterparts. The most accurately portrayed characters are the Bishop of Digne an uncredited role , who exudes calm assurance and kindness, if in a somewhat disinterested way, and Javert, played by John Hinrich, who is stern, relentless, and confident, although he tends toward woodenness and has some pretty bad dialogue to deliver.
However, Gino Cervi as Valjean, is a travesty. Admittedly, the script doesn't help him either. While he makes a fine surly convict even if he does look a little like a cross between William Shatner and Liberace , he never progresses beyond that. Throughout the film, he threatens people--Cosette included-shouts, and tries to strong--arm his way out of situations he doesn't like.
He pulls a gun on Thenardier and warns him not to come any closer or he'll "settle his account for good. Instead of showing affection for her, he slaps Cosette and spitefully tells her, when he learns of her love for Marius, then in that case, they're leaving for England sooner than he had planned.
Without the Valjean of the novel, the story is meaningless and his actions have no significance. Yes, in the novel he must struggle to make the right choices, but instead of showing that conflict, director Riccardo Freda only wanted to portray a glowering, threatening, selfish Valjean.
In the face of such a man, Javert seems justified in pursuing him, and Javert's final revelation about Valjean's goodness has no substance. There are so many flaws in the plot, it's impossible to list them all, but I feel a brief summary is in order to convey the dismantling the novel underwent in the making of this movie.
We first meet Valjean while he's laboring in a prison quarry, and he attempts several escapes in needlessly silly sequences. After being saved by the Bishop, Valjean starts an iron works an anachronism, as the Industrial Revolution hadn't progressed that far by that time. Fantine does have a very brief scene in which she seems to be soliciting customers as a prostitute, but her first "customer" puts snow down her dress, precipitating her arrest.
There is no Fauchelevent or cart episode, and Arras is totally left out. Instead Valjean confesses via letter! After getting advice from Fantine's nurse! Afterward, Valjean escapes arrest when a random sympathetic iron worker starts a fire in the factory and the police cannot follow him through the flames.
After the rescue of Cosette, things get really bad. Perhaps it's a bad omen that when Valjean meets her, the trees still have all their leaves There is no convent, although Valjean escapes over a wall with Cosette.
Time passes, via a cheesy voice-over, and Cosette has grown into No, really, the actress who played Fantine Valentina Cortesa also plays Cosette. As an actress, she's effective as Fantine, but too old to believably play Cosette. Valjean then becomes the object of Thenardier's revenge when he goes to Gorbeau Street not Gorbeau House to warn Marius to keep away from his daughter.
But eventually, only after Cosette begs, he goes to the barricade, rescues Marius, and runs into Javert. Now, Javert was never at the barricade, never captured, and Valjean never saved him-but get this , Marius is the son of the prefect of police, and as such he is immune.
Javert has orders to bring Marius home if he's found, and he loyally carries those orders out before releasing Valjean, writing a letter of resignation, and drowning himself in the Seine. Although why he didn't expose the prefect's corruption, or resign over that rather than over the surly Valjean, is a mystery. So, Valjean would seem to be happily set with Marius, Cosette, and Marius's father, but he finds out that Thenardier has visited.
He goes back to Thenardier's lodgings and confronts him, whereupon Thenardier pulls a gun on him, shoots Valjean yes, really , trips through some sort of trapdoor and falls to his death. Valjean sees this, clutches his wounded chest with a pained look on his face, and the frame freezes and the words "The End" are displayed.
Now, if that's not a slaughter of a classic, I don't know what is. Despite all the questionable changes, the most puzzling thing is the point of making this film.
It almost seems as though, from the film's portrayal of Valjean and its concluding scene, that the moral is Valjean got what he deserved.
He saved Cosette, but wasn't worthy to live any longer. I'm left wondering if anyone making this movie actually read and liked! Viewers, for their part, are likely to be left unmoved, with no sympathy for Valjean, no sense of the tragic aspect of Javert's death, and not much happiness for the union of Cosette and Marius, their romance having taken almost no screen time.
Unless you plan to make fun of it, the film is hard to watch, particularly for those who know the real story. Of course, if you're making fun of it, at two hours, there's plenty of material Unfortunately this is another film version that fails to capture the spirit of the novel while rearranging and omitting significant chunks of plot.
It doesn't re-write quite as much as the version; instead, it's more like "Les Mis Lite. While considerable attention is given to some sequences, such as the opening that shows us Jean Valjean's brutal life in prison, important scenes are left out completely. There are no Thenardiers just mention of innkeepers looking after Cosette , there is no cart scene though Valjean stops a rich man's runaway carriage when he first arrives in Montreuil-sur-Mer and ingratiates himself to the townspeople , nor is Fantine's story given any screen time.
Her dismissal from the factory is explained in a few sentences as she blames the mayor for her arrest. Without Thenardiers, Valjean can make no journey to the inn; instead he arrives with Cosette, who looks about eleven and not at all as if she's been treated badly, and she and Fantine enjoy a tearful reunion. Valjean's most serious responsibility, to care for Cosette in Fantine's stead, is not emphasized. Rather, with the French mini-series, this version makes the unfathomable decision to hint at Valjean's being in love with Cosette.
One of the worst moments is a scene in which they recite lines from Romeo and Juliet. After more than 6, unforgettable performances, that fabled New York run came to a close in London Return For those who have never taken in a live production of the show, or are heartbroken to hear that this historic run is ending, never fear. On Aug.
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