Les Miserables
I've been toying over the idea of this entry for a while, and now that I have two other things I should be working on, and I'm making a sort of half-assed attempt in the New Year to write more even if no one gives a shit about what I have to say, I thought it would be a good time to write it.
I have an interesting history with this story...intellectual property...franchise...I don't know what you call it when it's like a classical work of literature that gets adapted a bunch of different ways. This entity. I think the first time I was ever introduced to it was when I was driving somewhere with my sister and she had One Day More on some random mix CD. I found it moving. With no context to the characters, the story, or even the fact that it was a Broadway (West End, whatever) musical, it made me feel something.
I don't think I expressed much curiosity besides asking her to play it again, and for a while it lay dormant. Then my mom showed me the 1998 movie version starring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman, and Claire Danes.
I loved it. And I've kind of felt this unconscious embarrassment about it, because you can tell by the way it's produced that it comfortably belongs in that weird, neglected genre of classics-adapted-to-mediocre movies that make like $20 million dollars in the box office and then play on like the Hallmark channel for the rest of their lives. Like the Patrick Stewart Moby Dick, the Demi Moore Scarlet Letter, the Mel Gibson Hamlet. Like, your English teachers play it for you in class at the end of the semester and no one watches preferring to pass notes or work on homework. No one seems to care about these movies, and they seem to be nothing more than an excuse to let famous, half-talented movie stars play paragons of literature while prancing around in period costume.
I don't know. You're not supposed to like those movies. They're supposed to be like, obligations of the film medium or our egotistical artistic imperatives. Yeah, we recognize great work was done before film was invented and I GUESS we should pay homage by like filming it or whatever.
But that movie...I mean, the amount I think about/rewatch it, it has to fill one of the remaining four or five spots in my top ten. (I think the rest so far are The Land Before Time, The Truman Show, Spirited Away, Back to the Future, Pleasantville, and There Will Be Blood. There are probably some I'm forgetting but those are the ones I always think about.)
I want to talk about it. A lot. And in doing so, I want to frame it against the musical that just came out.
Let me get there, though.
I guess the next step in my history of Les Miserables was finally getting the gist of the stage musical at some point. I did this with my mom too, because I remember playing Who Am I? from the CD I had acquired somehow and I think she started crying? I don't know, she did that a lot, I wouldn't be surprised. And I knew a little bit more about it than her, and we kind of talked about the story and filled in the holes with the 1998 movie version. That was when we found out about Eponine, who was cut (rather wisely, but I'll get there) from the 1998 version, and I tell her that she's like the unrequited love character and my mom goes, "she dies, doesn't she?"
There was a weird piece of wisdom in that has stuck with me. Like, culturally, people who feel too much love, or one-directional love, have to be expunged in order to maintain balance. I don't know.
There's something about listening to the soundtrack to a musical without having seen it. This has happened to me like, a few times. You listen to the soundtrack, which is usually produced in narrative order, and you kind of have to fill in the gaps between the songs yourself. I remember doing this with Wicked, and my narrative-caulk was like, way more tragic and meaningful (to me, anyway) than what actually happened in the show once I saw it. Now, I've seen the Les Miserables stage musical twice before this movie. Once, this kid in my 8th-grade graduating class played Valjean at the boy's Catholic high school, and I guess we went to like the traveling-professional version at the Marcus once too.
I don't remember feeling gypped at those. But when I saw the movie musical, I felt super, incredibly let down.
Okay let me get into it now. There is a lot to go through so this is going to take a while. STRAP INTO YOUR HORSE-DRAWN CART INFESTED WITH THE UNWASHED PROLETARIAT.
The opening
The opening of Les Miserables is actually my favorite part. I like the first half way better than the second half, and I may be pulling this out of my ass but I feel like most people feel the inverse. I mean, the revolution is viscerally moving and exciting with all the MUSKETS and CANNONS but I hate love-at-first-sight what-the-fuck-do-you-even-have-in-common kinds of love stories, you know? Bella and Edward. I guess they were more love at first smell, though. I actually think the Valjean/Fantine "love" story has a little bit more going on with it than the Cosette/Marius one.
LET'S START AT THE BEGINNING THOUGH.
So I should probably admit that I've never actually read the book, which I guess is kind of a liability, but to be honest I think part of the challenge of adapting Les Miserables is all about economy. The book is fucking like, 2,000 pages long and you've got to fit that much story (I know there's a lot of irrelevant bloat but it's still pretty epic) into a movie- or show-sized schedule. The musical already has a little bit of a disadvantage, since it includes the whole Eponine storyline, and for a while I guess I was a little disappointed that the 1998 version didn't. It's pretty clear within a couple of scenes of the latest movie, though, that the extra material is a hindrance.
Okay I'm really mad, I'm actually finding a fair number of the scenes I want to write about on youtube but I can't find the opening scene from the 1998 version which is a huge bummer because I LOVE IT and there's so much I want to say. (JUST KIDDING I DID IT'S DOWN THERE)
First of all, let me describe why the opening of the story is so powerful in terms that my brain can handle.
I've read theory (or like, wikipedia articles) that claim John Carter is The First Superhero, which I'm beginning to think is actually a kind of important mantle, considering how ubiquitous that whole archetype is in today's pop culture. And he is the first, in the sense that he's one of the first super-powered individuals in a kind of fantastical setting. And he saves the planet or whatever, and his story follows kind of the same narrative path that most superhero origin stories do.
But I kind of want to claim that Jean Valjean is, for a slightly different reason. And I just checked the years; John Carter first appeared in 1912, Les Miserables was published in 1862.
There are some obvious reasons. Valjean has sort-of super-human strength from his years of manual labor, and in some versions I've heard, he actually attracts the attention of Javert specifically because he is so strong, so it's not just something that all prisoners get from their core-building aerobic workouts. He's forced to hide it as his role of the Mayor of (Wherever) once Javert becomes like the sheriff, and then is forced in an even more morally demanding way to reveal it when that guy gets trapped under the cart.
A hidden superpower that's almost more of a burden than it is an asset. Isn't that like the central conflict in almost EVERY SUPERHERO STORY?
But wait, there's more.
So the opening scene is my favorite for a very specific reason, much like the first act of a superhero movie is. In a superhero movie, the hero receives his powers. That's important for the plot, and is often what defines them in pop culture. But in terms of the story, there's another scene, usually just after he receives his powers, that define not his abilities but his mission. Having powers is important, but doing something with them is the meat of the story, thematically and narratively. Spider-Man loses Uncle Ben and realizes that With Great Power Comes Great ResponsibilityTM. Batman loses his parents and realizes that he must not only face, but command his fear in order to become strong (At least in the Christopher Nolan version.) Luke's aunt and uncle die and he has to become a Jedi to set right what was made wrong. It's usually some kind of trauma, some kind of event where the hero makes the wrong choice that decides what the rest of his career will be about.
I feel like the opening part of Les Miserables is like this exactly.
Jean Valjean is basically trash. He's an ex-con, and though he may not actually be like that inside, he acts like it, he accepts the role he's been assigned through his "papers" that reveal who he is and what he's done. I mean, when you're in a society with as strict chastes as like, revolutionary France, what choice do you have? It won't let you change, so you kind of have to let it determine who you are.
Here's how the 1998 version goes: It's snowing, and Valjean sleeps on the street. Some guy wakes him up and tells him to move. Valjean says he can't, no one will give him a place to stay because he's an ex-con, and he basically shoves his papers in the guy's face. He's already glommed so desperately onto his role that the papers become less an obstacle and more an excuse, an identity. The guy says something like, "you haven't tried there," and points to this beautiful church.
Valjean knocks on the door and this old priest and his caretaker (she doesn't look like a nun but idk about French Christian churches in the early 19th century or what women's roles were) let him in. The caretaker is visibly disgusted by him, but the priest is gentle, kind, compassionate. Valjean keeps trying to get the priest to kick him out because he's a dangerous criminal. He says, "How do you know I'm not going to murder you in your sleep?"
And the priest responds, "How do you know I'm not going to murder you in your sleep?"
I got chills, you guys. Straight-up chills. I'm getting chills writing this.
Anyway, Valjean eats and everyone goes to bed, and Valjean, determined to let his fate decide his actions and not vice versa, gets up in the middle of the night to steal some silverware from the priest's expensive collection. The priest hears him, wakes up, and Valjean knocks him out. I mean, you see that moment in his eyes like, "oh fuck, you just had to go and wake up, you had to force me to make this decision." And there's a moment you think he's going to give them back, because you see there's still that conflict within him. I mean, it's actually a subtly brilliant performance, Liam Neeson is great and needs to stop being typecast as the vicious ex-badass from whatever former Soviet state. He growls in the first part of this movie. He acts like an animal, and the transformation he undergoes in later scenes is physical and compelling. He's a really good Valjean.
Anyway, the next morning the shallow maid is weeping over the lost silverware, and the police catch Valjean and bring him back to corroborate that he stole them. Valjean claims that the priest gave them as a gift. And, as anyone who's seen any version of it knows, the priest lies for him, claims he gave Valjean the silverware as gifts, and also gives him the candlesticks, like Valjean forgot to take them.
It's a powerful moment in any version, but for some reason it works orders of magnitude better in the 1998 version. Here's the quote:
Bishop: Now Don't Forget, Don't ever Forget, you've promised to become a new man.
Jean Valjean: Promise? Wha, Why are you doing this?
Bishop: Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil. With this silver, I have bought your soul. I've ransomed you from fear and hatred, and now I give you back to God.
HERE IS THE SCENE IN ALL ITS GLORY:
It's a subtle thing, really, but that's the superhero moment. And maybe it's so wonderful because it's not negative, it doesn't entail loss and death, trauma does not beget the hero. It's something good. A moment of good. Pain and suffering do not define the hero; mercy and compassion do.
This is why I love this story so much. It's easy to realize, in the wake of all of these recent tragedies, the endless analysis and long-range munition blame wars that go on in the midst of them, that a small act of cruelty can have devastating repercussions. A little bit of bullying suffered by underdogs in their formative years can cause wicked rationalizations and desperate desires for revenge. And it can feel so immense, so unbeatable. Comments and actions that have almost no meaning to the maker can land upon their victims in huge, life-altering ways.
You have to remember, though, that the inverse is also true. Tiny moments of goodness, micro-compassions, can be just as powerful, just as long-lasting. An effortless compliment can change someone's mind about committing a destructive or self-destructive act, a single, thoughtless invitation can make a lifelong friendship, a meaningless gift of candlesticks can change a man's life, and the lives of everyone he touches. I don't feel like you see that dramatized all that much and that's why I love this scene. There was a pretty good Joan of Arcadia episode but I can't get distracted by that now.
Anyway, as will certainly become a pattern, I like the 1998 version of this scene better than the new one for a few reasons. One, Valjean is sent to the priest. This may seem like a minor thing, but the priest already has a reputation in his community. He's already known as being compassionate. That matters, I think. It's not that people take advantage of him or whatever, or the guy that sent Valjean there was basically saying "there's an easy mark," it's that goodness does permeate and command people just as surely as evil. The guy that was trying to get Valjean to move wasn't ill-hearted. It was like the priest had inspired the tiniest bit of kindness for that no one to help Valjean by sending him to the right place, rather than just kicking him even further to the curb.
In the new version, the priest finds Valjean himself. And maybe I was just in a weird mood when watching it, but it comes off as weird. The priest is like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, or like a pedophile or something. It has a weird sinister feeling.
Second, the 2012 version goes into this huge soliloquy which is poorly filmed and cut and frankly performed and it mitigates the power of the event to me.
I found a little bit of the scene from the new movie in this featurette:
So, there's that scene. It's great and one of the best scenes in anything I've ever seen!
The Fantine Stuff
In the 1998 version, it cuts almost immediately to eight or twelve years later. There's a little bit of exposition at the beginning of the next part from Valjean's deputy to Javert, and when you realize this Paragon of Man they've been discussing is Valjean once he's revealed, it's sort of a twist. This kind of exposition is what's missing from the new version. You find out that Valjean bought a factory in this town in like a firesale, totally turned it around and rebuilt the town and made a shitload of money from it, of course. He segregates the workers so women don't have to be constantly harassed. His deputy calls him eccentric, but says he likes him. You get to see Valjean, or at least "The Mayor," from an outside perspective that recontextualizes him and characterizes him without the history we already know but don't yet associate with this character. So when you see Valjean turn around, and oh shit, it's him!, it's this cathartic victory. The priest's gift could have been squandered, could have been used for evil, but it not only remade Valjean, but helped him to even more good. Pay it Forward!
There's something else the 1998 version does, and this is one of my biggest problems with the 2012 version. There is a very clear sense of time passing during this part. Sure, the section starts on the day Javert gets reassigned to the city that Valjean is now mayor of, but everything else that happens takes time to develop, come to a head. Fantine gets fired sometime after Javert arrives and meets Valjean. Fantine's desperation is a slow process; she starts off by selling her belongings, then her hair (an action SHE UNDERTAKES--she goes to a wigmaker and ACTIVELY SELLS IT, she doesn't take the offer of some dirty woman by the docks), then she starts to sell her body. It's clear by the time she does that she's already really sick. Another nice detail--Javert and the deputy do like, recon on her and the other prostitutes as part of their police duty, so they're aware of her before the big dramatic scene between them happens. There's a slow, growing development of all these pieces that eventually come to a head. It takes weeks or months from the first scene to Fantine's death.
In the 2012 version, it feels about like four days. And I actually do have licensed, video proof of this.
Valjean comes in out of the cold and tries to handle the conflict himself. But he sees Javert in his office and gets distracted. Fantine gets thrown out into the cold by the (male) foreman who everyone in the factory thinks is a creep and creeps on Fantine even more than most. I'm sorry but I'm just seeing a poor manager in this version of Valjean.
Additionally, what's not in this video is that THE VERY NEXT THING THAT HAPPENS is the guy getting trapped under the cart. Like, all these events happen within 10 minutes in-movie time. They don't even do a weird jump cut to Valjean sitting in his office to indicate time has passed.
I think I understand why this happened. I think it was a deliberate choice. The Les Miserables musical is popular, and the filmmakers don't want to shaft anybody. They included EVERY SONG. They have to stitch them together as quickly and haphazardly as possible or else the movie's going to be four hours long.
So I mean, some (read: a lot) of the dramatic tension gets lost along the way.
The cart scene is a good example. In the 1998 version, Valjean lifts the cart off the guy and the film kind of...cinematically watches the event from Javert's perspective. It flashes back to Valjean breaking prison rocks in some prison quarry and you kind of see Javert make the connection. No accusations, no back-and-forth, just a quiet, "huh." The film goes elsewhere then, showing Javert asking his boss for the resources to perform an investigation. That's one thing the smaller scale allows the movie to do is show Javert actually doing police work. The guy says no, the Mayor is too awesome, just shut up about it. Javert, of course, simmers like he does all the time and does what he do.
In the 2012 version, Valjean lifts the cart off the guy. Javert says (sings) something like, "wow, I used to know a prisoner who could lift really heavy things.
"Oh, do you think that's me?"
"Idk, maybe."
Like, :/
So, in the 1998 version, Valjean is not entirely aware whether Javert recognizes him or not. He's preparing for the contingency that he does--he takes all of his money out of the bank and buries it so he can grab it later when he needs to flee town--but he also wants to keep doing his job because the town needs him. God, they even wrap up what happens to the town and factory after he flees! There are a lot of little scenes and exchanges, too, that develop the subtle rivalry not only between Valjean and Javert, but between each's respective worldview (reform vs. nature or whatever) like this:
and also the whole subplot about neither Valjean or Fantine being able to read. Just a really good detail that kind of illustrates the staying factor of class struggle, even after you bootstrap your way upward.
Eventually, those bros assault Fantine in the street and shove snow down her dress, and she fights back, and Javert arrests her and hits her with his gun. The deputy goes and retrieves Valjean because he thinks Javert has finally crossed a line. Valjean goes to the prison and overrides Javert's arrest. Fantine accuses him of getting her fired, and spits on him, and Javert's all "ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LET HER DO THAT?" and Valjean is like, "yeah, I forgive her, this is totally my bad even though you distracted me from doing this right the first time but I'm not saying anything." Javert gets pissed and leaves or something, but THIS is where the relationship between Valjean and Fantine begins.
Fantine tells Valjean about her daughter, and Valjean sends for her. They also go a little deeper into the scam that Fantine agreed to--Fantine pays like 10 francs a month for the Thenardiers to keep Cosette, and they write her all these letters about how they spoil her with toys and affection, but Cosette is sick and needs medicine that costs extra money. Valjean pays for all of it. There's a back-and-forth for a while where the Thenardiers keep asking for more money or stalling so Valjean agrees to go out there and get her himself.
Right before this happens, Javert comes and demands Valjean terminate him for investigating him as Valjean. Valjean's like, "what" and Javert is like "there's this other guy that's mentally retarded and all of these other prisoners say he's Valjean so I was wrong fire me" and Valjean is like "Oh shit...what? No." And he goes to the trial.
And this is one of the critical moments of failure in the 2012 version. Who Am I? is a song where Valjean grapples with the practical, moral, and personal repercussions of his action, and it's kind of like a mini-climax, too. The moment above all others in the story, in my opinion, that define his character. If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned.
First of all, they changed the lyric to If I speak, they are condemned, ie his workers, which...is kind of arrogant? Like you didn't hire anyone who could take care of that for you? You micromanage THAT MUCH and you still fuck up and let Fantine get fired? The "I am the master of hundreds of workers, they all look to me/Can I abandon them, how could they live if I am not free?" lyric always seemed to me to be more desperate rationalizing against doing what is indisputably The Right Thing than an actual reason to not turn himself in. That's why the whole first part of the song works, is the listener knows what the right thing is but you have to see them dramatize the way we all rationalize doing the wrong thing. There's always a reason not to do the right thing. I didn't like that change.
Second, when it's staged, the song takes place in that single-spotlight soliloquy realm that lots of solos do. It's in his head, it's in his room, it's outside of space and time, whatever. It's an abstract song. But the whole 2012 movie is filmed very concretely. Even soliloquys like this are often presented in a way that like, other characters can hear. Later, Cosette and Valjean are singing One Day More together and when Cosette is pining for Marius, Valjean gives her a look like "what is she on about? She loves some dude? When did that happen?" They just totally missed it.
In the film, therefore, the whole first part of the song is filmed in like, Valjean's private office. On stage, it's like in his head, and then when he owns up to his identity, the lighting shifts to reveal he was in the courtroom the whole time, like thinking about what to do before he victoriously identifies himself honestly. But in the movie, he has to like, ride to the courtroom at the end of the song so he can do his "I'm 24601!" thing. It's really weird, here is part of it:
IN CONTRAST, LET'S SEE HOW THIS SCENE WORKS WHEN IT'S DONE RIGHT:
ugh, you guys, are you getting my point yet? Less is more when stories are big. I'm going to keep going anyway though.
Fantine's death in the 1998 version is where all of these strands come together. Fantine is already on her last breath basically, but she wants to see Cosette one more time before she dies. Javert, of course, picks that very moment to arrest Valjean for being Valjean. Here it is, I'm finding these scenes wherever I can so sorry someone decided to FILM THEIR LAPTOP WITH A CAMERA:
In the 2012 version, Fantine dies BEFORE Javert even comes in. Maybe I just get angry about things that are different but that scene was a character moment for Javert. He's so driven, so obsessed with bringing Valjean to justice that he can callously disregard the death of a poor dying woman who stands (read: lies) in his way. I don't know if the musical does it that way or not, I honestly can't remember, but it's one of many little changes that kind of defangs Javert as a villain. I mean, he is a villain, right?
The next big event in the story is Valjean retrieving Cosette from the Thenardiers. And, once again, I really like the way they handled this scene in the 1998 version. Since the Thenardiers aren't as big of a presence--I mean, after this scene you never see them again--you kind of have to get the full effect of that dramatic cruelty in one scene. In the musical, they're the comic relief which is honestly a weird choice considering their role but the story is just so heavy and devastating that like, I get it, but ugh let me just see if I can find it...
NO DICE. What's cool about the scene in the 1998 version is Valjean's like, street smarts. He's a righteous man now, but the movie doesn't let you forget his roots. He goes to the inn, pretends just to be a normal tenant or whatever, and humors every request/demand Thenardier makes of him. You need the big room, because the small room is "occupied," Valjean says fine, he'll pay in advance. He buys the stockings Madam Thenardier ordered Cosette to darn, they give him a price and then double it because it's per sock. At one point, once they realize he's got money, they offer to let Cosette play "on his lap." Like, it's just a really good, effective, quick characterization of them as greedy, amoral swindlers, something it took the musical an entire song to get across.
The great part, though, is that Thenardier is trying to squeeze every dime out of Valjean once they start haggling over how much Cosette costs to own. Thenardier puts on this show that he really cares for her and wants her to end up in the best place, which of course Valjean needs to prove by meeting his increasingly greedy price. Valjean asks if Thenardier would let Cosette go to her legal guardian if he loved her so much. Thenardier says "of course," and Valjean produces the letter Fantine signed entrusting Cosette to his care right before she died.
I don't know you guys, it's just a great scene.
Obviously the 2012 version is the song, and I don't know what's happened over the course of three or four movies of dressing Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter up in sanitorium period hair and make-up, but it's diluting the effect. They were pretty boring honestly, made me wish the producers had just hired Broadway actors instead of Hollywood actors who could sort of sing because they'd kind of sung in one movie before this one.
God I could write 40 more pages just about how they fucked up casting the 2012 version but it wouldn't be anything new.
OKAY, so now we're in:
Paris
There are a couple of chase scenes that start off the next segment, and they're really cool. I guess the city of Paris has a giant wall around it, or used to, or just does in this movie for the sake of the plot, but Javert puts his guys at every entrance so they can catch Valjean when he tries to get into the city. Valjean realizes this and has Cosette grab onto his neck while he climbs the wall. Right when they reach the top, Javert realizes Valjean's plans and sends his guys to the parts of the wall closest to rooftops. They almost get him. They take a shot as he jumps the divide, but he planned ahead, you see. He jumps into a convent whose rules forbid the female students from seeing men until they graduate. There, Lafitte, the man he lifted the cart off of, is the gardener.
"Now I'm stuck under the cart, Lafitte."
In the 2012 version Valjean just takes a horse and buggy in and hides from Javert who just kind of gives up. Javert basically had to be held back from climbing the wall by his fingernails in the 1998 version. Javert in the 2012 version is just really limp and neutered, and it really seems like he's just there by chance more often than not. I mean Russell Crowe's not as bad as his singing made him out to be but the character doesn't really work if you don't already understand what it's supposed to be.
IN ADDITION TO THAT, Valjean finds the convent by accident, and the cart-guy is there BY COINCIDENCE, and Valjean is like, "how lucky for me!" I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY DIDN'T FIX THAT IT TAKES LIKE 10 SECONDS TO SET UP THAT YOU MAILED THE GUY A LETTER.
SO WE DO OUR TIME HOP, and honestly there's not a whole lot in the second half I want to talk about just because it's less compelling to me, but there are a couple things. First, obviously, is Eponine, or the lack thereof, in the 1998 version. By doing that, they could focus a LITTLE bit more on the Cosette/Marius romance, though there's still not that much there, and show how Javert was actually involved in the investigation of the student rebellion groups, and how he used that intel to root out Valjean via Cosette. That was actually done really well: what prompted Valjean to threaten to flee to England. Javert learns from his mole that Marius, who's the leader of the student group in the 1998 version, has been visiting this girl every night. His mole follows them and reports back with the address. Javert decides to pay the man of the house a visit to warn him that his daughter has been seeing UNSUPERVISED! a dangerous radical. He rings the doorbell, and the stuttering maid almost ruins it! But she gets out his name before Valjean answers it.
In the 2012 version, Thenardier, who for some reason is a bum in Paris now, decides to rob Valjean's house. Eponine tells him to stop because Cosette via Marius, whom she loves, but he won't so she screams. Valjean hears the scream, thinks it's Cosette, and somehow comes to the conclusion that Javert has found him?
God it's just amazing how much those tiny, little plot movements add up when so many of them are broken. The 1998 version doesn't have a plot hole in it, I don't think, at least nothing that really bothered me. I mean I still don't really get why Cosette falls in love with that rat-faced greasy-haired ranter who whines about how much it SUCKS that her dad loves her so much but they do give her pretty good motivation; she's been locked in the convent since pre-puberty and *wants to see the world* or whatever. Marius is kind of a creep though.
I don't really care about the whole revolution part, besides 2012 Valjean somehow finding a full French military uniform and using it to sneak behind enemy lines? I mean they showed how Javert at least put on the rags to infiltrate the radicals, and I think they're a little easier to come by even in like French revolution poverty. I mean, the one thing I will give the 2012 version is that they portrayed the French sewers as WAY NASTIER. He was basically walking around in the 1998 version but he was literally Andy-Dufresne-swimming-through-shit in the new one. Maybe that's why Valjean died, he fucking caught cholera from the Parisian sewers.
The last thing I REALLY want to talk about is
The Ending
I fucking hated the ending of the 2012 movie, and I guess the musical too then.
The conflict is over when Javert kills himself. The whole conflict of the movie is Javert pursuing Valjean for evading what he, and no one else in their right mind, considers to be justice. Once Javert kills himself, Valjean is free, and that's all that really ever mattered.
The 2012 movie ends with Valjean like, sitting on a chair alone after Cosette and Marius' wedding, which he did not attend out of self-sacrifice, dying of melodrama. Fantine greets him from the afterlife, where all the revolutionaries and Eponine are standing on all the broken furniture that made the barricades, which is apparently heaven for the French proletariat. The end.
The 1998 movie...you know what, just watch for yourself:
Maybe that's just it, that ending is so perfect to me that anything else feels wrong. I don't need to see Cosette and Marius' wedding, first of all because I don't care about that romance and second of all because it's not all that difficult to infer. The crux of the movie, the central relationship is between Valjean and Javert. Once that is concluded, the dramatic fuel runs out pretty fast.
Final thoughts
Anyway, I just fucking love this story, and honestly I consider it kind of a template for the sorts of stories I want to tell. I mean, it has its flaws for sure. It is really like, over-the-top melodramatic, but well within the confines of suspension of disbelief. The characters are less characters and more just awful hypotheticals, really. Like, "wouldn't it suck if some policeman pursued you your whole life and all you did was steal a loaf of bread?" "How many circumstances does it take before you can actually sympathize with a prostitute?" I'm not saying it would take me a lot but this is like Catholic (Huguenot? Ugh AP Euro) France. I don't know, maybe I'm just trying to make this story fit in my oeuvre too forcefully but that just seems like a kind of speculative fiction to me. What if?
So you've got characters that aren't super well developed, an epic scope, the battle between two ideologies, a fucking revolution in the background...I wish I could put my finger on exactly what it is about this story I find so compelling. It's just good drama. There are really good situations, conflicts, decisions that characters have to make through their circumstances. Well-plotted, well-paced, good drama. If I could write stories like this, I would be happy even if I never sold a copy.
Anyway, that's my Ode to Les Miserables. I love this story and I always will and now you can all rightfully call me crazy because of it :) Also, if you want to watch the 1998 version, you can rent it there on YouTube for $2.99 or buy it for $9.99, same prices on Amazon. Or you can just, you know, download it.
I have an interesting history with this story...intellectual property...franchise...I don't know what you call it when it's like a classical work of literature that gets adapted a bunch of different ways. This entity. I think the first time I was ever introduced to it was when I was driving somewhere with my sister and she had One Day More on some random mix CD. I found it moving. With no context to the characters, the story, or even the fact that it was a Broadway (West End, whatever) musical, it made me feel something.
I don't think I expressed much curiosity besides asking her to play it again, and for a while it lay dormant. Then my mom showed me the 1998 movie version starring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman, and Claire Danes.
I loved it. And I've kind of felt this unconscious embarrassment about it, because you can tell by the way it's produced that it comfortably belongs in that weird, neglected genre of classics-adapted-to-mediocre movies that make like $20 million dollars in the box office and then play on like the Hallmark channel for the rest of their lives. Like the Patrick Stewart Moby Dick, the Demi Moore Scarlet Letter, the Mel Gibson Hamlet. Like, your English teachers play it for you in class at the end of the semester and no one watches preferring to pass notes or work on homework. No one seems to care about these movies, and they seem to be nothing more than an excuse to let famous, half-talented movie stars play paragons of literature while prancing around in period costume.
I don't know. You're not supposed to like those movies. They're supposed to be like, obligations of the film medium or our egotistical artistic imperatives. Yeah, we recognize great work was done before film was invented and I GUESS we should pay homage by like filming it or whatever.
But that movie...I mean, the amount I think about/rewatch it, it has to fill one of the remaining four or five spots in my top ten. (I think the rest so far are The Land Before Time, The Truman Show, Spirited Away, Back to the Future, Pleasantville, and There Will Be Blood. There are probably some I'm forgetting but those are the ones I always think about.)
I want to talk about it. A lot. And in doing so, I want to frame it against the musical that just came out.
Let me get there, though.
I guess the next step in my history of Les Miserables was finally getting the gist of the stage musical at some point. I did this with my mom too, because I remember playing Who Am I? from the CD I had acquired somehow and I think she started crying? I don't know, she did that a lot, I wouldn't be surprised. And I knew a little bit more about it than her, and we kind of talked about the story and filled in the holes with the 1998 movie version. That was when we found out about Eponine, who was cut (rather wisely, but I'll get there) from the 1998 version, and I tell her that she's like the unrequited love character and my mom goes, "she dies, doesn't she?"
There was a weird piece of wisdom in that has stuck with me. Like, culturally, people who feel too much love, or one-directional love, have to be expunged in order to maintain balance. I don't know.
There's something about listening to the soundtrack to a musical without having seen it. This has happened to me like, a few times. You listen to the soundtrack, which is usually produced in narrative order, and you kind of have to fill in the gaps between the songs yourself. I remember doing this with Wicked, and my narrative-caulk was like, way more tragic and meaningful (to me, anyway) than what actually happened in the show once I saw it. Now, I've seen the Les Miserables stage musical twice before this movie. Once, this kid in my 8th-grade graduating class played Valjean at the boy's Catholic high school, and I guess we went to like the traveling-professional version at the Marcus once too.
I don't remember feeling gypped at those. But when I saw the movie musical, I felt super, incredibly let down.
Okay let me get into it now. There is a lot to go through so this is going to take a while. STRAP INTO YOUR HORSE-DRAWN CART INFESTED WITH THE UNWASHED PROLETARIAT.
The opening
The opening of Les Miserables is actually my favorite part. I like the first half way better than the second half, and I may be pulling this out of my ass but I feel like most people feel the inverse. I mean, the revolution is viscerally moving and exciting with all the MUSKETS and CANNONS but I hate love-at-first-sight what-the-fuck-do-you-even-have-in-common kinds of love stories, you know? Bella and Edward. I guess they were more love at first smell, though. I actually think the Valjean/Fantine "love" story has a little bit more going on with it than the Cosette/Marius one.
LET'S START AT THE BEGINNING THOUGH.
So I should probably admit that I've never actually read the book, which I guess is kind of a liability, but to be honest I think part of the challenge of adapting Les Miserables is all about economy. The book is fucking like, 2,000 pages long and you've got to fit that much story (I know there's a lot of irrelevant bloat but it's still pretty epic) into a movie- or show-sized schedule. The musical already has a little bit of a disadvantage, since it includes the whole Eponine storyline, and for a while I guess I was a little disappointed that the 1998 version didn't. It's pretty clear within a couple of scenes of the latest movie, though, that the extra material is a hindrance.
Okay I'm really mad, I'm actually finding a fair number of the scenes I want to write about on youtube but I can't find the opening scene from the 1998 version which is a huge bummer because I LOVE IT and there's so much I want to say. (JUST KIDDING I DID IT'S DOWN THERE)
First of all, let me describe why the opening of the story is so powerful in terms that my brain can handle.
I've read theory (or like, wikipedia articles) that claim John Carter is The First Superhero, which I'm beginning to think is actually a kind of important mantle, considering how ubiquitous that whole archetype is in today's pop culture. And he is the first, in the sense that he's one of the first super-powered individuals in a kind of fantastical setting. And he saves the planet or whatever, and his story follows kind of the same narrative path that most superhero origin stories do.
But I kind of want to claim that Jean Valjean is, for a slightly different reason. And I just checked the years; John Carter first appeared in 1912, Les Miserables was published in 1862.
There are some obvious reasons. Valjean has sort-of super-human strength from his years of manual labor, and in some versions I've heard, he actually attracts the attention of Javert specifically because he is so strong, so it's not just something that all prisoners get from their core-building aerobic workouts. He's forced to hide it as his role of the Mayor of (Wherever) once Javert becomes like the sheriff, and then is forced in an even more morally demanding way to reveal it when that guy gets trapped under the cart.
A hidden superpower that's almost more of a burden than it is an asset. Isn't that like the central conflict in almost EVERY SUPERHERO STORY?
But wait, there's more.
So the opening scene is my favorite for a very specific reason, much like the first act of a superhero movie is. In a superhero movie, the hero receives his powers. That's important for the plot, and is often what defines them in pop culture. But in terms of the story, there's another scene, usually just after he receives his powers, that define not his abilities but his mission. Having powers is important, but doing something with them is the meat of the story, thematically and narratively. Spider-Man loses Uncle Ben and realizes that With Great Power Comes Great ResponsibilityTM. Batman loses his parents and realizes that he must not only face, but command his fear in order to become strong (At least in the Christopher Nolan version.) Luke's aunt and uncle die and he has to become a Jedi to set right what was made wrong. It's usually some kind of trauma, some kind of event where the hero makes the wrong choice that decides what the rest of his career will be about.
I feel like the opening part of Les Miserables is like this exactly.
Jean Valjean is basically trash. He's an ex-con, and though he may not actually be like that inside, he acts like it, he accepts the role he's been assigned through his "papers" that reveal who he is and what he's done. I mean, when you're in a society with as strict chastes as like, revolutionary France, what choice do you have? It won't let you change, so you kind of have to let it determine who you are.
Here's how the 1998 version goes: It's snowing, and Valjean sleeps on the street. Some guy wakes him up and tells him to move. Valjean says he can't, no one will give him a place to stay because he's an ex-con, and he basically shoves his papers in the guy's face. He's already glommed so desperately onto his role that the papers become less an obstacle and more an excuse, an identity. The guy says something like, "you haven't tried there," and points to this beautiful church.
Valjean knocks on the door and this old priest and his caretaker (she doesn't look like a nun but idk about French Christian churches in the early 19th century or what women's roles were) let him in. The caretaker is visibly disgusted by him, but the priest is gentle, kind, compassionate. Valjean keeps trying to get the priest to kick him out because he's a dangerous criminal. He says, "How do you know I'm not going to murder you in your sleep?"
And the priest responds, "How do you know I'm not going to murder you in your sleep?"
I got chills, you guys. Straight-up chills. I'm getting chills writing this.
Anyway, Valjean eats and everyone goes to bed, and Valjean, determined to let his fate decide his actions and not vice versa, gets up in the middle of the night to steal some silverware from the priest's expensive collection. The priest hears him, wakes up, and Valjean knocks him out. I mean, you see that moment in his eyes like, "oh fuck, you just had to go and wake up, you had to force me to make this decision." And there's a moment you think he's going to give them back, because you see there's still that conflict within him. I mean, it's actually a subtly brilliant performance, Liam Neeson is great and needs to stop being typecast as the vicious ex-badass from whatever former Soviet state. He growls in the first part of this movie. He acts like an animal, and the transformation he undergoes in later scenes is physical and compelling. He's a really good Valjean.
Anyway, the next morning the shallow maid is weeping over the lost silverware, and the police catch Valjean and bring him back to corroborate that he stole them. Valjean claims that the priest gave them as a gift. And, as anyone who's seen any version of it knows, the priest lies for him, claims he gave Valjean the silverware as gifts, and also gives him the candlesticks, like Valjean forgot to take them.
It's a powerful moment in any version, but for some reason it works orders of magnitude better in the 1998 version. Here's the quote:
Bishop: Now Don't Forget, Don't ever Forget, you've promised to become a new man.
Jean Valjean: Promise? Wha, Why are you doing this?
Bishop: Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil. With this silver, I have bought your soul. I've ransomed you from fear and hatred, and now I give you back to God.
HERE IS THE SCENE IN ALL ITS GLORY:
Click to viewIt's a subtle thing, really, but that's the superhero moment. And maybe it's so wonderful because it's not negative, it doesn't entail loss and death, trauma does not beget the hero. It's something good. A moment of good. Pain and suffering do not define the hero; mercy and compassion do.
This is why I love this story so much. It's easy to realize, in the wake of all of these recent tragedies, the endless analysis and long-range munition blame wars that go on in the midst of them, that a small act of cruelty can have devastating repercussions. A little bit of bullying suffered by underdogs in their formative years can cause wicked rationalizations and desperate desires for revenge. And it can feel so immense, so unbeatable. Comments and actions that have almost no meaning to the maker can land upon their victims in huge, life-altering ways.
You have to remember, though, that the inverse is also true. Tiny moments of goodness, micro-compassions, can be just as powerful, just as long-lasting. An effortless compliment can change someone's mind about committing a destructive or self-destructive act, a single, thoughtless invitation can make a lifelong friendship, a meaningless gift of candlesticks can change a man's life, and the lives of everyone he touches. I don't feel like you see that dramatized all that much and that's why I love this scene. There was a pretty good Joan of Arcadia episode but I can't get distracted by that now.
Anyway, as will certainly become a pattern, I like the 1998 version of this scene better than the new one for a few reasons. One, Valjean is sent to the priest. This may seem like a minor thing, but the priest already has a reputation in his community. He's already known as being compassionate. That matters, I think. It's not that people take advantage of him or whatever, or the guy that sent Valjean there was basically saying "there's an easy mark," it's that goodness does permeate and command people just as surely as evil. The guy that was trying to get Valjean to move wasn't ill-hearted. It was like the priest had inspired the tiniest bit of kindness for that no one to help Valjean by sending him to the right place, rather than just kicking him even further to the curb.
In the new version, the priest finds Valjean himself. And maybe I was just in a weird mood when watching it, but it comes off as weird. The priest is like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, or like a pedophile or something. It has a weird sinister feeling.
Second, the 2012 version goes into this huge soliloquy which is poorly filmed and cut and frankly performed and it mitigates the power of the event to me.
I found a little bit of the scene from the new movie in this featurette:
So, there's that scene. It's great and one of the best scenes in anything I've ever seen!
The Fantine Stuff
In the 1998 version, it cuts almost immediately to eight or twelve years later. There's a little bit of exposition at the beginning of the next part from Valjean's deputy to Javert, and when you realize this Paragon of Man they've been discussing is Valjean once he's revealed, it's sort of a twist. This kind of exposition is what's missing from the new version. You find out that Valjean bought a factory in this town in like a firesale, totally turned it around and rebuilt the town and made a shitload of money from it, of course. He segregates the workers so women don't have to be constantly harassed. His deputy calls him eccentric, but says he likes him. You get to see Valjean, or at least "The Mayor," from an outside perspective that recontextualizes him and characterizes him without the history we already know but don't yet associate with this character. So when you see Valjean turn around, and oh shit, it's him!, it's this cathartic victory. The priest's gift could have been squandered, could have been used for evil, but it not only remade Valjean, but helped him to even more good. Pay it Forward!
There's something else the 1998 version does, and this is one of my biggest problems with the 2012 version. There is a very clear sense of time passing during this part. Sure, the section starts on the day Javert gets reassigned to the city that Valjean is now mayor of, but everything else that happens takes time to develop, come to a head. Fantine gets fired sometime after Javert arrives and meets Valjean. Fantine's desperation is a slow process; she starts off by selling her belongings, then her hair (an action SHE UNDERTAKES--she goes to a wigmaker and ACTIVELY SELLS IT, she doesn't take the offer of some dirty woman by the docks), then she starts to sell her body. It's clear by the time she does that she's already really sick. Another nice detail--Javert and the deputy do like, recon on her and the other prostitutes as part of their police duty, so they're aware of her before the big dramatic scene between them happens. There's a slow, growing development of all these pieces that eventually come to a head. It takes weeks or months from the first scene to Fantine's death.
In the 2012 version, it feels about like four days. And I actually do have licensed, video proof of this.
Valjean comes in out of the cold and tries to handle the conflict himself. But he sees Javert in his office and gets distracted. Fantine gets thrown out into the cold by the (male) foreman who everyone in the factory thinks is a creep and creeps on Fantine even more than most. I'm sorry but I'm just seeing a poor manager in this version of Valjean.
Additionally, what's not in this video is that THE VERY NEXT THING THAT HAPPENS is the guy getting trapped under the cart. Like, all these events happen within 10 minutes in-movie time. They don't even do a weird jump cut to Valjean sitting in his office to indicate time has passed.
I think I understand why this happened. I think it was a deliberate choice. The Les Miserables musical is popular, and the filmmakers don't want to shaft anybody. They included EVERY SONG. They have to stitch them together as quickly and haphazardly as possible or else the movie's going to be four hours long.
So I mean, some (read: a lot) of the dramatic tension gets lost along the way.
The cart scene is a good example. In the 1998 version, Valjean lifts the cart off the guy and the film kind of...cinematically watches the event from Javert's perspective. It flashes back to Valjean breaking prison rocks in some prison quarry and you kind of see Javert make the connection. No accusations, no back-and-forth, just a quiet, "huh." The film goes elsewhere then, showing Javert asking his boss for the resources to perform an investigation. That's one thing the smaller scale allows the movie to do is show Javert actually doing police work. The guy says no, the Mayor is too awesome, just shut up about it. Javert, of course, simmers like he does all the time and does what he do.
In the 2012 version, Valjean lifts the cart off the guy. Javert says (sings) something like, "wow, I used to know a prisoner who could lift really heavy things.
"Oh, do you think that's me?"
"Idk, maybe."
Like, :/
So, in the 1998 version, Valjean is not entirely aware whether Javert recognizes him or not. He's preparing for the contingency that he does--he takes all of his money out of the bank and buries it so he can grab it later when he needs to flee town--but he also wants to keep doing his job because the town needs him. God, they even wrap up what happens to the town and factory after he flees! There are a lot of little scenes and exchanges, too, that develop the subtle rivalry not only between Valjean and Javert, but between each's respective worldview (reform vs. nature or whatever) like this:
and also the whole subplot about neither Valjean or Fantine being able to read. Just a really good detail that kind of illustrates the staying factor of class struggle, even after you bootstrap your way upward.
Eventually, those bros assault Fantine in the street and shove snow down her dress, and she fights back, and Javert arrests her and hits her with his gun. The deputy goes and retrieves Valjean because he thinks Javert has finally crossed a line. Valjean goes to the prison and overrides Javert's arrest. Fantine accuses him of getting her fired, and spits on him, and Javert's all "ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LET HER DO THAT?" and Valjean is like, "yeah, I forgive her, this is totally my bad even though you distracted me from doing this right the first time but I'm not saying anything." Javert gets pissed and leaves or something, but THIS is where the relationship between Valjean and Fantine begins.
Fantine tells Valjean about her daughter, and Valjean sends for her. They also go a little deeper into the scam that Fantine agreed to--Fantine pays like 10 francs a month for the Thenardiers to keep Cosette, and they write her all these letters about how they spoil her with toys and affection, but Cosette is sick and needs medicine that costs extra money. Valjean pays for all of it. There's a back-and-forth for a while where the Thenardiers keep asking for more money or stalling so Valjean agrees to go out there and get her himself.
Right before this happens, Javert comes and demands Valjean terminate him for investigating him as Valjean. Valjean's like, "what" and Javert is like "there's this other guy that's mentally retarded and all of these other prisoners say he's Valjean so I was wrong fire me" and Valjean is like "Oh shit...what? No." And he goes to the trial.
And this is one of the critical moments of failure in the 2012 version. Who Am I? is a song where Valjean grapples with the practical, moral, and personal repercussions of his action, and it's kind of like a mini-climax, too. The moment above all others in the story, in my opinion, that define his character. If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned.
First of all, they changed the lyric to If I speak, they are condemned, ie his workers, which...is kind of arrogant? Like you didn't hire anyone who could take care of that for you? You micromanage THAT MUCH and you still fuck up and let Fantine get fired? The "I am the master of hundreds of workers, they all look to me/Can I abandon them, how could they live if I am not free?" lyric always seemed to me to be more desperate rationalizing against doing what is indisputably The Right Thing than an actual reason to not turn himself in. That's why the whole first part of the song works, is the listener knows what the right thing is but you have to see them dramatize the way we all rationalize doing the wrong thing. There's always a reason not to do the right thing. I didn't like that change.
Second, when it's staged, the song takes place in that single-spotlight soliloquy realm that lots of solos do. It's in his head, it's in his room, it's outside of space and time, whatever. It's an abstract song. But the whole 2012 movie is filmed very concretely. Even soliloquys like this are often presented in a way that like, other characters can hear. Later, Cosette and Valjean are singing One Day More together and when Cosette is pining for Marius, Valjean gives her a look like "what is she on about? She loves some dude? When did that happen?" They just totally missed it.
In the film, therefore, the whole first part of the song is filmed in like, Valjean's private office. On stage, it's like in his head, and then when he owns up to his identity, the lighting shifts to reveal he was in the courtroom the whole time, like thinking about what to do before he victoriously identifies himself honestly. But in the movie, he has to like, ride to the courtroom at the end of the song so he can do his "I'm 24601!" thing. It's really weird, here is part of it:
IN CONTRAST, LET'S SEE HOW THIS SCENE WORKS WHEN IT'S DONE RIGHT:
ugh, you guys, are you getting my point yet? Less is more when stories are big. I'm going to keep going anyway though.
Fantine's death in the 1998 version is where all of these strands come together. Fantine is already on her last breath basically, but she wants to see Cosette one more time before she dies. Javert, of course, picks that very moment to arrest Valjean for being Valjean. Here it is, I'm finding these scenes wherever I can so sorry someone decided to FILM THEIR LAPTOP WITH A CAMERA:
In the 2012 version, Fantine dies BEFORE Javert even comes in. Maybe I just get angry about things that are different but that scene was a character moment for Javert. He's so driven, so obsessed with bringing Valjean to justice that he can callously disregard the death of a poor dying woman who stands (read: lies) in his way. I don't know if the musical does it that way or not, I honestly can't remember, but it's one of many little changes that kind of defangs Javert as a villain. I mean, he is a villain, right?
The next big event in the story is Valjean retrieving Cosette from the Thenardiers. And, once again, I really like the way they handled this scene in the 1998 version. Since the Thenardiers aren't as big of a presence--I mean, after this scene you never see them again--you kind of have to get the full effect of that dramatic cruelty in one scene. In the musical, they're the comic relief which is honestly a weird choice considering their role but the story is just so heavy and devastating that like, I get it, but ugh let me just see if I can find it...
NO DICE. What's cool about the scene in the 1998 version is Valjean's like, street smarts. He's a righteous man now, but the movie doesn't let you forget his roots. He goes to the inn, pretends just to be a normal tenant or whatever, and humors every request/demand Thenardier makes of him. You need the big room, because the small room is "occupied," Valjean says fine, he'll pay in advance. He buys the stockings Madam Thenardier ordered Cosette to darn, they give him a price and then double it because it's per sock. At one point, once they realize he's got money, they offer to let Cosette play "on his lap." Like, it's just a really good, effective, quick characterization of them as greedy, amoral swindlers, something it took the musical an entire song to get across.
The great part, though, is that Thenardier is trying to squeeze every dime out of Valjean once they start haggling over how much Cosette costs to own. Thenardier puts on this show that he really cares for her and wants her to end up in the best place, which of course Valjean needs to prove by meeting his increasingly greedy price. Valjean asks if Thenardier would let Cosette go to her legal guardian if he loved her so much. Thenardier says "of course," and Valjean produces the letter Fantine signed entrusting Cosette to his care right before she died.
I don't know you guys, it's just a great scene.
Obviously the 2012 version is the song, and I don't know what's happened over the course of three or four movies of dressing Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter up in sanitorium period hair and make-up, but it's diluting the effect. They were pretty boring honestly, made me wish the producers had just hired Broadway actors instead of Hollywood actors who could sort of sing because they'd kind of sung in one movie before this one.
God I could write 40 more pages just about how they fucked up casting the 2012 version but it wouldn't be anything new.
OKAY, so now we're in:
Paris
There are a couple of chase scenes that start off the next segment, and they're really cool. I guess the city of Paris has a giant wall around it, or used to, or just does in this movie for the sake of the plot, but Javert puts his guys at every entrance so they can catch Valjean when he tries to get into the city. Valjean realizes this and has Cosette grab onto his neck while he climbs the wall. Right when they reach the top, Javert realizes Valjean's plans and sends his guys to the parts of the wall closest to rooftops. They almost get him. They take a shot as he jumps the divide, but he planned ahead, you see. He jumps into a convent whose rules forbid the female students from seeing men until they graduate. There, Lafitte, the man he lifted the cart off of, is the gardener.
"Now I'm stuck under the cart, Lafitte."
In the 2012 version Valjean just takes a horse and buggy in and hides from Javert who just kind of gives up. Javert basically had to be held back from climbing the wall by his fingernails in the 1998 version. Javert in the 2012 version is just really limp and neutered, and it really seems like he's just there by chance more often than not. I mean Russell Crowe's not as bad as his singing made him out to be but the character doesn't really work if you don't already understand what it's supposed to be.
IN ADDITION TO THAT, Valjean finds the convent by accident, and the cart-guy is there BY COINCIDENCE, and Valjean is like, "how lucky for me!" I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY DIDN'T FIX THAT IT TAKES LIKE 10 SECONDS TO SET UP THAT YOU MAILED THE GUY A LETTER.
SO WE DO OUR TIME HOP, and honestly there's not a whole lot in the second half I want to talk about just because it's less compelling to me, but there are a couple things. First, obviously, is Eponine, or the lack thereof, in the 1998 version. By doing that, they could focus a LITTLE bit more on the Cosette/Marius romance, though there's still not that much there, and show how Javert was actually involved in the investigation of the student rebellion groups, and how he used that intel to root out Valjean via Cosette. That was actually done really well: what prompted Valjean to threaten to flee to England. Javert learns from his mole that Marius, who's the leader of the student group in the 1998 version, has been visiting this girl every night. His mole follows them and reports back with the address. Javert decides to pay the man of the house a visit to warn him that his daughter has been seeing UNSUPERVISED! a dangerous radical. He rings the doorbell, and the stuttering maid almost ruins it! But she gets out his name before Valjean answers it.
In the 2012 version, Thenardier, who for some reason is a bum in Paris now, decides to rob Valjean's house. Eponine tells him to stop because Cosette via Marius, whom she loves, but he won't so she screams. Valjean hears the scream, thinks it's Cosette, and somehow comes to the conclusion that Javert has found him?
God it's just amazing how much those tiny, little plot movements add up when so many of them are broken. The 1998 version doesn't have a plot hole in it, I don't think, at least nothing that really bothered me. I mean I still don't really get why Cosette falls in love with that rat-faced greasy-haired ranter who whines about how much it SUCKS that her dad loves her so much but they do give her pretty good motivation; she's been locked in the convent since pre-puberty and *wants to see the world* or whatever. Marius is kind of a creep though.
I don't really care about the whole revolution part, besides 2012 Valjean somehow finding a full French military uniform and using it to sneak behind enemy lines? I mean they showed how Javert at least put on the rags to infiltrate the radicals, and I think they're a little easier to come by even in like French revolution poverty. I mean, the one thing I will give the 2012 version is that they portrayed the French sewers as WAY NASTIER. He was basically walking around in the 1998 version but he was literally Andy-Dufresne-swimming-through-shit in the new one. Maybe that's why Valjean died, he fucking caught cholera from the Parisian sewers.
The last thing I REALLY want to talk about is
The Ending
I fucking hated the ending of the 2012 movie, and I guess the musical too then.
The conflict is over when Javert kills himself. The whole conflict of the movie is Javert pursuing Valjean for evading what he, and no one else in their right mind, considers to be justice. Once Javert kills himself, Valjean is free, and that's all that really ever mattered.
The 2012 movie ends with Valjean like, sitting on a chair alone after Cosette and Marius' wedding, which he did not attend out of self-sacrifice, dying of melodrama. Fantine greets him from the afterlife, where all the revolutionaries and Eponine are standing on all the broken furniture that made the barricades, which is apparently heaven for the French proletariat. The end.
The 1998 movie...you know what, just watch for yourself:
Maybe that's just it, that ending is so perfect to me that anything else feels wrong. I don't need to see Cosette and Marius' wedding, first of all because I don't care about that romance and second of all because it's not all that difficult to infer. The crux of the movie, the central relationship is between Valjean and Javert. Once that is concluded, the dramatic fuel runs out pretty fast.
Final thoughts
Anyway, I just fucking love this story, and honestly I consider it kind of a template for the sorts of stories I want to tell. I mean, it has its flaws for sure. It is really like, over-the-top melodramatic, but well within the confines of suspension of disbelief. The characters are less characters and more just awful hypotheticals, really. Like, "wouldn't it suck if some policeman pursued you your whole life and all you did was steal a loaf of bread?" "How many circumstances does it take before you can actually sympathize with a prostitute?" I'm not saying it would take me a lot but this is like Catholic (Huguenot? Ugh AP Euro) France. I don't know, maybe I'm just trying to make this story fit in my oeuvre too forcefully but that just seems like a kind of speculative fiction to me. What if?
So you've got characters that aren't super well developed, an epic scope, the battle between two ideologies, a fucking revolution in the background...I wish I could put my finger on exactly what it is about this story I find so compelling. It's just good drama. There are really good situations, conflicts, decisions that characters have to make through their circumstances. Well-plotted, well-paced, good drama. If I could write stories like this, I would be happy even if I never sold a copy.
Anyway, that's my Ode to Les Miserables. I love this story and I always will and now you can all rightfully call me crazy because of it :) Also, if you want to watch the 1998 version, you can rent it there on YouTube for $2.99 or buy it for $9.99, same prices on Amazon. Or you can just, you know, download it.