Les Miserables

some things make me laugh (out loud, sometimes repeatedly)

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ Leave a comment

(Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes.)

1) There will always be a CMOS:

In the Chicago Manual of Style Q&A, someone posed this question (more of a challenge, really) about capitalization:

Q. Elsewhere in the Q&A you wrote, “The day I was introduced to the The was the day I learned that irony was finished.” This is just wrong and makes no sense whatsoever. To call The The “the The” is absolutely wrong. Further, The Who should be “The Who.” It’s a proper name, and “the Who” is just wrong. Fix this.

The response, as you can see, was two paragraphs explaining the CMOS rules for capitalizing “the,” followed by one paragraph admitting that, in this specific case, writing “the The” or “the Who” or “the Band” is pretty silly, and, yes, “Our rules are not laws. They are meant to be adjusted for the unusual case or to suit a particular context. And that’s The Truth.”

 
2) From the New York Times: “I’m working remotely. Can I keep hiding my secret baby?“

Not so much for the question, but for the answer, which still makes me smile.

 
3) I stumbled on this great advice from Gomez Addams (I was a huge fan of the Addams Family TV show when I was somewhat younger):

“Never go to bed angry or on fire.”

Words to live by.

I also remember a wonderful moment on the show when the family was facing some sort of crisis, and Gomez drew himself up and said, “This is the moment of truth!”

Morticia, his loving wife, simply asked, “What do you mean by that?”

Gomez, somewhat abashed, admitted, “I didn’t think you’d ask.”

 

Also, for things that don’t make me laugh, here’s a little followup to an earlier post called “It’s Totally Awesome Les Miz Singing Day!“

I just found a rehearsal video of the Les Misérables performance at the Academy Awards. I like the way all the non-superstar performers are busy taking selfies with each other and filming the thing (until the moment comes that they need to sing). And at the end they get the “very good” from Cameron Mackintosh, the producer who first had the idea that a French-language concept album of Les Misérables (by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, who are also present here, along with Tom Hooper, the movie’s director) might work on the stage.

Of course that’s a very compressed and medley-ized version of “One Day More.” Here’s the whole thing.

empathy machines

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ Leave a comment

First of all, Julia over at Pages of Julia reviewed the movie of Les Miserables.

Of course, I commented, at length. 🙂

I did manage to restrain myself, though. I could have gone on and on, mentioning that Orson Welles had his first big success on radio with a seven-point adaptation of Les Miserables (where he wrote the script, directed it, and starred as Jean Valjean, of course). Or I could have talked about…

Anyway.

 
Kristan Hoffman wrote an excellent post about “How a story starts,” about building a story around one real, powerful moment.

Of course I commented using Les Miserables, as an example, including how when Anne Hathaway sings “I Dreamed a Dream,” singing about all the things that women still suffer today, two centuries later (as she pointed out when she accepted the Oscar), and I’m bawling like a baby — that makes me tend to forgive a lot of annoying camerawork, and some of the less-than-stellar singing of some of her co-stars.

But in the show itself, the key moment for me, the moment that everything else serves to get us to, is this one, where Javert is at the mercy of Valjean, and Valjean lets him go, explaining that Javert has always been wrong about him, and about their relationship to each other.

 
Speaking of movies, I saw this very interesting article: “Michael Sheen enters row about showing films in class“

Now, obviously showing films in a class can be lazy teaching, but films can teach us a lot of things.

To quote Sheen’s comments:

“The American film critic Roger Ebert once described films as ‘empathy machines’. They can allow us to see the world through the eyes of others, experience other cultures, other viewpoints, other lives. And, crucially, not just get an intellectual understanding but actually feel what it’s like.”

My mother’s lifetime encompassed pretty much the entire history of film as a commercial medium, and she used to say that there’s nothing like movies. We used to get together on Saturday nights for dinner, always followed by a movie on DVD. We’d watch the movie, and then we’d have coffee and talk about it.

Only once was she so affected by a movie that she had trouble talking about it for a few minutes after it ended — that was Les Miserables.

i really do need to read the book

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 2 Comments

I saw the new Broadway version of Les Misérables a couple of weeks ago. It was excellent — very different staging than before (I saw the original Broadway run when it was about to close), and a cast that ranged from good to excellent.

I also just watched the movie version from the 1990s (it’s an adaptation of the book, not of the musical), which is what I want to talk about today.

(By the way, I have to share this joke I read somewhere: Uma Thurman was in The Avengers, Les Misérables, and a Batman movie. Which would have been an incredible year if she’d done it in this decade, but unfortunately she did it in the late 1990s.)

The biggest problem with the movie was that it focused too much on Valjean vs. Javert. The actors were excellent (Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush), but this leads back to my recent post about heroes and protagonists.

Javert is the antagonist (he’s pretty much the definition of an antagonist), but he’s not a villain (Thernardier is a villain, by contrast). Javert is trying to do good; he’s just wrong about some things (in the musical, the scene when Valjean spares his life and sings “You are wrong, and always have been wrong” may be my favorite moment in the show — Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe nailed this scene in the recent movie, by the way).

In the 1998 movie, however, even Geoffrey Rush’s haircut screams, “I am the villain!” Javert’s superiors and subordinates all dislike him, too.

On the other hand, what the 1998 movie did do, which surprised the heck out of me, was present a really interesting and compelling Cosette. Eponine is absent (alas), but instead we get a Cosette (Claire Danes) who actually acts, rather than just mooning around, and who asserts herself with her father in a very good way. She learns her father’s history much earlier in the story than in other versions I’ve seen, mostly because she insists on it. And it makes a difference that, unlike in the show, she doesn’t just fall in love with Marius and then immediately get separated from him — they are obviously lovers here, over a period of time, and that makes her urgent desire to stay with him something real, as opposed to just an adolescent crush.

(Oh, and yes, Uma Thurman was in the “wrong” Les Misérables, the wrong Batman movie and the wrong Avengers movie, but she’s very good as Fantine.)

The other problem with reducing the story to hero vs. villain (this was also true of the radio adaptation Orson Welles did in the 1930s) is that you remove les misérables (the wretched) from Les Misérables. The musical puts the people of France (suffering, and later rebellious) at the center of the story from the very first scene, and that frames all the individual stories.

Which I’m pretty sure was true in the book.

Which I really do need to read.

(And which is, of course, free for the Kindle. 🙂 )

heroes and villains

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 2 Comments

I just saw the new Iron Man movie, and it was pretty good. Not great, but it was good that Stark and Rhodey spent so much time out of the metal suits (and Pepper got to kick some butt).

I’ve been thinking about villains. I think this is where a lot of superhero movies fall down these days.

Jeff Bridges was good in the first Iron Man movie, and Mickey Rourke (and the other guy, whoever that was) were less good in the second one. Guy Pearce is just okay here (and, yes, Ben Kingsley is amazing — I think they missed some opportunities in the script, but his performance is great).

Heath Ledger was great as the Joker, of course, but other than that the recent Batman movies were a complete dud in the villain area.

This is one thing the X-men movies have got mostly right.

Has there been a villain better served than Magneto? To be played by both Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender? There’s about three minutes on the plane in #2 (from “I love what you’ve done with your hair” to “You are a god among insects, never let anybody tell you different”) that’s better than most of the entire performances mentioned above.

And, unlike a lot of the examples above, it’s always clear what Magneto wants, why he wants it, and why it’s a bad idea.

Plus, there’s Kevin Bacon, the real villain of the last X-men movie, who gives a really underrated performance.

It’s important to remember, by the way, that a villain is not the same as an antagonist (just as a hero is not the same as a protagonist).

For example Javert in Les Miserables (you knew I was going to go there, right?) is pretty much the definition of an antagonist, but the story makes it clear that he’s not a villain. He’s just wrong, like the Operative in Serenity. And, as Serenity shows, people who are wrong can do tremendous harm but that’s not the same as actual villainy.

The Therdardiers are villains (comic villains, in the show, but villains). They’re just out for themselves, no matter who suffers, as opposed to the Operative and Javert, who do want a better world. And Valjean makes it very clear near the beginning who the real villains of the story are.

As for the difference between heroes and protagonists? Look at Prometheus. Dr. Shaw is clearly the protagonist, but she’s no hero. She’s a classic monomaniacal obsessive, wanting what she happens to want and believing what she chooses to believe. She and Weyland are basically the same person (except that he’s not pretending to be a scientist). The heroes are the captain and the two pilots who sacrifice themselves to save Earth.

So, I guess the lesson is that your protagonist doesn’t have to be a hero, and your antagonist doesn’t have to be a villain. Which is an important thing to remember.

a fiend (missing), a store (located), a movie (to see), and les miserables (of course)

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 2 Comments

Lots of things to write about tonight.

1) I’m nearly ready to start a new story. Some time this week, I would guess. I’ll let you know, of course. 🙂

2) Hey, The Pyramid Waltz has a sequel, called For Want of a Fiend. I’ve just started it, but it’s good so far. I wrote about The Pyramid Waltz here. You can read about the new book here.

3) The comic book store I’ve patronized for the last three+ years has closed, but two of the employees from there have started their own store, Carmine Street Comics, located (of all places) on Carmine Street in Manhattan. It sounds like they’re going to be more indie-oriented than the old store, including an emphasis on mini-comics.

I was involved with the mini-comics scene some 20+ years ago, and in fact A Sane Woman was originally published in monthly chapbooks (an idea I originally got from the mini-comics people I was working with at that time).

Carmine Street Comics even has a place in their window where they will have artists creating comics on the spot. I met one of them, a very interesting artist named Ellen Stedfeld. And one of her books reminded me of this, one of my favorite webcomics, “Josh & Imp.’

4) I’ve got to say that, based on this and this, the new Iron Man movie sounds more and more like a must-see.

5) And, yes, I’m going to talk more about Les Miserables. 🙂

I saw this article, which contained this summary of the plot of the movie:

Gin and tonic. Man in prison for 19 years for stealing bread gets parole. Bloke in charge marks his card. Man steals from kind bishop. Bishop takes pity. Man’s life is changed. Ten years on. Man is mayor and factory owner. Factory lady exposed as having illegitimate child. Lady sacked and becomes prostitute. Lady dies. Man’s life is changed. Man buys lady’s daughter from comedy bar owners. 10 years on. Boy falls in love with daughter. Revolution in air. Girl dressed as boy brings letter from first boy professing undying love for daughter. Man reads it. Man’s life is changed. Interval. Revolution. Many die. Boy marries daughter. Man leaves. Comedy bar owners return. Make boy realise man saved his life. Man led to heaven by factory lady and girl who was dressed as boy. Finale.

See, plotting isn’t the most important thing. It’s what you do with it that counts. 🙂

And, yes, the Cinema Sins people have taken on Les Miz:

And, fond as I am of the movie, they make some very good points.

  • Movie only waits three minutes to start in with the Jesus imagery.
  • No one helps the mayor lift this fucking cart off this poor bastard?
  • And, yes, to Marius: Forget the super hot brunette, this random blonde girl is way hotter.
  • And re: Cosette: This dude still wants her even after hearing her sing(!)
  • Plus the fact that both Fantine and Valjean die without (apparently) dying from anything specific.
  • And, of course, “itinery”? 🙂