Les Misérables and Hope

One of the other movies we went to during the holidays was the new film version of Les Misérables. I love when art is moving and beautiful, even when the visual image itself is not beautiful. Victor Hugo’s story is one of the most enlightening in literature.

The music, according to my copy, was written in 1987 (I think the musical is actually older than that). I don’t remember becoming aware of it that early. I read the book in the 1990s, a paperback version that was only about 700 pages, because hundreds of pages of French revolutionary history were left out. That made it a relatively easy read (compared to what it could have been). But it wasn’t a light read. It was thought provoking, and full of dilemmas. When I heard that it was going to become a musical, I thought, “How can they turn that heavy work, with a fitting name like Les Misérables, into singing and dancing?” Even though Phantom of the Opera was around, and it wasn’t exactly cheery Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor stuff either, I just couldn’t picture it.

But it turned out to be beautiful as a stage musical/opera. Mr. Spherical Model got to see it on stage in London, but I had settled for concert versions on television and a local high school production—along with listening to a Broadway recording and singing all the alto pieces at the piano. (I do a fair rendition of Fantine’s “I Dreamed a Dream,” but I can’t get the youth in my voice for Eponine’s songs. I sing them all anyway.)

I was concerned about a movie version, that it might not reach expectations, but I was pleased at the cast. A difference between the stage and a movie is the intimacy of the view. Subtle acting is more necessary than on the stage. But there is a difference of opinion about the need for vocal ability. My personal belief is that it would be better to do such a movie by finding great singers who can act. Vocal training is harder to accomplish without years of disciplined practice. Nevertheless, I loved this version. Anne Hathaway became Fantine—better than I had been able to envision her. The situation and the motivations became clear to me, and I felt her personal misery. Her song and then her death scene were the first times I cried. (OK, except for the bishop’s gift of a second chance to Jean Valjean; that got me too.) Anne Hathaway has a voice that handled the intimacy of the close-ups well, and sometimes rang with real beauty.

I’ve heard better Jean Valjeans, but Hugh Jackman made me see the character better than I had before. His voice was not stunning but adequate. Russell Crowe’s voice was only occasionally adequate, but I did like him in the role of Javert.

Mr. Spherical Model pointed out that the vocal range on stage is greater. Without the surround sound of the movie theater, you hear the differences in dynamics better, so the vocal range actually tells the story better. He’s probably right. And the stage singers who were in the movie were probably the best voices: Marius, Enjolras, and Eponine. I also need to praise Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen as Madame and Mr. Thernardier, the comic relief. Carter actually seemed a little restrained, compared to her over-the-top portrayal of Beatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter. I’ve always liked her and enjoyed her in this. I have never liked Cohen or anything he has been in, most of which has been tasteless and offensive and not what I find funny. But here he was brilliant. So many moments where he added a detail beyond the script that fit the character. He was despicable, but he was good at it.

The young Cosette looked like the model for the original play poster, and did the “Castle on the Cloud” song almost to perfection. Amanda Seyfried may have looked the part well enough for the older Cosette, but vocally she was a disappointment. I have to say, though, that I haven’t heard a recording of Cosette that sounded the way I wanted. It needs a very high, lyric soprano, with control so it isn’t too heavy or too much of a birdlike trill. A young Kathleen Battle sound, I suggest. But, then, if it had been perfect, what would there be to talk about?

Even so, why talk about this movie here at the Spherical Model blog? Partly because it interests me, and partly because it connected some dots I’ve been thinking about.

This movie portrayed real misery. It starts 25 years after the French Revolution. Except for the War of 1812, there wasn’t such misery in the United States generally following our revolution. The two were different in a number of ways (I wrote about the comparison here), but the main way was that the United States is founded on protecting unalienable rights granted by God, that government cannot be allowed to encroach upon. France took God out of the equation and listed its Rights of Man, protected by government—and therefore subject to change by government. So the pitiful little revolution of the young band of students in Les Mis is just one of many along the way where people saw things they thought were wrong and tried to insist on change only to have a tyrannical force quell them.

My concern, particularly since the November election, is that those who are choosing the “French” way, the tyranny of the majority, if you will, do not understand when things have become unacceptable. I’m concerned that, until the misery is what we see in so many portrayals, both historic and commonly in fictional young adult novels (The Hunger Games series and the Matched series are two post-apocalyptic portrayals I’ve read recently), then people will keep believing we’re fine.

I can see clearly that society only thrives in the northern hemisphere of the Spherical Model. But the choice has been to sink well below the equator, with an assumption that floating up near the equator is good enough, and that there will be no inexorable force southward into tyranny. But that belief is folly, because whenever people accept minor tyrannies, they get major tyrannies and the misery that comes with them.

In the movie, the theme wasn’t, however, that all was hopeless; it was that, despite the miserable lives of the common people, choosing to love and to be generous and decent transcended the misery: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Despite the “death of God” in the French Revolution, the people in this story talk of God openly and devoutly. He is there with them in their misery. And that is why there is hope that, beyond the story, a better life will come.

I’m always grateful when a work of art helps us connect love of God with hope, because that is the way back up out of the misery of tyranny, up to freedom, prosperity, and thriving civilization.