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Les Misérables (2012) (1 Viewer)

GMpasqua

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I didn't mind the close ups, just the shakey camera shots (which is most of the film) It looked like someone put a camera on their lap while watching the film. Maybe I saw a bootleg version

Swirling soaring plunging camera work and a pretty seamless mix of crane shots, wire shots and steadicam are fine (as they are in most other films) but it looked like the cameraman put the camera on his shoulder at the start of filming and never took it off. The shakey camera shots took me out of the moment and since film is a visual media, it kinda defeated the whole purpose (at least for me).
 

Tim Gerdes

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Michael Elliott said:
It seems Crowe is taking the most heat out of everyone but I liked him vocals....to a point. Yes, they are quite messy compared to a real singer and yes they don't "fit" with the "good" voices of the other cast members but I thought that roughness somewhat fit the character quite well. Again, I'm no expert on the musical but his voice didn't really bother me.
In this sense, the film reminded me of another of my favorite movie musicals, Woody Allen's "Everyone Says I Love You," where he chose actors who weren't necessarily good singers, believing it was more naturally emotional, or true. I realize the concept doesn't work for everyone, but I quite like it.
Les Miserables takes this concept a bit further. Rather than using musically powerful voices, as the stage show does, it has less technically accomplished voices but, thanks to the virtue of on set performances, singing through tears, at points voices cracking with emotion. Some lyrics are spoken, whispered, or angrily shouted. The film also showcases several death-scene farewells more believable as the words of a dying character than the more musically accomplished stage singers could ever be.
It's a different beast for sure, but one that largely worked for me.
In this sense Crowe's performance fit for me, though I think his delivery could have been a bit more contemptuous. But regardless, I quite enjoyed his take on Javert.
 

Jose Martinez

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GMpasqua said:
I didn't mind the close ups, just the shakey camera shots (which is most of the film) It looked like someone put a camera on their lap while watching the film. Maybe I saw a bootleg version
Swirling soaring plunging camera work and a pretty seamless mix of crane shots, wire shots and steadicam are fine (as they are in most other films) but it looked like the cameraman put the camera on his shoulder at the start of filming and never took it off. The shakey camera shots took me out of the moment and since film is a visual media, it kinda defeated the whole purpose (at least for me).
What shakey cam?!?!?
Did you actually watch it in a theater or some bootleg copy you pirated? There was not one ounce of "shakey cam" in the movie!
 

TonyD

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I didn't see any shaky cam but I think he means hand held. Which doesn't mean the same as shaky cam.
 

Steve Tannehill

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Hand-held on a very big screen (as I saw it) can equate to shaky cam. But this is hardly a Bourne film, which defines shaky cam. Definitely less than that.
 

Jose Martinez

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The Bourne series definitely is the meaning of shakey cam, or any found footage movie out there. Les Mis used steady cams. They used a GPI PRO rig with an Arri LT camera. And it was hardly shaky. I had to sit way in front because the theater was packed so it was basically in my face yet it wasn't shakey e slightest bit.
 

Mike Frezon

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Originally Posted by GMpasqua /t/321163/les-miserables-the-musical-hits-the-big-screen/30#post_4017420
"Les Mistake" bring Dramamine

98% of the film is shot on a steady cam! (sloppy film making)
Hopper used the 3 second rule:
No shot shall last more than 3 seconds, many only last 2 seconds

These comments concerned me quite a lot...as I was not a fan of the quick edits prevalent throughout parts of Chicago.

But Les Miz was nothing like Chicago in terms of editing. In fact, quick edits didn't seem to be a problem at all. There was some hand-held camera work, for sure...but, again, nothing overwhelming. An inordinate amount of close-ups? Maybe...but nothing that bothered me. In fact, I doubt I would have noticed had I not been reading many reviews before I got my chance to see the film.

The film really worked for me. I've seen the play on Broadway and watched the 10th & 25th anniversary concert discs any number of times. But the film allowed me to fully understand intricate parts of the intertwined storylines that I had never fully "gotten" before. Everything was much more clear to me as the staging of the film allowed me to follow the plot lines and put the lyrics into proper context.

I LOVED Samantha Barks as Eponine and thought Anne Hathaway was simply outstanding (first Catwoman and now Fantine in 2012!). Jackman was a very good Valjean. Crowe's presence as Javert was strong...but his singing was passionless. If this has been a non-musical, he would have been a good choice. Amanda Seyfried was positively awful as Cosette. Her trilling was distracting and unnecessary. Her singing was was simply weak.

The audio of the presentation seemed inconsistent...at times loud and at times soft. There were times when the vocals properly rose above the orchestration but times when the vocals were lost. This could definitely have been a problem with the cineplex in which I saw the film. Even the trailers beforehand seemed to vary in loudness. (By the way, I think Melissa McCarthy will be in just about every movie which comes out in 2013.)

I had downloaded the soundtrack highlights album from amazon for $5 before Christmas, but waited to listen to it until after I saw the film. I could see where people who are really familiar with the various cast albums over the decades would be disappointed with the differences...but the reasons for the differences seem pretty obvious. Vocalists projecting on stage as opposed to vocalists emoting in a much more intimate cinematic setting would definitely create two quite different aural experiences.

I'll be waiting impatiently for the Blu-ray of this!
 

Steve Tannehill

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The soundtrack highlights edits the songs even further than they are edited in the movie. I'm glad I only paid $5 for it.
I just sampled the 25th Anniversary Live Cast Recording (NOT the concert staging) on Spotify, and I enjoyed it. Some of the orchestrations are a little fast, and some of the show is missing, but it is the first recording I have ever heard that includes the musical interlude between "Dog Eat Dog" and the instrumental of "Look Down." That's not even in the Complete Symphonic Recording, which is my go-to cast recording.
I'll definitely be looking for the blu-ray of the movie. I would even consider a COMPLETE soundtrack of the movie.
 

Mike Frezon

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Originally Posted by Steve Tannehill /t/321163/les-miserables-the-musical-hits-the-big-screen/60#post_4018716
I would even consider a COMPLETE soundtrack of the movie.

It would be a mistake on their part NOT to release a complete soundtrack recording (or fairly complete anyway) before the video release. Cha-ching!

And, yes, as it was discussed earlier in the thread...the Highlights OST is extremely edited. Songs end very suddenly, etc. I wish they had included the finale when much of the cast was gathered on the barricade. Very uplifting.
 

Michael_K_Sr

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I've avoided this thread and any reviews of the movie until I saw it today. I wanted to form my own opinion for a movie that I have seen performed in its stage form nearly 20 times in Broadway, touring and regional productions. Given how much I love the stage production, I can say this movie had an impossibly high standard to meet for me. And it didn't come anywhere close to meeting that standard. I was very disappointed.
I'll start with the good, since it is a much shorter list. I thought Samantha Barks and Anne Hathaway were outstanding. I thought Hugh Jackman's performance was shaky in the beginning, but I was impressed as the movie played out. The almost total elimination of the song "Turning" is good, as I've always found the song to be wasteful filler in the stage production.
Now for the bad. I'll add to what others have said here in terms of the camera work being disconcerting. In particular, I hated the scores of closeups with the actors staring straight into the camera.
Russell Crowe may be an excellent actor, but for a singing role? Disgraceful. Javert has two big songs that require a strong voice to express the inspector's convictions. He failed miserably on both counts. And why the hell did Tom Hooper feel the need to show us Javert tiptoeing along the ledge...especially in "Stars"? I also felt the scene after the barricade falls where Javert pins one of his medals on Gavroche's corpse was completely out of character.
The shifting of songs around within the story was silly, as was the wholesale changing and elimination of lyrics. Certain "enhancements" to the story were unnecessary. Did we really need to see a several minute chase scene that showed how Valjean and Cosette got into Paris? That's covered in the book, but the producers wisely never added such a scene to the stage production. To me the most egregious change to the storyline was showing Eponine sacrificing herself at the barricade. The thing that has always made her death so poignant in the stage show is that she's killed on her return from delivering Marius' love letter for Cosette. None of that is conveyed in the film.
 

GMpasqua

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Originally Posted by Mike Frezon /t/321163/les-miserables-the-musical-hits-the-big-screen/60#post_4018706

These comments concerned me quite a lot...as I was not a fan of the quick edits prevalent throughout parts of Chicago.

But Les Miz was nothing like Chicago in terms of editing. In fact, quick edits didn't seem to be a problem at all. There was some hand-held camera work, for sure...but, again, nothing overwhelming. An inordinate amount of close-ups? Maybe...but nothing that bothered me. In fact, I doubt I would have noticed had I not been reading many reviews before I got my chance to see the film.
I should clarify. The film is most compromised of long hand held camera shots with very little editing.

This is nothing like "Moulin Rogue" where most of the film flies by so fast you can hardly take in the sets and costumes. But, when Hopper does allow for edits, they did go by quickly. I became aware of this immediately (a good ediitng job should never make you aware of itself) and started counting 3 seconds (most shots lasted less than that) This was mostly true of "Look Down" and "At the End of the Day" Then finally the editing did die down - but the camera was still hand held (I don't like the process, and no one is going to change my opinion on that so you can stop trying)

"Chicago" had quick editing but it wasn't as quick as "Moulin Rogue" and the camera did remain steady throughout a shot. I loved "Chiacgo" - the best filmed musical since "Oliver!" ("Cabaret" is also great - but so much was deleted from the stage show it's almost a different play)

I paid to see "Chicago" eight times before it came to home video. But for "Les Miz once was enough" (I also paid to see "Hairspray" "Sweeney Todd" & "Nine" more than once)
 

mattCR

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Now that you mention Sweeney Todd, I have to point out that Helena Bonham Carter is fantastic.. I mean fantastic in both Sweeney Todd and Les Mis. She's just a natural for this.
 

GMpasqua

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Originally Posted by mattCR /t/321163/les-miserables-the-musical-hits-the-big-screen/90#post_4019076
Now that you mention Sweeney Todd, I have to point out that Helena Bonham Carter is fantastic.. I mean fantastic in both Sweeney Todd and Les Mis. She's just a natural for this.
She wasn't bad in this or Sweeney Todd (though the two roles seemed very similar) but her singing vocal does leave a lot to be desired
 

Dave Miller

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Happy New Year all!
Having seen the 2012 movie (and very much enjoyed it), in the past few days I have watched the 1952 movie version (first viewing) and the 1998 movie version (countless viewings). The '52 version seems typical of that era and was an interesting contrast to more modern iterations. I have long been a fan of the 1998 version & never understood why at the time of its release, the critics were not fond of it.
Watching the 1998 version again brought to light something that I hadn't considered when watching the 2012 version. Many folks seem to be hammering Crowe's singing. I'll agree that he's no Philip Quast nor Norm Lewis, but his singing was not the issue for me. I believe others here have alluded to this, but Crowe's performance lacks passion. More importantly, it lacks the insatiable pursuit that Javert gives to Valjean. It is an obsession that is driven by Javert's own self righteousness and unending devotion to the law and it's just not there in this movie.
Geoffrey Rush embodied that pursuit so well in the 1998 version. Crowe's performance seemed to miss it completely and and I'm not sure why. Maybe he was preoccupied with the task of signing, maybe it was Hopper's direction or maybe it was poor editing decisions. Whatever it was, Javert's insatiable pursuit is not communicated effectively and the contrast between someone who is ruled by grace and someone who is ruled by law has to be at the very heart of this story. For me, the actors and stage musicians have to get that right. If it's not there,
the suicide scene
seems to come completely out of left field. If it's there, it makes sense albeit in a tragic way.
For the record, I do love the Broadway musical having seen it in person once and then the seeing the 25th Anniversary Concert on PBS a few months ago.
Next on the list is the 1935 version playing on TCM on Sunday 1/6/13. I would also really love to see the 1978 movie version starring Richard Jordan & Anthony Perkins. It has great reviews on Amazon, but I never knew it existed until recently.
Maybe eventually I'll actually get around to reading Hugo's novel. :)
Peace,
DM
 

TonyD

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I don't see this on TCM this Sunday. What time do you see it?
 

ManW_TheUncool

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Michael_K_Sr said:
I've avoided this thread and any reviews of the movie until I saw it today. I wanted to form my own opinion for a movie that I have seen performed in its stage form nearly 20 times in Broadway, touring and regional productions. Given how much I love the stage production, I can say this movie had an impossibly high standard to meet for me. And it didn't come anywhere close to meeting that standard. I was very disappointed.
I'll start with the good, since it is a much shorter list. I thought Samantha Barks and Anne Hathaway were outstanding. I thought Hugh Jackman's performance was shaky in the beginning, but I was impressed as the movie played out. The almost total elimination of the song "Turning" is good, as I've always found the song to be wasteful filler in the stage production.
Now for the bad. I'll add to what others have said here in terms of the camera work being disconcerting. In particular, I hated the scores of closeups with the actors staring straight into the camera.
Russell Crowe may be an excellent actor, but for a singing role? Disgraceful. Javert has two big songs that require a strong voice to express the inspector's convictions. He failed miserably on both counts. And why the hell did Tom Hooper feel the need to show us Javert tiptoeing along the ledge...especially in "Stars"? I also felt the scene after the barricade falls where Javert pins one of his medals on Gavroche's corpse was completely out of character.
The shifting of songs around within the story was silly, as was the wholesale changing and elimination of lyrics. Certain "enhancements" to the story were unnecessary. Did we really need to see a several minute chase scene that showed how Valjean and Cosette got into Paris? That's covered in the book, but the producers wisely never added such a scene to the stage production. To me the most egregious change to the storyline was showing Eponine sacrificing herself at the barricade. The thing that has always made her death so poignant in the stage show is that she's killed on her return from delivering Marius' love letter for Cosette. None of that is conveyed in the film.
Pretty much all this. I didn't see the staged show that many times, but I've probably become too familiar w/ the original Broadway production via the old CD set -- and my kids learning some of the songs lately, including Javiert's Stars, from the Broadway scores -- to find what they did musically satisfying on the whole outside of certain specifics. Crowe's singing (technically) isn't as bad as I originally feared, but his performance definitely did not befit Javiert, especially for his 2 key, dramatic solos. He either didn't have the vocal chops to let them rip when needed or simply misplayed the role -- could be a bit a both, especially given how many of the non-singing moments came across...
I also didn't like those other mentioned changes. Too bad they didn't go w/ a longer cut that was more true to the musical (while fleshing some things out or making better transitions for this medium) since they apparently shot enough for a nearly 4-hour initial/rough cut -- either that or make better, cleaner changes w/ better transitions, including better music transitions. Almost all the changes they made felt quite clunky or just didn't flow naturally even though the film still ran ~2.5 hours.
Dave Miller said:
Many folks seem to be hammering Crowe's singing. I'll agree that he's no Philip Quast nor Norm Lewis, but his singing was not the issue for me. I believe others here have alluded to this, but Crowe's performance lacks passion. More importantly, it lacks the insatiable pursuit that Javert gives to Valjean. It is an obsession that is driven by Javert's own self righteousness and unending devotion to the law and it's just not there in this movie.
Geoffrey Rush embodied that pursuit so well in the 1998 version. Crowe's performance seemed to miss it completely and and I'm not sure why. Maybe he was preoccupied with the task of signing, maybe it was Hopper's direction or maybe it was poor editing decisions. Whatever it was, Javert's insatiable pursuit is not communicated effectively and the contrast between someone who is ruled by grace and someone who is ruled by law has to be at the very heart of this story. For me, the actors and stage musicians have to get that right. If it's not there,
the suicide scene
seems to come completely out of left field. If it's there, it makes sense albeit in a tragic way.
For the record, I do love the Broadway musical having seen it in person once and then the seeing the 25th Anniversary Concert on PBS a few months ago.
Aye. I too wonder if it's all Crowe's fault there. For instance, as someone also mentioned, Javiert's characterization also seemed odd in that moment when he places his medal on the dead Galvroche. Maybe Hooper wanted Javiert to be portrayed much more sympathetically than traditionally understood -- or maybe Crowe wanted that himself and insisted it for all I know...
One other thing not mentioned so far. Maybe it was just a sound setup/config problem at my local theater -- and it was the 1st screening of that day -- but I found the sound very lacking, especially in bass, and was generally very flat and quite thin sounding, especially in the first half of the film. The orchestra sounded small and distant much of the time, and voices often seemed to lack much needed support in the lower registers, especially in the first half, though Anne Hathaway sounded fine. Maybe most of that was due to the live recording approach they took. Either way, I was not impressed at all even though there seemed to be plenty of potential w/ some excellent scenes and moments here and there. Really too bad me thinks...
_Man_
 

ManW_TheUncool

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Too bad nobody seems interested in producing/shooting a good recorded performance of the live staged show for BD (much like what's done for operas). That's probably what us fans really want in the end since transforming the staged musical for the film medium is probably bound to be problematic, if they stay very true to the musical. The musical uses loads of melodrama and trope-like narrative shorthand much like in opera and also keeps everything in music, both of which probably don't translate so well on the big screen.
I'm reminded of how it might play a lot like Evita if they just stuck closer to the musical (and went for better technical sound, instead of this live approach), which I always found to feel too much like a polished, 2-hour music video, instead of a truly engaging film.
Maybe Les Mis the musical (w/out drastic changes) was always doomed to fall short in a movie adaptation...
Then again, I did like Chicago a whole lot and also liked Hairspray quite a bit too though I'm not familiar w/ their original musicals, so...
_Man_
 

Mike Frezon

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ManW_TheUncool said:
/t/321163/les-miserables-the-musical-hits-the-big-screen/60#post_4018706
The audio of the presentation seemed inconsistent...at times loud and at times soft. There were times when the vocals properly rose above the orchestration but times when the vocals were lost. This could definitely have been a problem with the cineplex in which I saw the film. Even the trailers beforehand seemed to vary in loudness. (By the way, I think Melissa McCarthy will be in just about every movie which comes out in 2013.)
I gotta figure the Blu-ray release will sound better than what I heard at the cineplex.
 

ManW_TheUncool

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Hehheh, Mike, I was mostly referring to the other issues I had w/ the sound, not so much what you mentioned, although maybe the issues are more alike than I thought you meant. I neglected to clarify, but I also found the sound to appear almost entirely monaural though spread across the theater's front speakers/channels w/ very sporadic or minor appearances in the surrounds (w/ no sense of direction).
Sounded rather like they only had a center channel signal (sans low frequencies) being sent to all the front speakers w/ some surround processing sporadically sending ambient music sounds to the surrounds... and no working sub(s) for the lower registers...
_Man_
 

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