Wednesday
May302012
Yes, No, Maybe So: "Les Miserables"
Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 10:01PM Q: You know what I always wanted for Christmas?
A: A miserabilist musical epic about whores, convicts, slum lords, revolutionaries and starving street urchins in 19th century France.
Thanks, Santa!
And thanks, Baby Jesus! Even though your dad was not as forgiving as Fantine (Anne Hathaway) dreamed. Les Misérables trailer and discussion after the jump
YES
- It should be clear to anyone reading The Film Experience that Nathaniel (c'est moi) lives for musicals so there is no way he'd ever miss this.
- Anne Hathaway. Dreaming that iconic dream gorgeously over the handsome imagery. This is what musicals require that Hollywood always forgets: great actors with impressive vocal instruments. Not great voices that can't act or great actors that can't sing.
- "I dreamed that God would be forgiving ♫" over an image of Jean Valjean in church? I can already hear myself weeping in the movie theater.
I dreamed a dream in time gone by.
When hope was high and life worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die.
I dreamed that God would be forgiving...
- ........Chills. I tell you. Chills.
- Anne Hathaway's overdue Oscar! (shut up. She was Gah!mazing in Rachel Getting Married)
- Hugh Jackman. Singing In a Movie! FINALLY!
- SINGING WHORES! That never ever gets old (see also: Moulin Rouge!, Candide, Chicago, Sweet Charity, Miss Saigon, Cabaret, Gypsy, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Oliver!, etcetera)
Singing Whores! YES
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
- Not the off-center compositions all over again. Stop it, Tom Hooper. Just stop it. This definitely got old by the 118th minute of The King's Speech two years ago.
MAYBE SO
- With long awaited epics where anticipation is built as high as revolutionary barricades on the dreams and tears of feverish fandom, the risk of disappointment always looms as dangerously as approaching well armed government troops. Can this movie ever deliver like the stage show did for decades for millions and millions of fans? And if does can it ever win enough Oscars?
The Trailer...
Are you a Yes, No, or a Maybe So?
Sing your song and dream your dream in the comments.
Reader Comments (78)
stella: A better comparison would be The Vertigo Letter.
I'm a "most probably no." I'm not a musical type of guy (I like some of them, though) and miserabilism in a Dickensian kind of way + singing about it is not precisely my type of thing. I can't even imagine if this had been directed my Iñarritu <shivers>.
That is the saddest rendition of I Dreamed a Dream I have ever heard... and thank God. I always wondered why in the show its such a big, belty number - the woman is DYING, people! So Anne Hathaway is an absolute yes for me.
Nothing in this trailer made me scream "NO!" although the canted angles and off-center compositions came close. I'm not convinced Hooper is a CINEMATIC director as opposed to a TV director.
As for the maybe so, the whole "singing live on film" thing is intriguing, and while Hathaway sounded good, it still has me worried. It might just sound too naturalistic, you know? And while Les Mis is an historical epic, there is NOTHING naturalistic about singing a giant ballad while you're dying (although I have no shame in saying that I totally want to live in a world where that IS a completely natural thing to do). And I'm not completely convinced that Russell Crowe can sing this.
All that said, I will be there on opening night. ABSOLUTELY.
Maybe so to the cast and director and the fact that it's a movie and not a stage show, because...
...I must say NO to Les Miz itself, the first (and only) musical that ever made me fall asleep in the theater and was part of the end of my love affair with the Broadway musical. (80s, you suck.)
um.. YEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!
and Anne looks like the first real contender for the oscar in the supporting actress category :D
I dont think Hathaway was better than Williams in BBM, because I believe Williams was second only to Ledger himself, who delivered a groundbreaking, earthshattering, epic performance for the ages and should have won that year!!!
I think michelle was superb in BBM.
Oh come on, I'd give Anne the Oscar just for the trailer alone. If CZJ and J.Hud can win Oscars just for showing up, I don't see why Anne can't either. And she isn't overdue, but she's due, and she's the right age. It's kinda now or never really.
And if a Supporting Actress Oscar (as the first one ;-) is good enough for Streep & Lange, not to mention Spacey & Washington, then I'm sure Anne will be happy to receive it.
@volvagia. I've never seen it, so, um. Sure.
Yes but a little weary of one or two things.
There are so many comments that I may have missed if some of you have had similar thought but here goes:
Samantha Barks was phenomenal in the stage version and I'm glad she was cast for the film but she does look incredibly out of place in the style of clothing and her hairstyle, you know, a side-fringe (is that bangs in American?) seems a bit of a stretch.
I've never heard Russell Crowe sing a note so I could be completely off base but am weary to hear him face off with The Jackman!
I do love Anne Hathaway's rendition of I dreamed a dream, not sure why they changed it from 'the dream' to 'a dream', but the style is fitting for a cinema environment rather than powerhouse and showy.
Excited about going to see it and really hope it lives up to the sort of epic feeling that the trailer has given it! :D
I'm a "yes." Hopefully it succeeds and then someone does a film version of "Follies." I just saw it here in LA and man, a film of that would be an amazing showcase for older actresses. Meryl Streep isn't getting enough work.
HELLZ YEAH! Whoah! However, i am just a smidge leary....it was this time last year the "War Horse" trailer was released. Having seen the play, which was spectacular, the movie trailer had me so so excited. I couldn't wait to see it & I pantently waited for 5 months. I managed to wesel my way into a screening of "War Horse" right after Thanksgiving & was so so disappointed. I wanted to leave after the first 3 hours of the movie. However - this does indeed look to be pretty spectacular. To me - The Great Gatsby looks horrible. In my book, Les Miserables and Lincoln are the ones to wait for.
sorry for the dumb & embarrassing typos above.
Definitely yes. I can't wait for it to come out :)
I'm actually a little disappointed we didn't get a glimpse of Cohen and Carter, since they're playing my 2 favorite roles in the show. Would LOVE to see how they're looking.
Annie's gonna win an Oscar! Annie's gonna win an Oscar!
For a Tom Hooper film.
Hooper = 2 directing Oscars
Fincher = 0
Lee = 0
Almodovar = 0
Welles = 0
Lynch = 0
Kurosawa = 0
Hitchcock = 0
Fellini = 0
Anderson (Paul T., not Wes, yet) = 0
Kinda takes the wind out of her sails a bit, doesn't it? This guy gets two directing Oscars in THREE years, and these guys will probably go their entire careers with nada. Shit ain't right.
But get it anyway, Annie! <3
:-))
Get the kleenex and the Oscar- very classy trailer-and the lovely Annie deserves as Oscar.
Really don't understand people who think Hathaway sounds amazing here. It's true that Hathaway has sung well in public before. But here it seems to me she's either deliberately singing poorly or is just overmatched by the part. Her voice is thin, with poorly uncontrolled/too fast vibrato and awkward transitions between chest and head voice throughout, which suggests among other things, inadequate breath control, which is typical of people with nice but largely untrained voices when they tackle songs that require, you know, actual singing. She sounds a little better toward the end of this teaser, which is why I think it could be deliberate - given the context of the song in the show it would be a valid choice from a performance perspective. But she does *not* sound great, and that seems to me to be more or less objectively true, so... confusing. Anyway, given that, it's peculiar that they chose it to score the teaser, though it is a recognizable song, so that's probably what they were most concerned with.
Anyway, this gets a maybe. Love Jackman in the lead but everything else is a big ass question mark. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of this show, so this is not like some sort of religious event for me.
A BIG FAT YES to it!! Reasons:
1) Anne Hatheway (amazing voice she has...)
2) Hugh Jackman (finally singing in a movie...)
3) musical (Hollywood needs to chunk out more musicals into the cinemas, not everyone lives in NYC)
Yes, yes, yes to the trailer! Anne Hathaway sounded wonderful, and she looks to be gunning for that Oscar hard! I'm surprised she's being featured so heavily this early on. But all the public knows is "I Dreamed a Dream" (thanks, Susan Boyle), so I guess it's understandable. I'm anticipating Hugh Jackman to be great. I just read that Amanda Seyfried is a classically trained soprano, so yay for her. Would have never expected that from the "Mamma Mia!" girl. And Russell Crowe . . . I don't have a good feeling about him. I think he's going to Johnny Depp/"Sweeney Todd" his way all through this part, and that'll be sad. I guess Hooper's making a conscious choice to avoid belters across the board, but Javert needs to be able to sing, dammit! There are plenty of Broadway guys dying to get that part and could also cross over to mainstream audiences. They haven't unleashed the actress playing Eponine yet either. Looking forward to that too. God, I'm excited about a Tom Hooper film. SHOOT ME NOW.
Why wasnt Lea michelle cast on this? I simply CANT STAND HER, but she is such an obvious choice for this role I dont understand why isnt she on it.
Probably her commitment to "Glee" kept Lea Michele from this film. Same for the "Funny Girl" revival on Broadway. Sad. But maybe she'll be done by the time the "Wicked" film is made. She has to be Elphaba, right?
I'm a yes to this trailer! Looks positively gorgeous. Our little Anne's working hard for that Oscar! I'd rather see Hugh Jackman go the distance and win though.
I played the trailer over and over and it warmed up to me. I thought Anne Hathaway's rendition was really heart-breaking and it sent shivers to my spine. It was so cathartic that a tear flowed out of my duct.
Yes: what a cast! I love that they seem to be going for the heartfelt non-ironic variation. Each of these actors has the power to twist your heart. Hooper is a canny director, understanding that his leads also have the gift of immediacy in the moment and capitalizing on that.
No: not at Christmas, no. I hadn't seen the show so I foolishly read the book, to prepare for the movie (skipping the political parts and the digressions on the nature if mankind and the evolution of the French state). It is so horribly tragic, it depressed me for days. (don't talk to me about the role of Art). So maybe in January.
Maybe so: perhaps the fun of debating Oscar contention for the film will take the sting out of the misery. I didn't know Amanda Seyfreid was a classically trained soprano (who could hear or see anything in Mama Mia?). Jackman is perfect for the part. Crowe's part seems one of the most problematic, so it's a good thing they've got an actor of that depth to wrestle it to some kind of sense.
YES YES and YES again !!!! When i saw the trailer i was haunted by Hathaway's voice all night, and i just HAD to watch it again the morning after. The images from the movie are breathtaking (even if i'm a little frustrated by the Bonham Carter and Baron Cohen's total absence from the trailer) ... I'm always very careful about trailers since the Nine disaster, but i just can't fight against the intensity of that trailer. I loved Hathaway before but i can fell she'll amaze us here, as well as Jackman who seems possessed by the caracter. I really hope i'm not wrong here !!!
I'm not a big Anne Hathaway fan, but the last time I looked to a trailer with her and said "WOW!" she got an Oscar nomination for that performance.
Such a shame seeinf a girl with such a HUGE ACTING TALENT taking too much "money making" movies, but at least she can present us some exceptional acting once in a while.
She looks great in this trailer and she sings beautiful and in such a desperated, sad and heartbreaking way. Give her an Oscar nom (at least) for the 1:38 minutes of "Les Misérables movie trailer"
As a fan of the broadway musical, I really like what I saw in the musical. It looks incredible. Hathaway looks like she'll nail her role as Fantine.
Not only YES YES YES but camp out for the premier if necessary
I have to say Hathaway looks like she's up for something quite big with her performance in this. Between this and her role as Catwoman, I think she might have some award nods coming her way.