Les Misérables: Book vs Movie--Maggie Wood final portfolio

"The movie was alright, but the book was better." 

        This saying has become such a common saying in our culture that I can hardly remember a time when people preferred the movie over the book. I believe that the same thing is true when plays are adapted into big budget hollywood films. I think that Les Mis is a perfect example of a movie that just couldn't live up to the original medium. 

(http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2010/11/gary-morris-les-miz-leaf-peeping.html)

One of the major differences is that the actors in the play musical have been training for operas for many years. This means that they are experts in both singing in the style that is required for Les Mis and in the art of acting. The actors in Les Misérables the movie are generally good singers, but they are not trained singers. The actors in the movie did the "sung through method", so basically they would listen to the chords in an earpiece and sing along in front of a camera, while also portraying their character. They did not go back and have the singers redo their song in a professional studio. The orchestra was added later. 

 

(http://www.onlocationvacations.com/tag/les-miserables-filming-locations/)

This way of filming has some upsides and some downsides to it 

pros:

       -It makes the emotions more authentic, because when the sound is untouched, you can hear the ruggedness and pain in it that a storyline like Les Mis requires. 

       - It gives more of a broadway sound and feel to the songs.

cons:

       -It took up a lot of the actors focus to perfect their sound that they sometimes forgot about what the rest of their face was doing. 

       -In the words of Marni Nixon, the esteemed musical veteran, "It is cruel to make people who can't sing, sing."

Now don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the Les Mis the movie. But you have to keep in mind that Les Misérables is one of the most beloved musicals (and it has been done with countless different casts across the world), and I don't think that actors that were not trained to sing can compete with actor/singers like these men...

That video was taken of 17 different Valjeans across the world. These men have spent much of their career dedicated to improving their voice as well as their acting. One must also keep in mind that the style of acting on a stage and acting in a movie is very different. On the stage you must be more concerned about your body and much less about your face, because the audience is farther away. This means that the actor can spend less time worrying about their facial expressions and they can focus more on their voice, but an actor on stage only has one shot to do it right. The must remember all of their lines and songs, if they mess up, there is no second take. In a movie the actor must focus on all parts of their body and face. Since they did the movie in the sung through method, the actor must also get their voice right, because they are not allowed to go back and retouch it. The movie has an advantage for the actors, because they have multiple chances to redo a scene. Some critiques say that this takes away some of the rawness of the emotions that the play is so good at getting across. 

I just want to take a quick moment to compare a few scenes from the movie and the play. 

The first scene that I want to compare is one of my personal favorite songs from les mis. It is a song called Lovely Ladies. It is sang when one of the main characters, Fantine, becomes so desperate that she turns to prostitution to support her daughter. The other prostitutes sing to her to convince her to join them.
The play-

and here is the movie version-

I think that the play version of this song sounds much better. The actors harmonize much more naturally with each other, because they spend much more time rehearsing the songs with each other. You can tell that they are much more experienced at singing than the movie cast, because they just sound better. In the play the song flows much better, because in the play they care more about the music than the acting. In the movie the music takes back seat, at least in this scene, to show dramatic shots so people can follow the movie more visually than musically. The singers in the play also have the advantage of getting to sing with a whole orchestra, while the actors in the movie only had an earpiece that played the chords of the song for them.
Both the play and the movie attempt to push the boundaries of this musical that has become so popular to our culture. The movie and the play excel in different areas. I think that the music is the most important part of this story, since it is an opera. While I think that the movie is a successful interpretation, it was not good enough to overshadow the play.



-by maggie wood