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The people who put "Les Miserables" on the big screen dreamed a mighty dream. They dreamed of filming one of the most popular musicals of all time — 60 million tickets sold in 42 countries and 21 languages since its 1980 debut in Paris — in a way that had not been done before. They wanted to enhance the emotion of what was already a very emotional story. And despite the huge challenges facing them, they have succeeded in creating a truly remarkable film, which will be released in Taiwan on Feb. 8.
The biggest obstacle to their success, strangely, was the musical itself — an epic show based on Victor Hugo's classic novel. Though the musical's songs are celebrated, the dialogue in between them is not. Additionally, the characters in the musical can come off as one-dimensional.
To counter all this, director Tom Hooper, who was making his first film since the Oscar-winning "The King's Speech," focused on the musical's greatest strength — making the audience feel the incredible emotions being experienced by the story's characters.
For this film, Hooper's first task was to take the musical off the stage and convincingly place it in a very real world. And he succeeded beautifully. From its breathtaking first scene — a fantastic image of French prisoners, circa 1815, trying to pull a floundering ship into a dock in the middle of a mighty storm — this production feels like an epic movie rather than a filmed version of the musical.
The second strategy employed was to sign the best, most talented actors for the musical's most unsophisticated roles. For protagonist Jean Valjean, that meant recruiting Hugh Jackman, who is initially unrecognizable as a full-bearded, emaciated convict.
Jackman appears in the opening scene as part of the crowd wrestling with the struggling vessel. Jackman's lean and hungry look was no accident, the actor said, explaining that director Hooper told him, "I need you to lose weight until your friends stop you and ask, 'Are you OK? Are you sick?' Until you get to that point, you haven't gone far enough."
Also front and center in that initial scene is Javert, the cold-hearted representative of the law, here played by Oscar-winner Russell Crowe. Once the boat is safely hauled in, Javert tells Valjean that, after serving 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family, he is being released, albeit to a life of constantly being marked as a dangerous ex-convict. "Do not forget my name," Javert says to the man, as if that were even an option.
Except Crowe's Javert doesn't say it, he sings it. That's right. For those of you unaccustomed to musicals, the characters in "Les Miserables" sing rather than say their lines. But if that sounds strange, don't be alarmed. It is all part of a truly wonderful cinematic experience.
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