Les Miserables Preview

Set in 1815 France, Les Miserables is the story of Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) who is released on parole after serving a nineteen year prison sentence.  As time passes, Valjean is determined to do good with his life and eventually becomes a factory owner and serves as mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer. One of his factory workers, Fatine (Anne Hathaway) is discovered to be sending money to her illegitimate daughter, Cosette (Isabelle Allen) and is dismissed by the foreman. Left with no option, Fantine turns to prostitution. During an argument with an abusive customer, Javert (Russell Crowe), the police inspector who has vowed to find and arrest Valjean, arrests Fatine, but Valjean intercedes and takes her to a hospital. Later, Valjean learns that an innocent man mistaken for Valjean is arrested. Valjean nobly reveals their mistake and his true identity to the court. After escaping Javert, Valjean finds Cosette and promises to be like a father to her, fulfilling his promise to Fatine.

Most of the previews feature Fatine (Hathaway) singing the anthemic "I dreamed a dream" number from the musical with gorgeous snapshots of incredible costumes, makeup and scenery flashing across the screen.  This has all the makings of an Oscar-worthy movie: $61 million dollar budget, highly successful musical, all-star cast, and what appear to be epic sets that a live stage production could never even hope to achieve.  The concern is how heavily the focus is on Hathaway's performance.  Now we know that Hugh Jackman can sing.  He is a classically trained theatre professional and began his career in Australia and England performing in musicals like Beauty and the Beast and Oklahoma!  We know that Amanda Seyfried can sing as her chops rang out in the film version of Mamma Mia! Honestly, I think she was the only redeeming quality of the film version of that show, so I'm excited to see her in this role.  The concern for me is Russell Crowe.  Although upon investigation, I found that Crowe, like Jackman, began his career in theatre in Australia and some of that included musical theatre.  But Crowe himself wasn't even convinced he was right for the role.  It was only after a conversation with director Tom Hooper (most notably credited with The King's Speech) that Crowe got on board with the project.  I just hope he can keep up with the rest of the cast who seem like they will be quite at home tackling this epic undertaking.

A $61 million dollar budget and almost no limits of time and space that even the largest theatre stage must contend with.  The advantage is the ability to create scenes, costumes and makeup that completely draw you into the story.  The burden of drawing you in during a live stage performance is so heavy on the actors.  At any time, you can tilt your head slightly in any direction and are reminded that you are in a theatre watching a show.  For some reason, though you are still in a theatre, watching it on a big screen almost helps to create the illusion that it's really happening.  The danger, however, especially in this modern time of technology, is to go too far with digital enhancements.  The most recent trilogy additions of Star Wars are a great example of this.  Though the digital additions to the movie were quite realistic, it was obvious they were digital and constantly kept you from fully investing yourself into the movie.

Finally, the film boasts a new and groundbreaking filming technique of live recorded singing.  Piano accompaniment is played to the actors through an ear piece and they are actually singing on the set and being recorded.  No studio is used to create pitch-perfect flawless performances that would later be used for the actors to lip-sync on camera.  Although this practice is very uncommon and very impressive, it's not the first film to incorporate this technique.

Overall, I'm expecting a brilliant and epic movie that should be moving, inspiring, and emotional resulting in a phenomenon that I cannot wait to add to my home collection.  But, we shall see . . .