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Just got back from seeing the new les Miserables movie, and I can't think of many movies where I've bawled like a little baby that much at, yet are fundamentally awful movies.
And no, the problem isn't the cast, not even Russell Crowe. I've seen people savage him, like somehow he's murdered Musical Theatre single-handedly, like Musical Theatre didn't survive Vanessa Redgrave in Camelot. And nobody seems to like the Marius and Cosette, though to me they seem appropriately vague. And, yes, Anne Hathaway earns that Oscar. In terms of the screenplay, it's actually a slight improvement on the stage play, and restores a lot of things from the book, like the convent, Marius' grandfather, and best of all the Elephant. But still it's a crap movie, solely because of the way it's shot.
Shot in close-up. Extreme, tight close-up. ALL THE TIME. Intimate scene, spectacular scene, indoors, outdoors, doesn't matter to Tom Hooper (confession: I loathe the King's Speech). Duets are alternating tight close-ups, group sings are shuffles of tight close-ups, rapid cutting just to get all the giant heads in, camera shaky and hand-held as often as not. Over and over, prison, brothel, barricade, he ends a scene with me thinking, what they staged was clearly more interesting than the tiny sliver of it that's on screen.
Oh, but I was blubbering when the bishop made his gift, when Fantine spiraled down into despair, when Eponine lunged for the gun, and completely lost it at the end. The material is stronger than the telling. Still, I wish they'd picked a different Hooper to direct.
And no, the problem isn't the cast, not even Russell Crowe. I've seen people savage him, like somehow he's murdered Musical Theatre single-handedly, like Musical Theatre didn't survive Vanessa Redgrave in Camelot. And nobody seems to like the Marius and Cosette, though to me they seem appropriately vague. And, yes, Anne Hathaway earns that Oscar. In terms of the screenplay, it's actually a slight improvement on the stage play, and restores a lot of things from the book, like the convent, Marius' grandfather, and best of all the Elephant. But still it's a crap movie, solely because of the way it's shot.
Shot in close-up. Extreme, tight close-up. ALL THE TIME. Intimate scene, spectacular scene, indoors, outdoors, doesn't matter to Tom Hooper (confession: I loathe the King's Speech). Duets are alternating tight close-ups, group sings are shuffles of tight close-ups, rapid cutting just to get all the giant heads in, camera shaky and hand-held as often as not. Over and over, prison, brothel, barricade, he ends a scene with me thinking, what they staged was clearly more interesting than the tiny sliver of it that's on screen.
Oh, but I was blubbering when the bishop made his gift, when Fantine spiraled down into despair, when Eponine lunged for the gun, and completely lost it at the end. The material is stronger than the telling. Still, I wish they'd picked a different Hooper to direct.
