Merry Christmas, Have Some Miserables
Dec. 26th, 2012 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinThere was no waiting in the Noodle household: we saw Les Miserables yesterday afternoon.
As usual, my 'review' is going to make it sound like I didn't like it. I actually liked about 90% of it; the problem was that the other 10% made the 90% really hard to watch.
So, for the record, here is a list of things I love about Tom Hooper's Les Mis:
- The new orchestrations – OMG the new orchestrations – I love them and want to re-record the orchestra retroactively on my London Cast album, like, right now.
- Production design in general
- The vast majority of the acting
- The vast majority of the casting
- The location design around the ABC Café
- The lyrics changes and additions (and I don't like change usually, especially in something so close to my heart), especially ones that brought in more historical perspective and/or moments from the book.* The new verse in Gavroche's solo renders my historical costume post more or less irrelevant! Thanks, Gavroche!
- I actually liked the new song, which was a big surprise because I never like the new songs they put in old musicals. I thought it came at a good moment in the story and did a useful job of adding a dimension to Valjean's character arc, giving us a moment to let things gel before diving into a new pool, and wasn't bad musically either.
- The slight modifications to the timeline in the first half of the movie
- Foreshadowing
- Little things subtly but deliberately placed within the frame which reflect or comment upon the scene
*I have not read the book (I know, I know) but I have picked up information from various adaptations and conversation with people who have read it, so I can fake having read it well enough to recognise things from the source material.
With the exception of some of the timeline changes in the latter half of the movie, there was really only one thing I had a problem with. I am aware, though, that it might be something most people won't notice; I'm going to rant about it under a cut so that I don't plant awareness of it in your mind and ruin what might be a perfectly rewarding cinematic experience. So, no spoilers in the traditional sense of the word, but nevertheless, spoilers ahead:
The only really substantial negative about this movie, to me, is the cinematography. Unfortunately, by its very nature, it is the filter through which absolutely everything in the film must pass, and to my mind at least, it substantially diminished a lot of its strengths. I am coming at this as an intensely visual person with an education in film, so I am probably more sensitive to it than a lot of people will be; I understand this attribute of my review is highly subjective and your mileage may vary significantly. But I'd like to explain why the cinematography was, to me, such a drawback, if only so I can figure it out for myself.
Cinematography is an art form. It's not just about composing shots in an attractive manner, but it carries the burden of how you perceive what is happening in a film – in many ways it is to film what the narration is to a novel. There are characters and events, but how these are described has almost as much effect on how you read the story as the who, what, when, where, why, and how themselves, and in film, the same is true for how it is shot. There's a whole language of film, from basic rules of grammar to sophisticated tricks and masterful finesse of creativity, style, and skill.
Some of the purposes of cinematography, as I understand them, are as follows:
1. To establish the geographical location of the action (in outer space/at Disneyland/in a bedroom)
2. To establish and maintain the internal geography of a scene (the spaceship is on the dark side of the moon and the fighters are between the moon and the gas giant/the family is in line for Space Mountain, there's a cafe behind them with a man selling balloons, and the assassin is approaching from the Matterhorn/Susan is painting her toenails on the bed, the phone is on the dresser, and her back is to the door) so that when you shoot closeups of characters, or when the action gets moving, the audience can follow without thinking.
3. To convey a sense of scale, either literally within a location or figuratively/emotionally (i.e. this is a 'big moment' even if it takes place in a closet)
4. To convey, often subliminally, emotional information – the angle at which something is shot, the framing, the lighting, the spatial relation of one thing to another and their placement on the screen, says a LOT about how you're supposed to feel about those things and/or what is happening.
5. To portray the relationships between characters (closely related to the above, but enough of its own science to merit its own point)
6. To reveal the internal life of the character; how they perceive their world and what is happening, their state of mind and their emotional state
The problem with the way Les Mis is shot is that it's overwhelmingly done with closeups. Closeups are valuable and there are scenes within the film which are very effective, done this way, but they would be more effective if the sequences around them weren't exactly the same. The ability to manipulate the audience's perception of the story is something cinema can do much more fundamentally and comprehensively than theatre, yet I felt in many respects the original stage production of Les Mis did a better job of conveying emotional information than the film did, and I can't think of an excuse for that.
If Les Mis has anything it has scale: the euphoria and momentum of burgeoning revolution, despair at things going horribly against expectations, great big crowd scenes, enormous life transformations for several of the characters, the squalour of poverty, the power of belief, and on and on, all the way along the spectrum of abstraction. Yet when it's all shot so close, the gut sensation of intimacy or vastness collapses down to a very narrow depth of field; the crescendos and accelerandos of filmmaking can't happen, therefore the emotional rollercoaster is severly crippled, no matter how good the facial expressions and voices of the characters may be.
For me, personally, a big drawback of the all-closeup performances was missing out on a lot of insight into the characters' emotional lives and relationships to each other and the world around them: faces say a lot, but even more can be said with body language. Many of what I find to be the most compelling performances come from mastery of physical expression, and, when on film, the visual storytelling being directed in such a way as to make maximum use of the actor's skill. This sort of thing may be more important to me as an animator than anyone else, so I don't expect everyone will feel like they're missing out in the same way I do, but ... I just really want to see what these great actors were doing as a whole, not just from the shoulders up.
I have a lot of respect for Tom Hooper as a director, and the cinematography in The King's Speech was really excellent – unconventional, but effective, expressive, and generally brilliant from a storytelling perspective – so I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. He had to have made the decision intentionally to be right in the characters' faces all the time, but what was his reasoning or motivation? I haven't been able to find a theory that is justifiable or holds up after five minutes' analysis. In the last twenty-four hours I've tried out the following:
He wanted the film to be 'what you can't get in theatre'. By the very nature of theatre you can't have a closeup, and only in the very best seats can you observe any subtle facial expressions. Enormous numbers of people have seen the show, and the majority of seats in an auditorium are quite a way back from the stage, so was it shot like this to give the plebs a front-row experience? If this is true it's unfortunate, because he threw out filmmaking best practises in favour of a conceit that causes the film to suffer, but everyone is fallible so maybe this was just a well-intentioned lack of perspective.
Mackintosh and the other theatre people pressured him into creating something that wouldn't threaten the Les Mis stage empire There's no denying that Les Miserables the Stage Musical has raked in millions – if not billions – of showbiz dollars in the twenty-odd years it's been running, touring, and airing in concert on PBS, and could continue to do so for quite some time. If a movie came out that equalled or surpassed the stage experience, which people could own on DVD and watch at home, there would be a significant drop in theatre box office. This chimes quite nicely with my cynicism, but I'd really like to believe The Great Hooper would either be capable of standing up for himself or not have his hands tied by behind-the-scenes powers.
Rules were broken for the sake of breaking rules. In both John Adams and The King's Speech, Mr Hooper seems rarely content to trundle along with the status quo when it comes to cinematography. There are lots of times where how he shoots something defies all received wisdom about 'how you are supposed to do it,' but it still works (and sometimes works even better because of it). Perhaps this bold decision was just another step in pushing the envelope? It's possible, but I'd really like to think someone as skillful has he is would have realised before shooting wrapped that it wasn't working, when it came to communicating the material effectively.
Because of recording the singing live, it simply wasn't practical to have many two-shots or wider, for the sake of the sound editors. This, I think, holds the most hypothetical water: it's a practical concern and, if valid, one that no one could do much about. It doesn't excuse wider single shots, when a character is alone, or wider two-shots when only one character is singing, which frankly would have relieved the constant closeness quite a lot, but it could be a reason.
So, if this sort of thing bothers you, I suppose my advice is to sit as far back in the theatre as you can. I'll be seeing it again, cinematographic disappointment aside, and will give this strategy a try.
So there you go, internet, you can stop asking me if I've seen Les Mis now. :) It's definitely worth seeing, my own misgivings aside ... but you can probably expect some expansion upon what I've said above in the coming days as I process it and/or find illustrative screencaps.
As usual, my 'review' is going to make it sound like I didn't like it. I actually liked about 90% of it; the problem was that the other 10% made the 90% really hard to watch.
So, for the record, here is a list of things I love about Tom Hooper's Les Mis:
- The new orchestrations – OMG the new orchestrations – I love them and want to re-record the orchestra retroactively on my London Cast album, like, right now.
- Production design in general
- The vast majority of the acting
- The vast majority of the casting
- The location design around the ABC Café
- The lyrics changes and additions (and I don't like change usually, especially in something so close to my heart), especially ones that brought in more historical perspective and/or moments from the book.* The new verse in Gavroche's solo renders my historical costume post more or less irrelevant! Thanks, Gavroche!
- I actually liked the new song, which was a big surprise because I never like the new songs they put in old musicals. I thought it came at a good moment in the story and did a useful job of adding a dimension to Valjean's character arc, giving us a moment to let things gel before diving into a new pool, and wasn't bad musically either.
- The slight modifications to the timeline in the first half of the movie
- Foreshadowing
- Little things subtly but deliberately placed within the frame which reflect or comment upon the scene
*I have not read the book (I know, I know) but I have picked up information from various adaptations and conversation with people who have read it, so I can fake having read it well enough to recognise things from the source material.
With the exception of some of the timeline changes in the latter half of the movie, there was really only one thing I had a problem with. I am aware, though, that it might be something most people won't notice; I'm going to rant about it under a cut so that I don't plant awareness of it in your mind and ruin what might be a perfectly rewarding cinematic experience. So, no spoilers in the traditional sense of the word, but nevertheless, spoilers ahead:
The only really substantial negative about this movie, to me, is the cinematography. Unfortunately, by its very nature, it is the filter through which absolutely everything in the film must pass, and to my mind at least, it substantially diminished a lot of its strengths. I am coming at this as an intensely visual person with an education in film, so I am probably more sensitive to it than a lot of people will be; I understand this attribute of my review is highly subjective and your mileage may vary significantly. But I'd like to explain why the cinematography was, to me, such a drawback, if only so I can figure it out for myself.
Cinematography is an art form. It's not just about composing shots in an attractive manner, but it carries the burden of how you perceive what is happening in a film – in many ways it is to film what the narration is to a novel. There are characters and events, but how these are described has almost as much effect on how you read the story as the who, what, when, where, why, and how themselves, and in film, the same is true for how it is shot. There's a whole language of film, from basic rules of grammar to sophisticated tricks and masterful finesse of creativity, style, and skill.
Some of the purposes of cinematography, as I understand them, are as follows:
1. To establish the geographical location of the action (in outer space/at Disneyland/in a bedroom)
2. To establish and maintain the internal geography of a scene (the spaceship is on the dark side of the moon and the fighters are between the moon and the gas giant/the family is in line for Space Mountain, there's a cafe behind them with a man selling balloons, and the assassin is approaching from the Matterhorn/Susan is painting her toenails on the bed, the phone is on the dresser, and her back is to the door) so that when you shoot closeups of characters, or when the action gets moving, the audience can follow without thinking.
3. To convey a sense of scale, either literally within a location or figuratively/emotionally (i.e. this is a 'big moment' even if it takes place in a closet)
4. To convey, often subliminally, emotional information – the angle at which something is shot, the framing, the lighting, the spatial relation of one thing to another and their placement on the screen, says a LOT about how you're supposed to feel about those things and/or what is happening.
5. To portray the relationships between characters (closely related to the above, but enough of its own science to merit its own point)
6. To reveal the internal life of the character; how they perceive their world and what is happening, their state of mind and their emotional state
The problem with the way Les Mis is shot is that it's overwhelmingly done with closeups. Closeups are valuable and there are scenes within the film which are very effective, done this way, but they would be more effective if the sequences around them weren't exactly the same. The ability to manipulate the audience's perception of the story is something cinema can do much more fundamentally and comprehensively than theatre, yet I felt in many respects the original stage production of Les Mis did a better job of conveying emotional information than the film did, and I can't think of an excuse for that.
If Les Mis has anything it has scale: the euphoria and momentum of burgeoning revolution, despair at things going horribly against expectations, great big crowd scenes, enormous life transformations for several of the characters, the squalour of poverty, the power of belief, and on and on, all the way along the spectrum of abstraction. Yet when it's all shot so close, the gut sensation of intimacy or vastness collapses down to a very narrow depth of field; the crescendos and accelerandos of filmmaking can't happen, therefore the emotional rollercoaster is severly crippled, no matter how good the facial expressions and voices of the characters may be.
For me, personally, a big drawback of the all-closeup performances was missing out on a lot of insight into the characters' emotional lives and relationships to each other and the world around them: faces say a lot, but even more can be said with body language. Many of what I find to be the most compelling performances come from mastery of physical expression, and, when on film, the visual storytelling being directed in such a way as to make maximum use of the actor's skill. This sort of thing may be more important to me as an animator than anyone else, so I don't expect everyone will feel like they're missing out in the same way I do, but ... I just really want to see what these great actors were doing as a whole, not just from the shoulders up.
I have a lot of respect for Tom Hooper as a director, and the cinematography in The King's Speech was really excellent – unconventional, but effective, expressive, and generally brilliant from a storytelling perspective – so I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. He had to have made the decision intentionally to be right in the characters' faces all the time, but what was his reasoning or motivation? I haven't been able to find a theory that is justifiable or holds up after five minutes' analysis. In the last twenty-four hours I've tried out the following:
He wanted the film to be 'what you can't get in theatre'. By the very nature of theatre you can't have a closeup, and only in the very best seats can you observe any subtle facial expressions. Enormous numbers of people have seen the show, and the majority of seats in an auditorium are quite a way back from the stage, so was it shot like this to give the plebs a front-row experience? If this is true it's unfortunate, because he threw out filmmaking best practises in favour of a conceit that causes the film to suffer, but everyone is fallible so maybe this was just a well-intentioned lack of perspective.
Mackintosh and the other theatre people pressured him into creating something that wouldn't threaten the Les Mis stage empire There's no denying that Les Miserables the Stage Musical has raked in millions – if not billions – of showbiz dollars in the twenty-odd years it's been running, touring, and airing in concert on PBS, and could continue to do so for quite some time. If a movie came out that equalled or surpassed the stage experience, which people could own on DVD and watch at home, there would be a significant drop in theatre box office. This chimes quite nicely with my cynicism, but I'd really like to believe The Great Hooper would either be capable of standing up for himself or not have his hands tied by behind-the-scenes powers.
Rules were broken for the sake of breaking rules. In both John Adams and The King's Speech, Mr Hooper seems rarely content to trundle along with the status quo when it comes to cinematography. There are lots of times where how he shoots something defies all received wisdom about 'how you are supposed to do it,' but it still works (and sometimes works even better because of it). Perhaps this bold decision was just another step in pushing the envelope? It's possible, but I'd really like to think someone as skillful has he is would have realised before shooting wrapped that it wasn't working, when it came to communicating the material effectively.
Because of recording the singing live, it simply wasn't practical to have many two-shots or wider, for the sake of the sound editors. This, I think, holds the most hypothetical water: it's a practical concern and, if valid, one that no one could do much about. It doesn't excuse wider single shots, when a character is alone, or wider two-shots when only one character is singing, which frankly would have relieved the constant closeness quite a lot, but it could be a reason.
So, if this sort of thing bothers you, I suppose my advice is to sit as far back in the theatre as you can. I'll be seeing it again, cinematographic disappointment aside, and will give this strategy a try.
So there you go, internet, you can stop asking me if I've seen Les Mis now. :) It's definitely worth seeing, my own misgivings aside ... but you can probably expect some expansion upon what I've said above in the coming days as I process it and/or find illustrative screencaps.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 12:47 pm (UTC)