Posted on 12/17/2012 9:31:42 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Yes I concur. The Dialogues of the Carmelites gives a much more accurate view.
How is it when the leftists take over, the first thing they do is start killing priests and nuns?
(of course we know the answer why)
I read it in French and bought my daughter an English Translation, she loved the Play the Translation not so much.
I will buy it for her when it comes out in Blue Ray.
SPOILER ALERT HERE JUST IN CASE
oops my bad - you are quite correct of course
Too bad - I had always thought of Javert's death as being emblematic of the passing of the ancien regime.
“Carousel” is considered by many to be the greatest musical in history. Although I just dissed the RSC’s version of “Les Miserables,” I also think that the National Theatre of Great Britain’s production of “Carousel” was absolutely brilliant. Of course, most of the cast were Americans...
Of course I understand the ‘need’ to make everything into a movie (like Lincoln), how else the young could learn anything otherwise?
But above ‘well sung’ quote is as bad as it gets. How can you mess up the original scores? A couple of them (ok more than a couple) are truly beautiful.
Great music. But just saying LM is too happy. Was WSS from a book or an original play?
True - however was it adapted from a book? Just saying that LM is just too happy. Completely misses the point of the book.
RE: . How can you mess up the original scores?
By singing out of tune?
See for instance, the American Idol auditions. :)
Maybe we can do the same thing to something from Charles Dickens.
Edwin Drood is currently on B’way. A musical adaptation of the Dickens novel or short story (I haven’t read it). There are probably others.
Les Mis is a tearjerker. It’s really wonderfufl
I believe WSS began as a musical - a modern adaptation of Romeo & Juliet.
RE: I won’t pay to see anything Anne Hathaway is in.
OK, I’ll bite because I don’t know much about her political views — how liberal is she?
RE: Maybe we can do the same thing to something from Charles Dickens.
They’ve done musicals of A CHRISTMAS CAROL already.
Maybe you have A TALE OF TWO CITIES in mind?
As for Victor Hugo, I’d like to see a Broadway musical of his other novel, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS. Whoever plays the deformed character, Gwynplaine, if done properly and right pathos, would be fantastic.
when a TV commerical starts with “critics rave...” then it is more than likely the movie is terrible.
Everyone dies, except Marius, Cosette, and the Thenardiers. That's about as happy an ending as Hamlet. ;)
More seriously, the main story is about the redemption of Jean Valjean, set against the misery of post-restoration France. Why should the ending not be uplifting? In the end, Valjean is fully redeemed and dies practically a saint, after being a hardened criminal to start.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES - right. Wonder why they’ve not done it yet. A CHRISTMAS CAROL is about redemption and wasn’t as dark as LM. My thought.
For those who have read the brilliant novel (despite its rather tedious first part), some of Hugo’s paragraphs run a page and a half, but so smoothly that you hardly notice.
In some parts the emotional highs and lows of kinds that human beings rarely experience. A single page might leave you in tears of sympathy, righteous indignation, burning anger, or angelic joy.
After he sent the manuscript to the publisher, Hugo went off for some weeks to an isolated house in England. After a short time, he sent his publisher a telegram that just said “?”
His publisher replied “!” They couldn’t print them fast enough.
At the time, the French pastime was writing novels, but after reading it, people just stopped, knowing that anything they wrote would be unfavorably compared to it.
Since that time, actors have been driven to distraction trying to portray emotions that are far beyond the range of most. They rarely succeed.
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