Les Miserables - Promotion and Publicity

[jo]

During rehearsals and filming, I used to constantly listen to the Complete Symphonic Recording ( the most complete version of the musical, with country singer Gary Morris as Valjean, probably the least heralded of the Valjeans because his voice is not of musical theatre calibre but every effective for following the storytelling - so, actually an excellent choice for me) , more to see if the film version was hewing close to the stage musical ( based on reports or tweets on what was happening).

When the film wrapped, I completely stopped listening to ANY recording, as I wanted to make sure I have wiped the slate clean.

When I see the film, I have promised myself not to be shackled by boots in cement from 24 years of familiarity with Les Miserables, the stage musical. I would like to see a film that is rooted in Victor Hugo's storytelling and portrayals of fascinating characters, blended with the music of Boublil and Schonberg ( and Kretzmer) but not necessarily in accordance with the many music sheets that is part of my Les Miserables memorabilia.

Boublil and Schonberg gave their okay to how Tom Hooper and his actors played with the options of character portrayals using the songs of Les Miserables. If the artistically-modified singing choices are dictated by a more interesting portrait of the characters and the narration of events - then, I look forward to that experience.

Perhaps, the fact that my copy of the highlights album will arrive even before I see the musical is really the right preparation for seeing the motion picture on the big screen. I am the kind of audience who likes to prepare ( as thoroughly as I could -such as listening to cast albums or reading the source material) before I see any performance or movie that I anticipate very much. Although some say that the new style of singing is better appreciated with the acting on screen. Ideal, but that means I have to wait another 2-3 weeks!

Jo

[JH4HJ]

Jamie, birchie - Thank you very much. Yes, it always depends on the child, and I don't know these children all that well. I have told the parents to search "Lovely Ladies" on YouTube (thinking that will be the most "vulgar" scene) and decide for themselves. I've also suggested getting a kids' version of the story from the library. It's interesting to me that it's only the "sex" and not the violence that worries them. I think I'd be the other way around with kids of my own.
Thanks again for the input.

[birchie]

Dec 21, 2012 15:25:45 GMT -5 JH4HJ said:

Jamie, birchie - Thank you very much. Yes, it always depends on the child, and I don't know these children all that well. I have told the parents to search "Lovely Ladies" on YouTube (thinking that will be the most "vulgar" scene) and decide for themselves. I've also suggested getting a kids' version of the story from the library. It's interesting to me that it's only the "sex" and not the violence that worries them. I think I'd be the other way around with kids of my own.
Thanks again for the input.

Those attitudes always baffle me too. My main concern with my grandkids was that some beloved characters die. I never thought any of the sexually suggestive stuff would be a problem. It's very mild and done in fun and they most likely wouldn't even understand it.
Sue

[Jamie]

It was pretty much the same in our household. I would take my children to R rated movies that I had researched ahead of time, but there were many PG13 that I refused to let them seem because of the violence.

[jo]

>>>Hugh Jackmanþ@RealHughJackman

Great way to end the #LesMiserables press tour with a premiere back home in Australia with @russellcrowe and all my old mates. Loving life!!<<<<

[birchie]

I love this interview with Hugh & Russell together. At 1:56 Russell humorously describes the difference between them and he's really promoting Hugh for the Oscar too.
youtu.be/Y59M0nPO2EA
Sue

[rmtndew]

Sue, that interview was wonderful! I really love seeing them together and I think it's so sweet how much Russell wants Hugh to have the Oscar as well.



- Alicia

[jo]

Thanks, Sue, for a great find!

Hugh and Russell seemed to have developed not just a strong professional regard for each other's work but they seemed to have also bonded very strongly.

I am still hoping there will be another movie in the future for these two Aussie talents!

Jo

[jo]

Another good one with Hugh --

www.vulture.com/2012/12/hugh-jackman-on-les-miz-and-his-javert-past.html?mid=agenda--20121226


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Hugh Jackman on Les Misérables, His Brutal Training Regimen, and His Javert Past
By Kyle Buchanan



Hugh Jackman is best known as the action star of several X-Men movies, but his affinity for musical theater is so well-known — he won a Tony for The Boy From Oz and had his dichotomy of talents spoofed in a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch — that it's a surprise he'd never done a movie musical before Tom Hooper's splashy film version of Les Misérables. Still, holding out to play Jean Valjean was probably worth the wait, if the movie's big box office and Oscar buzz are anything to judge by. Vulture caught up with Jackman a few weeks ago in Los Angeles to get his take on how it all came together.


Tell me about the first time you saw the film.

I went to a private screening with about ten people and my wife. I remember I was holding my wife's hand, and she goes, 'Baby, my hand is really hurting.' I was gripping that hard! I kind of couldn't believe what I was seeing. I knew enough about movies to know what a risk it was, but as it was shooting, I was like, 'What is everyone thinking? This is kind of crazy.' So I was really happy and relieved to watch it.


Tom Hooper shot the film in a very distinctive manner: lots of close-ups, lots of long takes. Is that an approach he'd articulated to you beforehand?

I don't think it hit me what Tom was doing, but when I saw the movie, I thought it was incredibly theatrical. He's giving you the ticket you can't buy in the theater. I didn't know he was not going to cut in some of these moments, and I don't think he knew either, because he was always running three or four cameras so we could control the rhythm of the scene. There was always a close camera, but there would also be a moving dolly somewhere else.


I remember that when reports circulated that you were interested in playing Valjean, it was going to conflict with the Wolverine sequel you were supposed to shoot then. I'm surprised you were actually able to delay the X-Men movie to do it.

It's funny you mention it, because sometimes people will thank their agents in a perfunctory way, but this one wouldn't have happened without them. It just wouldn't have. You know how big the Wolverine train can be, so that took a lot of maneuvering. So I'm thrilled with the way it worked out. I had waited a long time to do a movie musical, so when this one came up, I was like, 'Oh, I hadn't even thought of that one!' I don't really know why, but I suppose it had just been around for so long that no one had ever talked about the possibility.


I had never thought of Valjean as a particularly physical role until I saw this film. It looked arduous.

Weirdly, this was almost more physical in a way than an X-Men movie! I was spending even longer in the gym — like three hours in the gym — because I needed to be as emaciated as possible, but still keep some muscle on for Jean Valjean. He's actually written as an ox of a man, so I had to eat seven times a day with no carbohydrates, but then you had the exercise. I'd wake up and do 45 minutes of card on an empty stomach, eat something, go to the gym, do a vocal warm-up, and then after lunch I'd go back to the gym again. Otherwise, I'd just become skin and bones.


Had you ever thought about playing Javert instead of Valjean?

Cameron asked me twice to do it! Both times I was not available, and when I rang him for the movie and said I wanted to go for Jean Valjean, he said, "Dude, you can't sing that." We had done Oklahoma together, and back then, I couldn't have sung that bit. I've been working about eight or nine years with a vocal coach, though, and although I thought I was a straight baritone, it turns out that I'm a high baritone and could expand my range by about an octave. So I said to Cameron, "I know you think that, but let me come in to audition. I want to show you what I can do now."


Speaking of musicals, I was checking out an online video from early in your career where you played Gaston in a stage production of Beauty and the Beast.

You did?! On YouTube, someone videoed it? Wow, that was 1995 or something. Holy mackerel!


What do you remember about that?

Actually, to audition for that, I sang "Stars" from Les Miz! I was just out of theater school, I had literally just graduated, and I was doing this TV series straight out of drama school. When my agent said, "You should go out for this musical," I kind of thought she was on drugs at the time! I said, "You know, I did the theater thing in school, not the musical theater thing." But I went on the audition and sang that song, "Stars," and the guy asked me, "Why would you sing that to audition for Beauty and the Beast?" I said, "Sorry, mate, I don't know what to do at these things, and it's the only song I have the music to." And he said, "Well, let us give you some advice: Throw that song away, because you'll never be singing that again." A little part of me, after I got cast in Les Miz, wanted to find that guy! Although I'm sure he would say, "Yeah, but you didn't get cast as Javert, did you?"


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Finally, we get a personal confirmation that he is a high baritone!

When I heard him sing TOO MUCH IN LOVE TO CARE in SUNSET BOULEVARD, I could not believe that the does not have the ability to hit some tenor notes -- that was why I was confused even if Oklahoma! was sung by him as a baritone role ( same with Carousel) - somewhere hiding there was an ability to expand his octave range

He shares a birthday with Luciano Pavarotti -- so maybe the heavens showered him with some of that kind of talent that my favorite opera tenor got in boatloads

Jo

[mamaleh]

Julie James of Sirius XM interviews Hugh. She's obviously as besotted as we are, LOL.

(My only demur: Hugh says Tom Hooper "belongs right up there with Stephen Sondheim"--a more apt choice would have been Hal Prince or another highly esteemed theatrical director.)

broadwayworld.com/videoplay.php?colid=441798

Ellen

[jo]

Very informative and insightful interview with Tom Hooper -- A MUST Read!

www.indiewire.com/article/les-miserables-director-tom-hooper-the-one-q-a-you-have-to-read


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The Spoils: 'Les Miserables' Director Tom Hooper Answers His Critics

by Jay A. Fernandez
December 26, 2012 3:34 PM

Pretty much from the moment it was announced that Tom Hooper, who had just won the Oscar for directing 2010 best picture winner "The King's Speech," would be helming a new film adaptation of "Les Miserables" for Universal stuffed with stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Amanda Seyfried and Sacha Baron Cohen, the project has been expected on Oscar ballots. But a strange divide has materialized since moviegoers finally began to see the epic musical in recent weeks -- as if a barricade were being erected between audiences and critics, between the film and its prize-filled destiny.

Despite the four recent nominations each from the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild -- and excited chatter about Hathaway's dynamite performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" -- "Les Miserables" has incredibly strong competition for the top five slots in every Oscar category. Voting is open until Jan. 3, and "Lincoln," "Zero Dark Thirty," "Life of Pi," "Argo" and "Silver Linings Playbook" continue to thrive with both their audience and critical constituencies in a way that "Les Mis" hasn't. And Hooper has been even less in play for the director noms in recent weeks.

While the nakedly emotional material has undoubtedly been connecting with audiences -- a globally known property, "Les Mis" grossed $18.2 million Christmas Day, the second-best holiday opening ever -- reviewers have been much more critical, with special condemnation reserved for some of Hooper's biggest directing choices. Early on, Hooper and the other filmmakers decided to perform the movie entirely in song and to record those songs entirely live to camera, and everything else followed from that: the production design, the camerawork, the framing, the editing.


The morning after the film's Australian premiere, Friday, Dec. 21, Hooper got on the phone with Indiewire to address many of these criticisms and to explain the thinking and strategies that went into each decsion. Whether this in-depth look at his creative process changes any minds in the critical ranks -- or in the Academy -- would be difficult to measure, but it does provide exceptional detail on how he and his crew approached the daunting challenge of turning one of the stage's greatest successes into an emotionally satisfying big-screen experience.

How did the premiere go last night?

I’m a little worse for wear. It was amazing. Again, the consistency of this extraordinary audience response happened again. They clapped 15-16 times during the film. And at the end the people are just destroyed by it. You turn around and see these faces are completely ravaged by tears and people are saying they can’t speak, "just let me sit here for a few minutes quiet for a bit." It’s pretty overwhelming. And the Aussies kept saying, “You know, mate, we don’t clap in films.” [laughs] The men aren’t famous for showing their emotions very much. So to get the Australian male to cry is a big deal.

You’re part Aussie, right?

I’m half Australian, my mom’s Australian. She comes from Adelaide. It was nice. We had Russell and Hugh there, so it was like two-and-a-half Australians.

Did that premiere have any special resonance for you or Hugh or Russ?

Yeah, the Sydney crowd went wild when Russ and Hugh went onstage to introduce it. It was very sweet, we had it at the State Theater, which is the oldest cinema here. It’s amazing Art Deco. Across the top where they put the film title they had: "Welcome Home 'Les Miserables.'" And it was the longest red carpet I think I’ve ever walked down. They closed the entire street.

We all know the “Les Mis” story, it speaks for itself, and the performances are pretty universally fantastic. It almost surely will do great at the box office. But I want to ask about a few of the ways in which you demonstrably struck away from the stage musical version. What was your approach to the backdrops when it came to the wide shots of the city? What was your aesthetic approach to that? And was it all CGI or did you do composite matte shots as well?

Very early on it became apparent that shooting in Paris for real would be very tricky to pull off partly because the Paris of this film, of the 1830s, was largely knocked down and rebuilt by Haussmann in the 1850s. So the Paris that we know, which has that kind of regularity of gray is a more recent thing. Paris at that time had a lot medieval buildings and particular slum areas that were narrow, higgledy-piggledy, and actually a lot of color was used on the buildings, not that uniform gray that we associate with Paris now.

Sorry for interrupting, but did you just use the phrase “higgledy-piggledy?” Could you please give me a definition of that?

It means irregular. No two buildings are the same. On top of that, just thinking through the live singing, imagine putting Russell Crowe on a real Paris bridge at night next to the Île de la Cité where Notre Dame is and expecting to have any kind of control or ability to record live sound without heavy traffic noise. Early on, it was clear to me that if I was going to prioritize live singing and make the freedom that the actors would have if we sang it live at the center, I needed to look at how I approached it physically with that as a guide. If Russell had just been standing there not singing, one could have gone to Paris and angled the camera and then maybe adapted it. So, the biggest decision was to build the central street where the students build the barricade as a set and then to do it inside instead of outside. I thought about it a great deal, because it was one of our biggest expenditures, building this set. One of the things I realized is the biggest chunk of singing happens on that street. You’ve got very delicate songs like “Bring Them Home” and so it felt like a sensible idea to be able to compose that street in terms of its aesthetic but to also know that we could capture live singing. Also, most of the barricade scenes happen at night, which meant that we would be on night shoots for probably three weeks to do all that. The way it was scheduled was it started at the beginning of the summer so we had very short nights, and I didn’t think they would be able to sing at their best. It just didn’t seem very smart. And the battle in the book famously happens as dawn breaks, so you’ve got this kind of low sun coming up, which would be very compromising to stage a battle at dawn outside because you’d just get half an hour. In England, dawn is gray and non-apparent. [laughs]

Is there an actual sunrise in England?

Sometimes. It’s been written about. So then the great thing is that meant we could also create a design for the street that was what we needed. And Eve Stewart, who’s such an extraordinary production designer, came up with this wonderful plan where the student café was like a sort of mini-Flatiron Building, which was folding in upon itself so that the building was structurally falling to the right and the roof is kind of bending over so you get this feeling that the students’ building has a kind of precariousness to it. It’s thin and vulnerable and about to topple over. And it also created a central focus point for a lot of the wides in scenes like that. So “On my Own,” which is heading towards where Marius lives, you’ve got this sort of iconic shot of that café. So it gave it also a great focus point. It also reminded me, the way it’s situated, of a ship, which is a big theme in the film, a recurring theme of the sea and ships. You have Hugh hauling the warship in at the beginning that’s been damaged, and then Hugh getting released from prison underneath the bow of a warship, and then Fantine going back down to a ship. So [the Flatiron design] was a way of reminding people of that visual theme.


But then everything over the rooftops is CGI?

Yeah. Probably the best example is “Stars,” where we built this rooftop aerie for Russell, and we see the eagle and built the whole top there. And then basically when you look beyond him, that’s CG. But what we did is something very believable. We did a LIDAR scan of Notre Dame, which means we did an entire geometric scan of the building from all sides, which is accurate down to a hundredth of a millimeter or something. It’s very precise. So we scanned Notre Dame and then we did a very extensive photo mapping of Notre Dame in different kinds of lights. Then basically you build a wire model of Notre Dame in 3D using the LIDAR scan, taking information about the lens that you’ve chosen in order to get the right angle and the right distance from Russell. And then you project onto it all the various photos of Notre Dame that you’ve taken. The textures that you’re seeing are not generated in a computer, they’re actually taken from hundreds of different photos in the appropriate angle and the appropriate light. And then for the front of Notre Dame, nowadays there’s a big tourist center, while in those days there were higgledy-piggledy medieval buildings. So there we photographed every old medieval building in Paris that still exists and we also photographed and took scans of the street set we built, different building types. So we didn’t shoot in Paris, but an amazing amount of the shots when you see Paris involve photographic mapping and geometric mapping of actual Paris in order to create it. But it also allowed us to do things like: when Russell is committing suicide, when we started shooting we shot the close-ups first and the master camera was on a crane, and what that allowed Russell to do is every time he got to the end of the song he was flinging himself off the set we built for the bridge. So 20 feet down to foam at the bottom, so he could do the entire song, even the jump, each time, which he wanted to do.

Did you make him do it a few extra times, just to screw around with him?

I think he probably sang and jumped off it 20 times. Maybe it wasn’t 20 feet. It was enough to clear the set so it was dramatic. And Russell had this very interesting idea that in the show Javert just sings and jumps on the note of the music. Russell thought it was interesting to finish singing and actually have a moment of human connection and silence before he jumps, which I think is very effective because it makes it much less melodramatic than to jump and sing, which is a musical theater device.

The visuals came off to me as a kind of hybrid meant to take advantage of some of the things you can do with cinema but still feel somewhat stage-like?

Eve Stewart, the production designer, and I had many conversations. We acknowledged from the beginning that we were creating an alternative universe where people communicate through song, and we had to make it actually convincing. One of the great debates is, do you help this alternative universe if it looks and feels exactly like ours, what we call “kitchen-sink realism,” or do you help it if it’s like ours but just a little bit heightened, or a little bit magical realism, a little bit different from our own? And in the end, we felt that very subtle heightening in certain sequences would help the audience be transported from reality, which is much like our own but is not identical to ours. We did navigate both. I’m not sure I would necessarily say it was striving to be theatrical, more striving to have a bit of license with the way we re-imagined this world in order to do things with the visual language that helped the storytelling in ways it actually wouldn’t do if you were making a totally realistic historical drama.

To compare, when I was making "John Adams," I never would have futzed with the way Philadelphia was designed for that first congress in order to create a moment where, I don’t know, John Adams feels overpowered by Philadelphia or John Adams is feeling like he’s failed and suddenly Philadelphia is looming over and destroying him. I basically built Philadelphia absolutely as we know it existed. I think I’ve grown up through quite a very realistic school of filmmaking, with London filmmakers like Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, who have done extraordinary narrative directing in the UK, and then you have Australians I admire like Peter Weir. They’re highly realistic in terms of the physical world. And I kept thinking, well, up to this point the measure of what is true is what is real. But when you’re doing a musical the measure of what is true is not that simple, because they’re singing, which is not real. So the measure becomes not what is real but becomes what is emotionally true, and it becomes a different kind of measure. So I thought it was very healthy for me as a filmmaker to cut some of the bonds that tie you to a certain type of tyranny of realism, where realism is always the judge. To let myself go into a more expressionistic place in the cinema. And to enjoy being expressionistic, to enjoy the freedom of being a bit operatic.


And actually in some ways there was inspiration in the book, because in the book Victor Hugo plays around with quite a lot of patterning. So, even the names, Jean Valjean, Javert, J-V, one of the names is contained within another. He has this awareness of patterns and symmetry, which is true in life as well. There are almost documentary levels of realism in the way he describes the poor in Paris and what Paris looked like with these quite obvious patternings, where you feel like the world’s been organized in a certain way. He also writes from the point of view of absolutely the existence of God. And when God exists, God can benignly affect or otherwise the way things take place and that can be a guiding hand in the way that stories fall out in our universe.

Almost like a film director. It always comes back to God with you guys.

[laughs] I’ll give you an example of that kind of patterning: the theme of heights, descents and ascents. So, the camera literally starts drowned in the sea with a drowned French flag, and it ends looking up at the heavens on the top of a very high barricade. It goes from dark underwater to light and height. Victor Hugo talked about the sea as “measureless misery.” And then you’ve got Hugh standing in the sea, and when he’s released he’s under the shadow of this hydra-like figurehead, and he walks up steps to freedom leaving Javert low still beneath him. And then he climbs a mountain, and on the top of this mountain there’s a little village where he finds God, so there’s this ascent to enlightenment. And then Fantine, when her life starts to go wrong, she goes down steps and she goes underneath a boat where she’s given away to her first client and she is forced into prostitution in the watery bowels of a rotting boat and actually is lying in a coffin bed, which is the old kind of beds that the officers used to use on ships, which is half-drowned in water. And then when Hugh saves her, he lifts her and takes her up steps to freedom, leaving Javert again beneath and below, and again you see the hydra recurring. So all this organization committing to the language of symbolism in the film was something I could do because I was building sets and because I had the help of CGI.

One consistent criticism thus far has been the choice to stay in close on each actor through much of each song. To what extent was that a function of the recording of the live audio? And is there something critics are missing? Do you have an answer to that?

I do find it hilarious that you can read reviews where they mention the close-up, but at the same time they mention that they were sitting in a row where people around them were balling with tears, and they don’t see there’s a connection. The truth is, the only reason I’m getting this level of devastation from people’s response — sometimes people literally can’t speak afterwards for a few minutes they’ve been crying so much. And that’s happening because of the close-up, because of the intimacy of the film. And the reason I know this is because I didn’t assume that the songs would play in tight. For “I Dreamed a Dream” I had three cameras running on Anne — one was the close-up that you see; the master shot, which I intended to use originally, is a loose mid-shot and then the camera tracks in very slowly over the course of the song so probably only the last quarter is close; and then I had a kind of roving steady camera that was more of a long shot. And for a long time in the cut, we had this mid-shot tracking slowly in, which is more of a conventional way that you can build drama.

And one day Eddie Redmayne came into the cutting room, and I showed him the opening and I showed him “I Dreamed a Dream” because he was banging the door down to see something. And he saw it and he mentioned the fact that in the teaser trailer that we edited we used this great tight close-up of Anne and he talked about the way you see the musculature of her neck as she looks up. And he said, "Aren’t you missing a trick not using the big close-up?" We had tried a little bit of it with some edits. And I said, Well, why don’t we just try running all of it? And I cannot tell you, the very next time we screened it, the emotional impact that song had went up about 200%. It was always fantastic, but what it unlocked the next time we screened it was a level of emotion that was completely beyond what we had before.

Anyone sitting down to see it just once doesn’t hear the progression of the editing. I think everyone assumed that that was just your approach from the get-go, that you were just going to shoot two and a half hours in close-up…

Yeah, I think they think I kind of went, “OK, Anne, it’s one camera, it’s a bit close-up, it’s all in one shot — action!” I neither put that pressure on them nor did I presume that the songs would necessarily hold like that.

So it wasn’t a function of the audio either?

The way we got the audio that good was that we had the regular mikes on the outside of people’s costumes. And most of the time with the leading actors we had two, one towards the right shoulder and one towards the left shoulder so that whichever way they turned or favored they were still picked up well. And then when the film was edited, we digitally removed things. The ability to have those microphones in shot and digitally remove them was the secret to our success and the thing that differentiates us from what people were doing in the heyday of the musicals. In the ’60s, even ten years ago, it would have been cost-prohibitive and now it’s really quite straightforward.

And actually, if you look at the construction of songs, in Russell’s songs, both “Stars” and “Suicide,” there are quite a few cuts where we put him in the context of his environment, where we go wide. And the reason for that is that there is this whole theme that he’s subconsciously crossed the edge of the building and he’s flirting with the edge. And we could only get that by putting him in context. And, obviously, in the suicide there’s the whole pull of the drop and the water, which wouldn’t translate in close-up all the time. What I would also say is, in “I Dreamed a Dream,” I suppose the other thing I learned from the process of making it is, cutting wide to her in, however dramatic it was visually, a distressed boat, a decaying boat, would not help you with what she’s singing about. She is singing about a man who betrayed her, she’s singing about the extinguishing of her hopes — everything she’s singing about is not around her, it’s all in her mind in the past. And ultimately the best guide to that emotion is her face.

You added a song, right?

Yes, we did. I don’t think people have any idea how much changing we did to the musical. What happened is, once we made the commitment to having it sung through, you then realize that any changes you need to make are going to need to be made through the books and the music. So every change I did was in the musical form, by writing lyrics. But because I had the original team, the original lyricist and composer, a lot of the changes are invisible. People aren’t even commenting, they don’t even know that they’re there. There’s a slight perception that we just took the libretto and shot it, and that’s true for quite a bit of it. But there were many interventions we did when we converted it to the screen that were simply about making the storytelling better.

Some weren’t even about lyrics. A really good example of something that struck me again last night, which was a change, was in the first battle, Eddie Redmayne is rushing to get a barrel of gunpowder and then get it torched to blow the whole thing up, and a soldier trains his gun on Marius. In the musical, Eponine’s been delivering a message for Marius, and she arrives at the barricade, she’s already been shot and it happened offstage, and she just happened to get shot as she’s walking down the street.

Wow. That makes it motivational, it changes her whole arc. And then the whole song after that is deepened.

And that’s a change that literally no one has even noticed, in terms of knowing that wasn’t in the show. But it completely changes it, and to me the great theme of the film is what we will sacrifice for love, what we will do for love. You have Fantine, who’s willing to lose everything, her body, her life, to try to save her child. You’ve got Valjean, who changes everything for love. You’ve got Eponine, who actually sacrifices herself physically for love. It makes it resonate with the beauty of what people will do in the name of love.

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I find features like this very informative and makes my appreciation of film-making even more keen. I remember when Baz Luhrmann did several episodes of the process and I enjoyed the documentaries.

I hope the critic-wannabes ( even if they are supposed to wear critics's hats) and the know-it-all fans are able to read this interview so they can properly and fairly contextualize their comments on Hooper's directorial choices and film-making style!


Jo

[jo]

Julie James of Sirius XM interviews Hugh. She's obviously as besotted as we are, LOL.

(My only demur: Hugh says Tom Hooper "belongs right up there with Stephen Sondheim"--a more apt choice would have been Hal Prince or another highly esteemed theatrical director.)

Besotted and bewildered and bewitched ...is she ;D

Maybe Hugh was contextualizing Hooper's newly found contribution to musicals as trailblazing in the way Sondheim has been regarded?

Jo

[jo]

Hugh is still doing promotion for Les Mis -- his appearance on the Graham Norton show ( shown on BBC 1) in New York?

Here's a hilarious clip of Hugh and Billy Crystal ( who was probably promoting his movie, too ) --

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfTcXprD7R0&feature=youtu.be

Jo

[smallscotsbear]

Happy New Year everyone! Just a wee bit of further information, 'The Graham Norton Show' on which Hugh was a guest was recorded in London on 6th December 2012.

[birchie]

This is the ITV special hosted by Michael Ball for those of us who didn't get to see it.
Les Misérables Movie Special Pt. 1
youtu.be/ZTgxFiURuAo

Les Misérables Movie Special Pt. 2
youtu.be/XVgBYMcWgb4

Les Misérables Movie Special Pt. 3
youtu.be/Hw5ABpU217k

Les Misérables Movie Special Pt. 4
youtu.be/2hqs_gn7vDU
Enjoy! Sue

[jo]

Thank you, thank you, Sue

*Les Miserables
*Hugh Jackman
*Michael Ball

My three loves

I discovered Les Miserables in 1988, so evocative of a personal experience of "people singing to express a desire for change" in my own country!

I discovered Michael Ball when I mistakenly bought the London cast recording ( after seeing the Broadway production) and fell in love with his voice. Twenty seven years later from when he created the role of Marius, he is now annotating a TV special about Les Miserables, the movie musical!

And to see Hugh Jackman in my favorite musical is a dream role for him for me. He agrees that it is the role of a lifetime for him!


I really liked this coverage of the Les Miserables movie musical bandwagon. Seeing those behind the scenes coverage brings me back to those days when we avidly followed the filming of the movie! And it really makes me sad and mad that some people dismiss the movie for petty reasons -- it does promise ( for me, as I have not seen it) to be a magnificent movie!

On the sidelights --

*Samantha Barks fangirling over Hugh : "Oh there is Hugh Jackman...the one and only Hugh Jackman!" ;D

*Russell Crowe talking almost emotionally about how this movie meant to him. I want to whack some people on message boards who dismiss his work in the movie as not just inconsequential but also damaging to the movie ...He is a fine actor...and just seeing how his eyes make his feelings work for him in that scene where he sings " And I am Javert...do not forget my name") - subtle but perfect!

*The chitchat between the original Marius and the new Marius was very refreshing! Michael must be so flattered that his original take was given a new touch, with much success! ( To tell the truth, I fell in love with his original " I feel my soul on fiiireeeeee...with desiiiree....etc") in the original London cast recording. If you want to feel the original beauty of Les Miserables - give this version a take. It is not just Michael, but in Lea's blog, she mentions that her favorite version of Bring Him Home is Colm Wilkinson's original take. Lea had worked very briefly in the 25th anniversary concert with Colm ( hearing the 4 Valjeans) and more with Alfie ( who sang Valjean in that concert) - amazing that she has declared her preference for Colm. I personally think that had Colm had been much younger, save for the box office appeal factor and assuming he has the acting chops, he would have stood a great chance of competing with Hugh for the role - he does look and sing like a gruff convict - no operatic trills for him

*Hugh is such a humble person -- he talks about the people who has worked with him, especially about his regard for Russell! I hope this is the kind of talk that Russell would hear, when his ears are blasted all that dissing on his singing performance.

*Finally, Michael did mention that he once sang the role of Valjean -- he did -- right in front of The Queen of England and the Prime Minister of France, at a post-state dinner concert at Windsor Castle!

Once again - thanks to Sue for finding this special coverage >


Jo

[birchie]

Jo, I enjoyed that presentation too. They added just enough new stuff with some bits of the coverage we saw at the premiere and in earlier behind the scenes videos. I loved the bit with Eddie sitting down with Michael and doing his little trill! Sam was adorable with seeing Hugh walk by on her tour. As for Russell, I've commented before on how moved I've been by his love of this movie experience. I've never seen him make heart felt comments like these before.

Speaking of Russell...I'm kind of distressed by the hoopla going on re: that Lambert kid. He made a few snide remarks about the movie and added something about the actors "pretending" to be singers. Russell made a comment that is being misconstrued by the media (big surprise) as him agreeing with Lambert which wasn't exactly what he said. I was wondering what you guys think about the whole mess. I hate to think this will take positive attention away from the movie at a time when it's building so much momentum. That kid has a lot to learn about being gracious. He would be smart to emulate Hugh instead of trashing his movie. Hugh would never say bad things about a fellow performer. I know I shouldn't let this stuff bother me but I'm still nursing my cold so I guess I'm extra sensitive. Just curious what everyone thinks.
Sue

[jo]

Some people will construe something said the way they only want to view it

I don't care for Lambert's opinion - he is just rabble-rousing for whatever reason ( for more notoriety and maybe sell more records and concert tickets, for attention maybe because he is not so much in the limelight now, for extreme jealousy, for whatever motive he had for doing those insulting tweets - to Hugh and Russell).

Russell's reply was classy and explains Hooper's concept for the movie. If musical theatre purists do not want to accept that -- it is their big loss!

Look at how Lea has written her blog-review! Very gracious and yet detailed also as to her reasons! Lambert should take a lesson from a true pro!

Jo

[jo]

People seem to be voting with their feet and with their fingers on keyboards :-*

Les Miserables has earned $ 129 million worldwide ( only 8 days of release for the domestic market) as of January 1, 2013, with some major markets still to open. I also think that the demographics that is forming for this movie are family groups ( look at the YouTube video of the crying parents, uploaded by their two sons who had seen it previously and accompanied them for the second viewing) , couples, women, mature individuals and maybe even the younger demos. It has not been totally rejected by men - the demos that most people thought would hate the musical. That diversified demos sound like a very solid base - and if the movie is available to view for a long time, esp in the USA - it is going to have long legs.

It is still # 1 on the Amazon MUSIC bestseller list ( I suspect people get the soundtrack immediately so they can relive the emotional moments from the movie)...and Billboard, while it has not updated, had predicted entry to its TOP TEN anyday soon. How about that, Adam Lambert

For all we know, the Lambert comments may have prodded some people to see the movie, if only to check out what he was lambasting!

I am really hoping to see Hugh ( and the movie itself) among the AMPAS nominations to be announced on January 10! That is one proof that the Oscar voters did not think that the way the vocals were used in this movie was a disadvantage, but actually enhanced the realism and grittiness of the film, something that a stage musical usually fails to do!

Jo

[jo]

I've been meaning to post this feature on Hugh in the year-end issue of TIME, but I guess the holiday season did get in the way

entertainment.time.com/2012/12/27/hugh-jackman-les-mizs-leading-man-talks-to-time/

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TIME
Entertainment

Q&A

Hugh Jackman: Les Miz’s Leading Man Talks to TIME

By Jesse DorrisDec. 27, 2012


It’s beginning to look like Hugh Jackman can do anything. He has played an Elvis-singing penguin, a posh mouse who’s flushed down a toilet, a cutthroat magician (in Christopher Nolan’s magnificent The Prestige) and, of course, Wolverine. He’s hosted the Tonys three times, once while actually winning one. And now he’s triumphed in the role of a lifetime, as the thief turned savior Jean Valjean, in Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables. Another thing he can do? Give a great interview. TIME talked to the actor about everything from his years as a selfish teenager to the perils of playing a saint.

TIME: What has your relationship to Les Misérables been?

Jackman: I was a late teenager when it came out, so I knew the score really well. Everybody did, it was playing everywhere, and my mate used to blare it in his car all the time — he was one of my only friends who had a car, so we heard it nonstop. I’ve seen it about five times. I’ve always been a massive fan. One of the first auditions I had for a musical was for Beauty and the Beast, and I sang “Stars,” and the guy said, “Well, you can throw that away — you’ll never be in that! So there you go.” Actually Cameron [Mackintosh, Les Misérables’ producer] did ask me to play Inspector Javert several times in the past, so there!


How’s it been playing Jean Valjean, then?

To me, it’s a much better role for me than Javert. I think I was the first person Tom [Hooper, Les Misérables’ director] auditioned, so it was more like a workshop — he was still getting his head around it. He picked up his chair, moved about five feet from me and said, “Imagine I have the camera. Let’s just make it work here in this intimate space.” One thing all of us needed to work on was that sometimes when you’re singing, you contort your face in some weird ways. In a close-up on a 40-ft. screen, that can be very distracting, so that took some practice. It was more important to make the songs work in this intimate space — especially the solos, which are intensely personal, and private, really. We didn’t want to make them declamatory, big, operatic arias, but still make sense of the lyric.


Your father raised you and your family more or less on his own. I wonder if you see any of Valjean in your own father?

I was the youngest, so from when I was about 8. My oldest sister was 16 or 17, so from that point on, yes. It’s funny you mention that. The more I looked into Valjean, the more I saw him in Dad. The really admirable thing I see in both of them is that real humility. I’ve never heard him say a bad word about anyone. When I was growing up, I thought he was quiet, uncommunicative, he didn’t talk much. But in the end, I suppose he had no need to talk about himself and what he’s done. He’s done many great things, and didn’t have the need to fish for compliments or any kind of acknowledgement of the incredible job he did. He never bemoaned or whined at any point, and what he did was Herculean, to bring up five kids with a full-time job. I don’t think he ever had time for himself.

I remember very clearly, a distant cousin came to stay with us, and he pulled me aside and said, “You guys are out of line!” — meaning me and my brother. “Your father got home from work at 7 o’clock and went straight into the kitchen to cook for you. And never did you say, ‘Hi, Dad, how was your day?’” It was a real wakeup call for me. I was about 14, and it really struck me what my father had done and what he did every day in his life. And the other thing they had in common is that my father is a deeply religious man. He was converted in the Billy Graham crusade, and he didn’t have deep exposure to religion until then. So church was a big part of our lives, though I don’t think I ever really heard my father talk about God or religion necessarily. He was just one of those quietly religious people who believed actions spoke louder than words.

I was struck in this iteration of Les Miz by how religious a story it is.

I like to think of it in modern-day sense — of course Hugo talks about Valjean undergoing not just a transformation but a transfiguration. He transforms in such a complete way that it’s religious in nature, not just emotional or physical. I think in some ways Hugo was attacking the church at that point, for being so exclusive. For Hugo, the line was “To love another person is to see the face of God” — that religion needed to be less about rules and sermons and more about practical love and the example of Jesus Christ. That’s the last line in the musical. I think it really annoyed the church! It was quite an attack.


Is Valjean someone we should learn from?

Yes, and for me, it’s the same example I got from my father. It’s a great honor to play someone like Jean Valjean, but it’s a daily reminder of how far you have to go as a person. It’s a really weird thing, playing Valjean and in between breaks going to your luxurious trailer just off set, like, Where the hell is my Evian? [Laughs.]
Tom Hooper said that it’s always difficult to play the good guy. How do you introduce complications to a character like that?

The trap with Valjean is that he can become kind of boring and saintlike after the first 10 minutes. He has a pretty massive transformation early on, going from being wrongfully imprisoned but still a kind of animal-like, voracious figure, and stealing from the man who gives him clemency and feeling the shame of that. The easy thing would be to play the saintlike figure throughout. That’s kind of dull. One thing that Hugo writes about at incredible length in the second half is Valjean’s relationship with [his adopted daughter] Cosette, and how complicated it is. Here’s this man at 51 who experiences love for the first time in his life — an avalanche of feeling and all the complications that come with that. As we all know, as human beings, once you know happiness, you’re terrified of losing it.

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Jo

[jo]

Very long but very insightful, informative and interesting interview with show composers Boublil and Schonberg --

www.ascap.com/playback/2012/12/wecreatemusic/fmf-alain-boublil-claude-michel-schonberg-on-les-miserables.aspx

They said they there was no need to audition Hugh ( they were not present at the session).

Jo

[mamaleh]

It was fascinating, wasn't it? I posted it earlier this morning on the "background material" thread. But I got a kick, too, out of that "no need to audition" line.

Ellen

[jo]

Ellen,

It is actually somewhat a juicy piece -- esp re the auditions. I wonder which actors/actresses did send in taped singing to show their interest in Les Miserables? And which turned up for actual auditions?

Jo

[jo]

The film is still being promoted, in time for the release in the UK on January 11. The UK can be a big market for movie musicals ( Mamma Mia! earned $ 132 million in the UK alone). It is also the spiritual home of the Les Mis known throughout the world ( Broadway included).

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9778315/Les-Miserables-The-making-of-a-musical-revolution.html

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By John Hiscock
11:11PM GMT 03 Jan 2013

Hugh Jackman, dressed in the uniform of a dead soldier, slips stealthily down the cobbled Parisian street and approaches the revolutionaries manning the barricades. Shots ring out, action explodes on the set and a battle rages until director Tom Hooper calls “Cut.”

A few minutes later Jackman emerges from the darkened soundstage and blinks in the unaccustomed Pinewood sunshine. While Hooper accepts a mug of coffee, Jackman clears his throat and opts for hot water and lemon.

“I’ve gone off coffee because it doesn’t help the voice,” he explains. “I’m basically living like a monk and if I don’t have eight hours sleep a night, forget it. I’m singing 10 hours a day sometimes so I have to look after the voice.”

The Tony-winning song-and dance man has undertaken his most challenging role yet as prisoner-turned-politician Jean Valjean in the long-in-the-works screen adaptation of Les Misérables, the hit 1980s musical based on Victor Hugo’s classic 19th-century novel.

It is Hooper’s first directing job since winning the Oscar for The King’s Speech and he has come up with an innovative method of bringing musicals to the screen.

Usually, actors pre-record their songs with an orchestra in a studio and then lip-synch to them during filming. But Hooper has insisted that all the actors sing their songs live as the cameras roll, wearing tiny, unseen earpieces through which they listen to an off-stage electric piano accompanying them. Later, a 70-piece orchestral accompaniment is added during the editing process.

“From the beginning, I was obsessed by the idea that I wanted to do all the singing live,” says Hooper, joining Jackman in a makeshift canteen set up outside the giant soundstage. “This is an amazing opportunity to do something genuinely ground-breaking.

“It’s been a big journey of innovation, but my God it’s exciting. It completely transforms the experience of what a musical is like on film. However well lip-synching is done, part of your ear knows it’s not real. In a light comedy musical such as Mamma Mia!, maybe it’s not so important, but in a highly dramatic, highly emotional story like this, it’s a great problem.”


So for the four months of filming, Jackman, Russell Crowe as the dogged policeman Javert, Anne Hathaway as Fantine, Amanda Seyfried as Cosette, Eddie Redmayne as Marius and the other cast members both acted and sang for the cameras as if Les Misérables was a dramatic film that just happened to have actors singing all the time.

“The idea of singing live is daunting but it gives me so much freedom,” said 44-year-old Jackman. “Instead of lip-synching, I can slow the tempo down or speed it up and do what I like. I just have to worry about acting.”

Hooper, who says he wants Les Misérables to “give people an intense emotional experience”, owes his directing career to musicals. “When I was 10 years old, I was cast at school in a performance of The Beggar’s Opera, where I played one of the chorus,” he says. “That experience basically fired me up with a complete obsession with drama and acting. Then I discovered at a tender age that I wasn’t a good enough actor so I was lured into the world of directing. The love of musicals is so deep in me I wanted to return to it because it’s where I started.”

Producer Cameron Mackintosh, who was on the set almost every day, says one of the reasons he chose Hooper was because of his passion to record it live. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and he has absolutely embraced the whole of Les Misérables,” he said. “The cast were all born to play these roles and we’ve got them at the top of their game.”

The musical version of Les Misérables was based on a 1978 concept album that was produced on stage in Paris as what Mackintosh calls “a dramatic tableau” in 1980. “I was sent a copy of the album the following year and thought it was something exciting and wanted to rebuild it as a proper musical,” he recalled. “The person who sent it to me said that anyone mad enough to put TS Eliot’s poem on stage as Cats might at least look at Les Misérables – which was another terribly bad idea to turn into a musical.”

It opened at the Barbican in 1985 and on Broadway two years later, when Mackintosh originally began plans to make a movie based on the show. Alan Parker, he said, was interested in directing it.

“We did a deal, but then the show turned into this extraordinary success and I thought it might run for five years and we would wait until then to do the movie, little thinking it would run 27 years and still be continuing.

“I’m a great believer in fate, whether it’s a film or a show, and now we are blessed with so many film and stage actors that have the ability to sing, which I doubt we would have had 25 years ago.”

All the major stars have previously sung professionally – Jackman in West End and Broadway productions and, with Anne Hathaway, on an Oscars show; Russell Crowe with his rock band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts; and Amanda Seyfried in Mamma Mia! Yet all had to go through marathon auditions in New York for Hooper and Mackintosh, followed by seven weeks of intense rehearsals.


“You can’t just turn up to a musical and hope to do it,” says Jackman. “This wasn’t just sitting around a table chatting. This was a serious rehearsal so by the time we started filming we had a great ensemble feeling and we were all in it together.”

Mackintosh and Jackman have known each other for 15 years, having joined forces for Oklahoma!, but, although they have been friends for years, Jackman and Russell Crowe had never worked together before.

“The night before we started rehearsals, we were both presenters at the Bafta awards. We got on stage and immediately knew we had this chemistry together,” said Jackman. “It’s an absolute joy working with him.

“If you’ve ever been to Russell’s place for a party, there’s always singing involved. He’s a brilliant guitarist and can back anyone. One of the first days on the movie, he called up at 9pm and goes, 'Come on, mate. Do you want to have a bit of a sing?’ So we went round to his place and we started singing stuff and just went on.

“I’m guessing the wrap party is going to be a lot of hard rock and roll.”

Jackman has kept himself in tip-top shape, swimming every day, nursing his vocal cords with the help of a portable steam machine and avoiding dairy products.

“Some days, I start singing at nine in the morning and am still singing at 10 at night, so it’s not easy,” he says. “But it’s been such a joy. I’ve got to tell you it’s been a job I’ll never forget.”

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Hating all the brickbats against the cast's singing -- especially when one appreciates what the cast and the director have had to do to give us this movie musical!

Jo

[mamaleh]

I just hope when HOUDINI opens that the Times sends Ben Brantley instead of Charles Isherwood. Brantley can be annoying, but he's the lesser of two evils.

Ellen