Note to Valerie : Sorry if I have posted an inappropriately long post -- please feel free to delete the entire post if this has taken up too much space. I have posted it in its entirety because it was a little cumbersome to read it from the original source. Thanks. www.paminasopera.com/les-miserables-stage-vs-screen-whats-the-difference-part-i/Ever since I first read the essay “What’s the Difference?” on the now defunct website wssonstage.com, comparing an contrasting the stage and film versions of West Side Story, I knew I wanted to write a similar comparison of the stage and film versions of Les Misérables. Now that the Les Mis film has finally been released, I have more material to write about than I ever dreamed I would. While not drastically different from Herbert Kretzmer’s stage libretto, William Nicholson’s screenplay is far from the “cut and paste job” that some critics assume it is.
First of all, the film strives to bring the musical’s action closer to Victor Hugo’s novel than it is onstage. Secondly, it shortens the show’s nearly three-hour running time to create a screen product for the masses. Third, the filmmakers take the opportunity for a fresh look at old material that, for all its excellence, still has room for improvements. Most importantly of all, to quote the West Side Story essay, “a movie screen is filled out differently than a live stage is.” The stage version of Les Mis is usually performed on an abstract unit set and the libretto is full of what I like to call “Theatrical Suspension of Disbelief,” or “TSOD.” Details that feel convincing in a stage context, but are actually far from realistic. (Note: TSOD isn’t an example of bad writing. Shakespeare used it all the time.) The filmmakers had the tremendous task of bringing the work into a facsimile of the real world.
Like the author of the West Side Story “What’s the Difference?” essay, I make no attempt to argue that one version is better than the other, though my personal biases will probably still be clear. My task may be more complicated, though, because while WSS has only one stage version, Les Mis has repeatedly been revised. For this essay, my main source for the stage version is the 1988 Complete Symphonic Recording and the libretto enclosed with it. I’ll occasionally mention other versions of the score, though: particularly the shortened version widely adopted in the early 2000s. For details of staging, costuming, etc. that the libretto doesn’t specify, my chief source is Trevor Nunn and John Caird’s classic 1985 production with its famous revolving stage, though I’ll sometimes mention the controversial 25th Anniversary Tour production too. My sources for the film are the finished product and the screenplay as published online by Universal.
Prologue (Work Song)
Of course the stage version lacks the film’s striking, symbolic opening shot of a tattered, torn French flag floating on the ocean’s surface. It also lacks the caption explaining the political situation of France in 1815, not to mention the soft, ominous drumbeat that is the film’s first music. Onstage we plunge into the drama with the chords of “Look Down” thundering from the orchestra, and (in the classic Nunn/Caird production) only the words “1815, Toulon” projected on a scrim to set the scene.
“The Chain Gang, overseen by brutal warders, work in the sun,” reads Herbert Kretzmer’s first stage direction. The convicts are traditionally shown swinging hammers, apparently breaking rocks at a quarry. Some productions have opted for different staging (the 25th Anniversary Tour anachronistically has them rowing a prison galley), but very few. The film, however, draws on the actual type of labor that Toulon prisoners did to create a grander, more epic opening scene. The action unfolds at a wind- and rain-swept dock where not one, but dozens of chain gangs work together to haul a massive storm-damaged warship from the sea.
The film also introduces us to our hero, Jean Valjean, and his nemesis, Javert, much sooner than the stage version does. Before a single note is sung we see Valjean in close-up, followed by the image of Javert watching the convicts from atop a wall. The two are shown eyeing each other throughout the Work Song, Valjean angry and Javert impassive, suggesting a longtime antagonism that the stage version never implies. Additionally, the song’s opening line, “Look down, look down, don’t look ‘em in the eye!” is sung not by all the convicts as it is onstage, but by Valjean alone.
Two other changes are made on film to the Work Song as well: the grunts of the convicts, which onstage are sung to the “Look Down” melody (“A-ha, a-ha, a-ha…”), are changed to realistic grunts, and in keeping with the cold, wet setting, the line “The sun is strong, it’s hot as Hell below!” is altered to “No God above and Hell alone below!”
Those waiting to hear the first line sung by the stage Javert, “Now bring me Prisoner 24601!” will be surprised to hear Russell Crowe’s Javert instead command Valjean (who has already been brought to him) “Retrieve the flag,” in speech instead of song! This is the first of many snatches of spoken dialogue heard throughout the film, in contrast to the fully sung stage version. It also leads into an orchestral reprise of the “Look Down” refrain, during which Valjean lifts and moves the ship’s enormous broken flagpole with near-superhuman effort. This very clearly and dramatically establishes Valjean’s tremendous strength to both Javert and the audience – no such moment exists onstage. Only afterwards does Javert launch into his first sung passage, “Now, Prisoner 24601…”
Javert and Valjean’s first exchange is slightly altered as well. Onstage we learn more about Valjean’s crime (it wasn’t only theft, but breaking and entering), while on film, Javert elaborates on why a yellow ticket-of-leave does not equal freedom, namely that it’s a badge of shame.
I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention a particularly key difference between the stage and film versions. Onstage, Valjean has a prison brand on his chest. This is used as an easy, visually striking way for characters to identify him at different points in the drama. However, this is an anachronism. Convicts were not branded in post-revolutionary France, Valjean has no brand in the novel, nor does he have one on film. This change forces certain scenes to be rewritten significantly.
On Parole
Once the chain gang exits, the stage Valjean sings a monologue expressing his joy at being free. On film, this musical passage becomes largely orchestral as we see a more overwhelmed and dumbstruck Valjean make his way up an alpine hill at sunrise. When he finally sings, his words are “Freedom at last… how strange the taste!” followed by only the last five lines of his stage monologue.
Here we come to the film’s first major departure from the stage score. At this point onstage are two brief successive scenes, as Valjean first finds work on a farm, then seeks shelter at an inn. Each begins with an orchestral reprise of “Look Down,” followed by a sung exchange. The farmer pays Valjean only half wages due to his status as an ex-convict and the innkeeper turns him away. Valjean follows each sequence by singing of his bitterness. The inn scene also includes a brawl in which Valjean attacks a man who shoves him – early evidence that his anger is excessive.
The film turns this section into a montage that, as they say, “shows” rather than “telling.” The orchestral music is rewritten and bits of spoken dialogue replace the singing. The inn sequence plays out as it does onstage (minus the brawl), but the farm is replaced by a quarry and Valjean is outright denied work rather than underpaid. We also see images of him reporting at a parole office, being pelted with stones by children and being beaten by policemen, which have no stage basis.
The Bishop (Valjean Arrested/Valjean Forgiven)
For all their differences, both “parole” sequences end the same way, with the weary, disconsolate Valjean found and invited indoors by the Bishop of Digne. But no sooner has the Bishop sung his first passage then the film gives us another departure. Onstage, after eating with the Bishop, Valjean sings another monologue, describing the evening leading up to the theft of the Bishop’s silver. This is probably the strangest, most awkward monologue in the musical, because it’s the only one written in past tense. It’s as if we’re suddenly hearing the older Valjean’s memory of stealing the silver, even though before and afterwards we’re always in the present with him. It’s just as well that the film replaces this odd passage with a mostly silent montage, even though Valjean loses a thrilling high note (“…took my FLIGHT!”) in the process.
When the constables bring Valjean back, their lines onstage are sung and addressed to Valjean (“Tell his Reverence your story/Let us see if he’s impressed”) but replaced by briefer spoken lines on film, addressed to the Bishop (“Monsignor, we have your silver!”) The Bishop’s saintly response is identical in both versions, except that a few words on film are spoken rather than sung, and he declares in the end that he has “saved,” rather than “bought,” Valjean’s soul for God.
Valjean’s Soliloquy (What Have I Done?)
In the classic Nunn/Caird production, this tour-de-force solo is sung on a bare stage, while the 25th Anniversary Tour places it in the square in front of the Bishop’s house. The film departs from both by placing Valjean in the Bishop’s church, kneeling in repentance before the altar, then charging out into the churchyard to tear up his yellow passport.
At the End of the Day
One of the most iconic images from the original stage production is the beginning of this song, with its mass of poor people that fill the stage, running and stumbling forward with hands outstretched and singing out to the audience as if begging them for alms. But powerful though this image may be, it is, of course, stagy, and wouldn’t work on film. Therefore, onscreen the masses of beggars are not singing out to us, but huddled in a bleak archway outside the gates of Montreuil-sur-Mer. The sequence retains its power, however, as we see close-ups of filthy pox-marked faces, crippled bodies, and the corpses of disease victims being loaded onto carts as their families weep. One minor lyric change emphasizes this last image: a reference to “the winter” becomes “the plague.”
The film scene also continues the trend of incorporating principle characters into “chorus” scenes by showing Javert and other policemen riding past the beggars on horseback as they enter the city. This gives visual life to the words “And the righteous hurry past…”
We now move on to the factory in both versions. In the traditional Nunn/Caird staging, this scene has both male and female workers loitering by the factory gate, having finished their day’s work and waiting to approach the foreman’s desk for pay; in the end poor Fantine approaches the desk only for the foreman to shut the cashbox and fire her. The film, however, follows the 25th Ann. Tour’s example by setting the scene in the women’s workshop, showing them busy stringing jet beads at long tables, and the only men present are the foreman and later Valjean.
In both versions, the discovery of a letter to Fantine from the Thénardiers leads to a fight, which is broken up by “the Mayor’s” arrival. Onstage, after order is restored, Valjean leaves without explanation. The film, however, gives a dramatic reason for his quick departure. Amid an orchestral reprise of “Look Down,” he sees Javert glancing down at the workshop from the balcony of his own office. At that moment, to quote the published screenplay, “his world drops away.”
Incidentally, the film has two women reveal Fantine’s secret rather than just one. (Onstage, the one factory girl who tells all is usually implied to be the foreman’s mistress and jealous of his attention to Fantine – an implication not found onscreen.) Fantine’s frantic screams for help as the foreman throws her out the door, and Valjean hearing but being too distracted by Javert to take action, are also unique to the film.
STAGE: I Dreamed a Dream
“Alone, unemployed and destitute” (to quote the libretto), the stage Fantine sings what has become the musical’s most famous song. Sung at the height of her dignity, with her flowing hair and respectable clothing still intact, this beautiful ballad makes us fully engage with Fantine as a character, more than the fast-paced factory scene could have done alone. It enhances the effect of all the horrors she subsequently faces.
FILM: Javert’s Introduction
The filmmakers seem to have had strong faith in the power of their medium’s intimacy. They seem to have realized that through close-ups and effective cinematography, they could make us fully engage with Fantine during the factory scene, without her needing a solo afterwards. Therefore, we leave Fantine for the time being and shift our attention to “Monsieur le Mayor” and Javert. In a new scene written for the film, sung to music originally used in “Valjean’s Confession” onstage, Javert introduces himself and compliments the mayor on the town’s prosperity, yet has the strange, unshakeable feeling of having met him somewhere before.
FILM: The Runaway Cart
This scene comes at a later point onstage, but the film places it here to bring the action closer to the novel (see “Javert’s Confession”). Valjean and Javert hear an off-screen crash and hurry out to the yard to find Fauchelevant trapped under his cart. The scene is shortened for film, with confused realistic shouts replacing most of the stage version’s sung recitative. The actual cart-lifting is rescored as well, with yet another reprise of “Look Down” – appropriately, since Valjean’s lifting of the cart is shot to exactly mirror his hoisting of the mast in the opening scene. This leads to Javert nearly voicing suspicion, but despite Valjean’s “Say what you must, don’t leave it there,” he does leave it there and the scene ends.
Lovely Ladies
This production number is a prime example of the film’s incorporating its leads into “chorus” sequences. Onstage the song opens with the sailors and the whores. Only after each of their stanzas does Fantine enter, then exit, then reenter… first to sell her locket, then to agree to sell her hair, and finally to be persuaded to “join her sisters.” The cutting of her hair takes place offstage, achieved by replacing a long wig with a short one.
On film, Fantine is the first person we see and the number includes her from the start, as she gazes with horror at the vulgarity around her and is taunted by woman-hungry sailors. Likewise, her hair, Anne Hathaway’s real hair, is cut onscreen. And her visceral agony certainly doesn’t end there. The sale of her locket is changed to spoken dialogue and placed before the song itself (and incidentally the buyer is changed from a woman to a man). Within the song her hair-sale becomes the first recitative, and a new second recitative derived from the novel is introduced: a dentist offers to buy her two back teeth and she accepts. The actual pulling isn’t shown, but afterwards we see her huddled in a heap of pain with a bloody mouth.
On film the whores lose their third stanza, but benefit from the realism of the screen. We traditionally find them at center stage surrounding a table and chair, no clear location. On film, of course, they’re shown in their “natural” habitat, singing from brothel balconies and dockside walls.
Onstage, after Fantine’s first customer drags her away, the whores sing out their final stanza to the audience. Fantine then reenters in full whore costume and offers herself to a sailor, who ignores her. On film, the whores sing their final stanza to Fantine as they urge her toward her first customer, and Fantine’s “Come on, captain…” is sung to said customer, as they enter a rotting ship’s hulk that serves as extra brothel space and bed down.
FILM: I Dreamed a Dream
The original French version of the musical in 1980 placed Fantine’s iconic solo at this point, after her turn to prostitution. Only when the show was revised for London was it moved. While the earlier placement may be more effective onstage, there’s no denying the impact on film of the creators’ original intent. Sung in the dark ship’s hulk, with Fantine clad in only her undergarments and her head shorn, sitting on the bed where her last shred of dignity was torn away, the song gains a new level of raw agony, with new meaning brought to such lyrics as “…this Hell I’m living” and particularly “Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”
Fantine’s Arrest
A clear time skip takes place at this point on film, which the stage version lacks. We sense that Fantine is now an experienced prostitute, and the ground is now covered with snow, which makes her flimsy dress a horrific sight to see. We’re also given an introductory shot of Valjean giving money to a beggar – onstage he only enters late in the scene.
Fantine’s scuffle with Bamatabois is considerably shortened on film, made less verbal and more purely physical. Onstage Bamatabois beats her, while on film, truer to the novel, he stuffs snow down her dress. The result is the same, however, as she fights back, Javert arrives and Bamatabois claims he was attacked – though his plea of innocence is changed from “I was crossing from the park.” to “I was lost here in the dark.”
Valjean’s intervention is met in both versions with the same anger from Fantine, which he follows with the same vow to set things right. But while stage Valjean has Javert’s constables take Fantine to the hospital, film Valjean carries her there himself. In new dialogue he learns Cosette’s whereabouts and promises to send for her. His “I will see it done!” addressed defiantly to Javert onstage (who can forget Colm Wilkinson’s fearsome shout in the 10th Anniversary Concert?), is sung gently to Fantine on film.
STAGE: The Runaway Cart
In addition to coming later, this scene is more melodramatic onstage. Someone shouts “Look out! It’s a runaway cart!” and we’re treated to the spectacle of the whole onstage crowd “running” in slow motion to “escape” it. The “crash” itself is followed by the crowd singing of how Fauchelevant can’t be rescued and begging “the Mayor” not to risk his own life trying. The lifting is underscored with music heard nowhere else.
Unlike on film, when Valjean insists “Don’t leave it there,” Javert obediently continues. He has only known one other man as strong as “the Mayor”: an ex-convict who, he says, has just been rearrested. Depending on the actor, he can either seem to strongly doubt his own words and to suspect “the Mayor” of being Valjean, or to firmly believe that Valjean has been found and be struggling to suppress his “unjust” suspicion. The film, however, offers a completely different take on the scenario.
FILM: Javert’s Confession
In a new sequence derived from the novel, Javert receives a letter and promptly goes back to “the Mayor’s” office. (Incidentally, the obvious time skip between “Fantine’s Arrest” and this scene helps make Fantine’s decline in health more plausible – onstage, TSOD being in full force, she seems to die just hours after being taken to the hospital.)
Javert confesses that he denounced “the Mayor” as an ex-convict only to learn that said convict was already recaptured, and asks the Mayor to press charges against him for his “unjust accusation.” But Valjean is kinder to Javert than the inspector is to himself. The music is recycled from the corresponding stage scene, as are a few lyrics, but this new scene is decidedly less stagy and truer to Hugo than its stage counterpart and reveals the enormity of Javert’s moral code; characteristic of the filmmakers’ efforts to humanize him and avoid portraying him as a villain.
Who Am I?
This song is usually sung on a bare stage, until the very end when a scrim rises to reveal the courtroom. The screenplay shows the intent to turn it into a montage song, with Valjean singing first in the factory, then in his house, then in his carriage, etc. But Tom Hooper seems to have realized that this would only distract from Valjean’s inner struggle, so apart from beginning in the factory and ending in the courtroom, in the finished film the song takes place entirely in Valjean’s house.
Onstage, Javert is present at the trial and Valjean sings “And so, Javert, you see it’s true…” then rips open his shirt to reveal his prison brand. On film, truer to the novel, Valjean has no brand and Javert is not present. So instead he addresses the judge, “And so, your Honor, you see it’s true…” and then tells him to speak to Javert to confirm his identity.
Come to Me (Fantine’s Death)
Fantine’s dying song is shortened on film, but retains its moving effect. Our seeing her hallucination of Cosette is unique to film, while onstage she traditionally staggers out of bed toward “Cosette,” only to be carried back by Valjean. A few lyrics are altered as well. Film Valjean assures Fantine that Cosette will soon be with her, and stage Fantine’s happy “Look M’sieur, where all the children play!” is poignantly changed to “Come, Cosette! My child, where did you go?” as her hallucination fades.
Confrontation
Onstage this battle of wills is traditionally more verbal than physical. Javert, armed with a nightstick, corners Valjean behind Fantine’s bed and the two sing in semi-frozen tension. On film, with “Wolverine” and “Maximus” squaring off, more action was almost inevitable. Javert now has a sword, Valjean breaks a wooden beam from the roof, and the scene becomes an epic duel. The song itself is unaltered, though, until near the end. Valjean’s counterpoint is cut short when Javert disarms him and Javert sings of his “gutter” background alone. This suits the film’s general “humanization” of Javert (his sympathetic backstory can get lost when Valjean is singing at the same time) and rids Valjean of what some theatregoers label excessive aggression: onstage at this point he threatens to kill Javert.
At the duet’s climax, stage Valjean smashes a chair and threatens Javert with one of the legs. Thus keeping him at bay, he sings a reprise of “I Dreamed a Dream” to the dead Fantine, vowing to care for Cosette, while behind him Javert vows to always pursue him. The two then physically fight and Valjean knocks Javert unconscious and escapes. Onscreen, however, Javert corners Valjean at a door that leads to a ledge with the sea below. At the point where stage Valjean smashes the chair, film Valjean escapes by leaping into the sea. The final “I Dreamed a Dream” reprise is cut.
Castle on a Cloud
Both stage and film now take us to Montfermeil, where we find little Cosette slaving away at the Thénardiers’ inn. But the film includes a detail from the novel not found onstage – the fact that this sequence takes place on Christmas Eve. Poor Cosette is shown gazing enviously out at the street where other children are enjoying a Christmas “Frost Fair,” eyeing a beautiful doll in a shop window with particular longing. Her song loses one verse, as it usually does onstage nowadays.
Also cut from both film and most recent stage productions is a passage where Cosette hears Mme. Thénardier coming and panics that her chores aren’t done. Mme. Thénardier is as hateful as ever, though – at one point even more so on film. Her “Enough of that!” when Cosette begs not to be sent out into the darkness is changed to “Now shut your face!” Since the screenplay still reads “Enough of that!” I suspect that Helena Bonham Carter made the change herself.
Master of the House
Our memorable first view of the film Thénardier, asleep on the floor and making love to a barrel of wine, has no basis onstage, but the stage intro to “Master of the House” has no shortage of color as the inn customers clamor for drinks, complain about the service and gossip about the innkeeper’s shady past. The film drops all of this and starts with Thénardier’s “My band of soaks…” passage, the last line of which is changed (by Sacha Baron Cohen himself, according to an interview) from “And their money’s good as yours!” to “And they crawl out on all fours!” We also get a glimpse of characters who onstage don’t appear until Paris: Thénardier’s gang, here disguised as customers.
Apart from being slightly shortened, the Thénardiers’ famous comic showcase transfers effortlessly to the screen. Specific visual gags obviously vary from stage to film, as they do among different stage productions, but the atmosphere of skullduggery and drunken antics is exactly the same. Onstage, of course, the action all takes place in one room, so there are no bedroom or bathroom gags, and since the Christmas atmosphere is film-only, so are all the adventures of the drunk Santa Claus from the Frost Fair. Another difference on film is that Young Éponine, a very brief silent role onstage, is more of a presence. She now talks a liitle (mainly to address the Thénardiers explicitly as “Mama” and “Daddy”) and is onscreen throughout the scene, learning “the tricks of the trade” from her parents.
The presence of her little daughter does nothing to improve Mme. Thénardier’s behavior, though. Onstage, her mockery of her husband is usually delivered to all the costumers and the humor comes from the colorful insults themselves. On film, the sex appeal of Helena Bonham Carter is brought to the character, and she sings the passage to a handsome young soldier as she seduces him, picking his pocket in the process.
Well Scene
For the first twelve years of the musical’s existence, Valjean and Cosette’s first meeting was never shown. The two simply entered the inn after “Master of the House” and Valjean announced that he had found her in the wood. But with the show’s 1997 overhaul, the Well Scene was introduced, and the film retains it with only minor tweaks. Onstage, as Valjean and Cosette walk back to the inn, they sing a sing a duet reprise of “Castle on a Cloud” in ‘La la’s, as if to illustrate their instant emotional connection; on film, those ‘La la’s are sung by Cosette alone at the beginning of the scene, to give herself courage in the dark wood. The charming detail of Valjean doffing his hat and addressing Cosette as “Mademoiselle” upon learning her name is also unique to the film – I suspect it was improvised by Hugh Jackman, because it’s not written in the screenplay.
The Bargain/Waltz of Treachery
This comic scene takes place entirely in the inn onstage, while on film it starts at the inn’s doorway, giving Valjean a chance to see Cosette gazing at the doll in the nearby shop, then moves indoors. Onstage, Valjean sings the news of Fantine’s death to the Thénardiers, “Now her mother is with God” (many actors in the role make a point of singing this passage very softly, so as not to distress Cosette with the news just yet). On film, he addresses Cosette: “Now your mother is with God.” The Waltz of Treachery itself is also shortened by one verse, in which the stage Thénardiers suspect that Valjean’s “intentions may not be correct.”
When Valjean and Cosette reenter the stage after their exit from the inn, we find Cosette now wearing an upper-class dress and bonnet, traditionally identical to the ones her older self wears in Paris. Valjean harks back to “Castle on a Cloud,” promising her that a castle is waiting for her, then gives her a beautiful doll, sweeps her up in his arms and dances with her as the orchestra reprises the “waltz” melody. On film, Cosette has no costume change, the gift of the doll comes at the start of their exchange (and has more meaning, her having admired it earlier), the “castle” reference is replaced with Valjean promising to be both father and mother to her, and instead of waltzing with her, he lifts her into a waiting carriage.
Onstage, this is where we shift to Paris, 1832. As Valjean and Cosette exit the waltz melody slows and turns ominous, leading into “Look Down.” Not so on film. Instead, first of all, we have a new scene at the Thénardiers’ inn. Javert arrives in search of Cosette and learns that “she’s gone with a gent,” while Mme. Thénardier browbeats her husband for failing to get more money from Valjean. Both of these details pave the way to “The Robbery.”
FILM: Suddenly
We now follow Valjean and Cosette on their carriage ride. As Cosette sleeps in Valjean’s arms, we come to the film’s most significant departure from the stage version. A new solo in which Valjean sings of the fatherly love he finds himself feeling for the little girl. Sung by Hugh Jackman with a blend of joy, fear and awe, “Suddenly” may lack the sheer musical luxury of other parts of the score, but it develops Valjean and Cosette’s relationship better than any impromptu waltz or “La la” duet. Onstage, while Valjean’s love for the girl is clear, it’s given less emphasis than his general goodness and selflessness. On film, his devotion to her takes its rightful place as perhaps the central aspect of his journey.
FILM: The Chase
After our foray into new material, we transition into old material. When the stage version was first shown in previews, it included a chase scene of Valjean and Cosette running from Javert, but this was soon cut. Twenty-seven years later, the film brings it back. Valjean and Cosette arrive at the north gate of Paris, only to find Javert there. He spots them and a chase ensues, with the convict and little girl running through archways and alleys, Javert close behind them, first on horseback, then on foot. They finally escape him by scaling a wall, which turns out to belong to a convent. There, in a classic Victor Hugo coincidence, they meet Fauchelevant, the man Valjean saved from the runaway cart. Amid the voices of nuns singing a Latin hymn to the Bishop’s theme melody, Valjean and Cosette take shelter with Fauchelevant in the convent.
FILM: Stars
Javert’s song of devotion to law and order was originally placed at this point onstage, but moved to a later point after the chase scene was cut. With the latter reinstated, the film brings “Stars” back to its original spot. But it does so with a new location for the song, Paris’s police headquarters, where Javert sings on a rooftop ledge. His precarious position, emphasized by close-ups of his feet, may foreshadow his suicide a bit ham-fistedly, but this is compensated for by the new, beautifully sinister ending in which Javert’s final note is dissonantly juxtaposed against the intro to “Look Down.”
Look Down
Our introduction to the squalor of Paris takes place in an abstract slum onstage, but the film gives us a real location specified by Hugo: the Place de la Bastille, identified by the massive Elephant of the Bastille, out of which pops the urchin Gavroche in an unforgettable character introduction. The filmmakers’ special affection for Gavroche is clear from the outset. He becomes our viewpoint character in this scene, running through the streets followed by a band of other urchins and dashing between the wheels of elegant carriages. This brings us to another stage-to-screen difference: greater emphasis on the callousness of the rich to the poor. Onstage the beggars sing their pleas out to the audience, but on film they crowd en masse around the coaches of the bourgeois, who all respond with either indifference or disgust. Gavroche’s introductory verse (“How do you do? My name’s Gavroche!”) is sung to the audience onstage, but on film is addressed to a particularly stone-faced couple in a carriage.
Emphasis both on Gavroche and on socio-political criticism continues as the boy hitches a ride on another carriage and sings a new verse, describing how France overthrew one king only for another, “no better than the last,” to take over. This replaces a random street fight vignette from the stage and leads directly to the introduction of the revolutionaries.
We only meet two students at this point onstage: Enjolras and Marius, who stand in the slum either talking among themselves or giving a speech to the beggars, depending on the production. On film we follow Gavroche out of the slums and arrive at the house of the dying General Lamarque, where all the rebels are gathered in what is more explicitly a public demonstration. Enjolras’s “Where are the swells who run the show?” becomes “Where is the king who runs the show?” and all the students sing “…before the barricades arise?” rather than Enjolras alone.
It’s also at this point on film that we meet a prominent character from the novel, nowhere to be found in the stage version: Marius’s grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand. He berates his grandson for disgracing the family with his revolutionary activity, but is ignored, and the scene ends with the rebels shouting, en masse, “Vive le France!”
Onstage Gavroche has one last verse (not needed on film because it’s “telling” rather than “showing”), in which he re-introduces the audience to the Thénardiers, as well as their gang and the now grown-up Éponine. On film we don’t see the Thénardiers again until “The Robbery” and first see grown-up Éponine among the crowd at the demonstration – not until after her first exchange with Marius do we even learn her identity.
The Robbery/Javert’s Intervention
This scene, which onstage directly follows “Look Down” in the same location, is given a setting-shift onscreen, as well as some reordering. Onstage the action starts with Thénardier giving orders to his gang. Then, amid disparaging remarks from her mother, Éponine approaches Marius in the street and the two have a friendly chat, which ends with a sigh of longing from Éponine. Then Valjean and the now grown-up Cosette appear and Mme. Thénardier points out their presence. Marius worries about the gang’s intent, but Éponine gives him a sharp warning to “stay out of this” and runs off. Marius runs after her – and in doing so, bumps into Cosette, instantly changing both her life and his own.
The film moves Marius and Éponine’s exchange to the start of the scene, places it in Marius’s shabby apartment, and rewrites it to reveal more about Marius’s character: his devotion to revolution, his penniless bohemian lifestyle and his estrangement from his grandfather. Only the final two lines are the same as onstage, and only now does the scene move outdoors. Marius and Cosette still fall in love at first sight, but no longer bump into each other, instead glimpsing each other from across the street. Only then does Thénardier finally give orders to his gang. Incidentally, this is an evening scene onstage, with “Stars,” “Éponine’s Errand” and “The ABC Café” all happening in immediate succession afterwards. The film spreads out the timeframe and makes this a day scene instead.
The gang’s assault on Valjean takes place in a small room off the street on film, rather than on the street itself, and it’s Mme. Thénardier instead of her husband who sings “Wait a bit, know that face…” Onstage in the ensuing struggle, Valjean’s shirt is ripped open, revealing his brand to Thénardier, who taunts him “You know me! You know me! I’m a con just like you!” On film, with no brand, this becomes “You know me! I know you! And you’ll pay what we’re due!/And you’d better dig deep, ‘cause she doesn’t come cheap!” Also noteworthy, I think, is one traditional bit of stage business not seen on film: while the others all pounce on Valjean, gang-member Montparnasse usually grabs Cosette, only for Marius to rescue her, further solidifying their love. On film, Cosette goes untouched by the gang.
When Javert arrives and Valjean flees, stage Thénardier reveals that “the gentleman” had a brand on his chest; Javert puts the pieces together and realizes that it might have been Valjean. The film Thénardiers instead tell him that “the gentlemen” was the one who “stole” Cosette from them. (Incidentally the running gag of Thénardier mispronouncing Cosette’s name is film-only: onstage he does it once, if at all.)
STAGE: Stars
Alone, having cleared the “garbage” off the street, stage Javert now sings his song of faith and conviction. After he exits, Gavroche mocks him with a jaunty little ditty, cut from the film.
Éponine’s Errand
The beginning of this scene is slightly longer onstage, as Éponine tries to take Marius’s mind off Cosette with chatter about the robbery.
The ABC Café/Red and Black
Both film and stage now bring us to the revolutionaries’ meeting, with an added time-skip on film that moves us from day to night. The stage version both precedes and follows “Red and Black” with reports from various students on the support they have from various quarters of Paris. The film cuts this and starts the scene with Enjolras’s “The time is near…” which is itself shortened. Onstage, Marius arrives at this point and Enjolras exclaims “Marius, you’re late!” The film Marius is there from the start, lost in thoughts of Cosette; the student Joly now sings “Marius, wake up!”
“Red and Black” itself is slightly reconfigured. Onstage, first Enjolras and then Marius address the whole group. But on film the two share a more intimate exchange with each other, with a few lyrics changed accordingly (e.g. “a rich young boy” instead of “rich young boys”). Marius’s references to “tonight” are also changed to “today” (see “The Robbery”).
Onstage, Gavroche bursts into the bustling café shouting for everyone to listen to him. On film, thankfully for those of us who despise screaming children, the “Listen, everybody!” is given to Courfeyrac, who, in a film-only touch, is shown to be the student most attached to Gavroche. (Onstage that role usually belongs to Grantaire, if anyone.) But either way, it leads to the news of General Lamarque’s death and Enjolras’s realization that this death will help them rally the people – though on film the whole group sings the final “They will come when we call!” rather than just Enjolras. At this point onscreen, Éponine appears and leads Marius away to see Cosette. On stage, however, the action leads into the musical’s signature song.
STAGE: Do You Hear the People Sing?
The stage version of this revolutionary anthem revolves around rallying people in the streets after the news of Lamarque’s death breaks out. The first iteration of the chorus is sung by Enjolras in the café, but after the whole group sweeps out into the “street,” each subsequent chorus is sung by all the rebels, as well as women whom they rally to the cause. Individual students sing the bridges. The traditional staging has Enjolras and Gavroche paraded on a cart, Enjolras waving a red tablecloth appropriated into a flag, a humble and ragtag yet stirring image. At this point comes one of my favorite orchestral passages: the sweeping transition from this song to “In My Life,” which beautifully carries us from the masculine sound world of the revolution to the feminine world of Cosette’s romantic dreams, a moment unfortunately cut from the film.
In My Life
Onstage we never see the inside of Valjean and Cosette’s house at Rue Plumet; only the garden, which is where we find Cosette singing of her newfound love. On film we find her in her bedroom in nightgown and negligée. But location-shift aside, the song is unchanged, except for a few lyrics in the father/daughter exchange. While stage Cosette longs to know “of the child that I was” and complains that Valjean sees her as “just like a child who is lost in a wood,” film Cosette longs to know “of the man that you were,” rather than be treated “still like that child who was lost in a wood.” The stage libretto seems to keep the novel’s conceit that Cosette has virtually no memory of her childhood before Valjean found her, while the film seems to discard that conceit as unrealistic.
A Heart Full of Love
The famous love duet-turned-trio loses a verse onscreen, but otherwise the song is unchanged. But once again, the blocking is different. Onstage, Marius climbs over the gate to join Cosette in the garden. On film (probably to reduce any possible sense of “creepy stalking”) he stays outside and the lovers confess their feelings through the bars of the gate, while Éponine sings unseen beside a nearby wall. This may lack the obvious symbolism of Marius and Cosette in the garden/Éponine outside the gate, but still it’s a pretty, romantic tableau in its own right.
Onstage at this point our attention turns to the street (traditionally via turntable), while Marius and Cosette remain together in the garden. On film, however, their interlude is cut short when Cosette is called into the house by Valjean, who scolds her for being outside alone and peers through the gate with a suspicion he never has the chance to convey onstage. Marius leaves, taking with him Cosette’s dropped handkerchief, which he later is shown pining over at the barricade.
The Attack on Rue Plumet
In the complete, uncut stage version, gang member Montparnasse enters and describes the plot to rob the house to Éponine, who panics that Marius will think she set him up to be ambushed. Thénardier and the rest of the gang then enter and discuss their plans before noticing Éponine. On film, their plans are left for us to infer, as everything up to “Who is this hussy?” is cut. But the ensuing action in both versions is identical: Éponine defies her father and screams, forcing the gang to flee. On film the street scene ends there, but onstage it continues as Éponine’s scream brings Marius and Cosette to the gate. Marius thanks her for saving the day and introduces her to his lover, then hears Valjean coming and scrambles to hide just as the worried Papa bursts into the garden.
Desperate to keep Valjean from finding Marius and Éponine hidden just feet away, stage Cosette lies that it was she who screamed because she saw three strange men. Valjean instantly assumes that Javert has found him. On film, with Marius safely gone and Cosette indoors not knowing of Éponine’s presence, we cut straight to Valjean’s “Must be Javert!” While onstage he declares “Tomorrow to Calais and then a ship across the sea!” the film Valjean, truer to the novel, resolves to flee that very night to “our apartment at Rue de l’Homme-Armé” and then “to England.” The stage Cosette’s mute dismay is replaced on film by desperate protesting, but when this proves in vain, she writes a letter containing the Rue de l’Homme-Armé address and leaves it on the garden gate for Marius to find. Now comes an especially controversial change from stage to screen. Éponine, a purely selfless, admirable character onstage, is given back a moment of selfishness from the original novel. She steals Cosette’s letter.
FILM: On My Own
As if to ensure that Éponine’s new “darkest hour” doesn’t rob her of our sympathy, the film follows it with the solo in which she pours out all her love and longing. Onstage this song doesn’t come until Act II. While this earlier placement is less climactic than the stage’s, the image of Éponine singing in her ragged blouse and skirt (onstage she sings the song in the boys’ clothes she wears to the barricade), drenched by rain, beautifully enhances our sense of her vulnerability.
One Day More
This beloved epic song works equally well on both stage and film: much like the “Tonight Quintet” from West Side Story, to which it obviously owes some inspiration. The classic Nunn/Caird staging of the number, rarely much tampered with, is an atmospheric montage of images that have become iconic. We find Valjean and Cosette at stage left with a travelling crate and their belongings, Marius and Éponine at stage right. Marius and Cosette meet at center stage to lament their separation. Then they draw apart, just (as if to symbolize the revolution coming between them) as Enjolras bursts onto center stage, wielding a rifle and singing out his fervor while his followers gather around him. The rebels form a triangle and march in place, while at stage right Valjean and Cosette pack their crate and at stage left Javert dons his spy garb. The Thénardiers pop up out of a manhole to sing of their plans. At last Marius, Éponine and Javert join the triangle, and the turntable brings Valjean and Cosette to the front of the stage for the song’s grand final lines, while a student at the back of the triangle waves the enormous red flag of the revolution.
On film, of course, every character or group is shown in a separate location, with constant back-and-forth cutting. We find Valjean and Cosette riding in their carriage to Rue de l’Homme-Armé; Marius (having been informed of Cosette’s departure by Éponine) standing in despair outside the empty Rue Plumet house; Éponine in a dingy room binding her breasts and dressing as a boy to join the uprising; Enjolras rallying his followers at the café, where Marius eventually joins them; Javert at headquarters briefing a hundred policemen about the coming day; and the Thénardiers in the café, pretending to join the uprising while picking students’ pockets. The number ends with a wide shot of the café, Marius and Enjolras at the window, with masses of revolutionary followers (tragically not enough, as it turns out, but no one knows that yet) gathered below and waving flags from windows. Not an ounce of the stage version’s “epic” atmosphere is lost.
FILM: Do You Hear the People Sing?
Act II of the stage version opens with an orchestral reprise of “Do You Hear the People Sing” – which probably inspired the filmmakers to move the song itself to this point. In doing so, they give it a much more dramatic context: General Lamarque’s funeral. No ragtag tablecloth waving on a cart in this version of the song! Here we see the rebels waiting patiently among the mourners, then softly beginning to sing as the procession approaches. As onstage, Enjolras initiates the singing, but the others all quickly join in and the bulk of the song is sung by the chorus en masse. The music crescendos as more and more of the crowd joins in, as Enjolras takes up a flag, and as the students climb onto Larmarque’s hearse itself to preach their message and take over the procession.
Rather than ending on the joyously stirring note of the stage version, the song ends in suspense followed by bloodshed. The cavalry squares off against the rebels and a soldier fires his gun, accidentally killing an innocent old woman bystander. This leads to a riot, which culminates in Enjolras shouting “To the barricades!”
Upon These Stones (Building the Barricade)
Since the stage barricade is actually a giant piece of stage machinery, we don’t see it being built. At the start of Act II, Enjolras declares to his followers (in song) that “upon these stones we will build our barricade,” and after “The Letter” and “On My Own,” we come back to find it already built. But this didn’t satisfy the filmmakers: instead they give us a grand barricade-building sequence. Furniture and rifles are thrown down from windows as well as carried from the café, an omnibus is is overturned, and it all piles up in the street at a thrilling rate, interspersed with some humor involving Grantaire and the café women. (Also unique to film is Marius saying “Get off your arse!” to the slacking Grantaire – stage Marius never uses such language!) Both this scene and the stage version’s “Upon These Stones” culminate in the disguised Javert volunteering to “spy” on the enemy.
At this point onstage, Éponine enters in her boy disguise and Marius notices her. When warning her of the danger proves futile, he sends her away by giving her a farewell letter to take to Cosette.
STAGE: The Letter
Éponine takes the letter to Rue Plumet, which Valjean and Cosette somewhat inexplicably haven’t left yet despite the late hour (TSOD). Valjean catches her at the gate, insists that she give him the letter and reads it as soon as she leaves. The scene ends before we can see how he responds.
STAGE: On My Own
Instead we follow Éponine, who now sings her famous solo, which also includes an introduction (“And now I’m all alone again…”) cut from the film. As her penultimate scene before her death, it serves, more than it does onscreen, as the climax and summing up of her entire role.
The Barricade
The classic Nunn/Caird production’s image of the barricade’s two massive halves sliding from the wings and joining together at center stage is one of the stage show’s most iconic and most epic moments. It’s probably the chief reason why that mostly-minimalistic production has such a grand “megamusical” reputation. Depending on which version of the score is used, the rebels enter and sing either a lengthy pledge to hold the barricade or a simple reprise of “Red and Black.” The film opts for the “Red and Black” reprise, which concludes the barricade-building sequence. Onstage there are women as well as men among the rebels, but on film, less PC but truer to Hugo, no women are involved except the disguised Éponine.
The arrival of the National Guard is heralded at this point onstage by a flourish of brass and the offstage voice of an officer warning the rebels to give up their guns or die. In a reprise of the “Red and Black” melody they defy the warning. This is cut from the film.
Javert’s Arrival/Little People
On film a time skip now takes us from day to night. Javert’s arrival is unchanged, except that he lies that the army will attack “when it’s light” rather than “from the right.” Once Gavroche exposes him, though, heavy cuts are in evidence. Ever since 2006, “Little People” has lost its chorus at this point in most stage productions, and likewise on film that chorus is only heard later at Gavroche’s death. Also omitted is an argument that ensues among the stage students about whether or not to kill Javert. This cut hardly robs the scene of tension, though, because instead of resigning himself to capture, film Javert puts up a vicious fight and needs to be subdued with a fierce blow to the head from Enjolras.
STAGE: A Little Fall of Rain
At this point onstage, gunshots herald Éponine’s reappearance. She initially hides her wound from Marius, but soon collapses in his arms, and he opens her coat to reveal her blouse covered with blood. As she dies in his arms, the other rebels gradually realize what’s happening, gather and look on, creating a moving stage tableau. (Maybe not a unique one, evoking as it does Tony’s death in West Side Story and Satine’s death in Moulin Rouge! but one that works every time.) In the end Enjolras eulogizes Éponine as the first rebel to fall and the students vow to fight in her name.
FILM: The First Attack
On film Javert’s capture is followed not by a sentimental death scene, but by the ominous marching footsteps of hundreds of soldiers, who advance toward the barricade. One novel-inspired exchange later (“Who’s there?”/”French revolution!”) and the attack begins. The battle is slightly longer than onstage and enhanced with real gunfire and chaos.
It’s here that film Éponine receives her fatal wound: a soldier shoots at Marius but Éponine takes the bullet for him, as she does in the novel. Thus her death is changed from a random turn of fate to the heroic, redeeming sacrifice that Hugo intended. And she isn’t the only one whose heroism from the novel is brought back. The battle is won when Marius faces the soldiers with a torch and a powder keg and threatens to blow up the barricade, including himself, unless the soldiers retreat. Eddie Redmayne apparently felt strongly about instating this passage from Hugo, to make Marius more than just a “romantic stereotype.”
FILM: A Little Fall of Rain
The recitative exchange between stage Marius and Éponine is replaced with dialogue, as Marius finds the dying girl on the ground and she finally gives him Cosette’s letter. Their duet is somewhat drastically shortened, but enhanced by real falling rain and close-ups. The tableau of all the rebels gazing at them is gone, as is the eulogizing at the end. Instead only Enjolras, Gavroche and a few others look on, and a wide shot reveals the ground littered with dead or dying students, several being held in their friends’ arms just as Marius holds Éponine.
After Éponine’s body is taken away, Marius reads Cosette’s letter, writes a reply and gives it to Gavroche to deliver. Which leads to…
FILM: The Letter
Marius’s letter itself is identical on film and stage, but otherwise this is a new scene. The setting is the Rue de l’Homme-Armé lodging house, Valjean and Éponine’s recitative exchange is replaced by spoken dialogue between Valjean and Gavroche, and most importantly, we stay with Valjean after he reads the letter. He expresses horror that a young man has come to steal “the treasure of my autumn days” from him, then sets off to “find this boy,” possibly not knowing whether he wants to save him or kill him. We see him steal a uniform from a dead soldier at an already-fallen barricade, make his way through the soldiers’ lines in disguise, and finally arrive at “our” barricade.
Valjean’s Arrival
The rebels’ interrogation of Valjean is shortened on film and ended not by the arrival of the enemy, as onstage, but by Gavroche vouching for him as a friend. At this point Valjean spots army snipers lurking on a nearby building and leads the students in driving them off with gunfire: an incident that onstage takes place in the middle of…
STAGE: The First Attack
The First Attack is briefer and less dramatic onstage than on film. The rebels manage to drive back the enemy with their united force and the battle ends with no casualties on their side.
Javert’s Release
Whether the sniper incident happens mid-battle or not, it leads to the grateful Enjolras allowing Valjean to “take care” of Javert. Onstage he follows this with a warning to the others that the enemy may be regrouping, not heard in the film (though his later line “They won’t attack until it’s light” is ominously changed to “They may attack before it’s light”). Onstage, TSOD comes into force here: Valjean frees Javert in a corner of the barricade just barely out of the rebels’ line of vision. The film adds not only realism, but suspense as Valjean leads his nemesis out to the back of the café, where no one will see them. After, freeing Javert, the address he gives him is “Rue de l’Homme-Armé, Number 5” instead of “Number 55, Rue Plumet,” and instead of firing his gun into the air at the end, he shoots the wall, purposefully just missing Javert’s head.
Drink With Me
The rebels’ evening song loses its first two stanzas on film, with the result that Grantaire loses his central moment of characterization. Onstage, in what one fan has argued is the most important solo in the musical, Grantaire takes up his friends’ melody but replaces the sentimental lyrics with biting cynicism, implying that the rebels are all doomed to die pointless deaths, having lived pointless lives. This establishes him as more than just a “class clown,” but as a man who believes in nothing, which makes it all the more moving when he chooses to die with his friends anyway.
Onstage, after Grantaire’s verse, the song becomes a call-and-response between the men and the women. On film, with no women present, their vocal part is given to Gavroche. Also, stage Marius’s lapse into poetic third-person speech, “Would you weep, Cosette, should Marius fall?” becomes the more plainspoken “…if I were to fall?” onscreen.
Bring Him Home
Onstage Valjean sings this entire song by Marius’s side, while on film he starts in the café and only gradually makes his way to Marius. The concluding overhead shot, revealing the pitifully small barricade surrounded by masses and masses of soldiers, is also, of course, unique to the film.
Dawn of Anguish
TSOD being what it is, onstage we’re expected to believe that all of Act II until “Drink With Me” takes place within an hour or two, at sunset, while “Drink With Me” and “Bring Him Home” cover the length of the entire night. Of course on film that would seem ridiculous, so at this point we get a clear time skip from night to morning. Marius informs Enjolras (a) that their gunpowder has been lost to water damage and (b) that they are the only barricade left, and Enjolras responds with the lines that onstage directly follow “Bring Him Home”: “The people have not stirred…”
Stage Enjolras commands, “Let all the women and fathers of children go from here” and they reluctantly obey. Film Enjolras sings, “Let all who wish to go from here”… and no one leaves. Both sets of students then sing a reprise of an earlier song to express their solidarity, but while onstage the song in question is the melancholy “Drink With Me,” on film it’s “Do You Hear the People Sing?” Little Gavroche being the one to start it may border on overly sentimental, but there’s no question that the choice of song enhances our sense of their heroic resolve.
Second Attack (Death of Gavroche)
Onstage the final battle begins here. The students take their positions and Enjolras shouts “Fire!” But on film this is a pre-combat scene. This makes sense: the pause of all action needed for Gavroche’s death to have the necessary impact couldn’t realistically take place in the heat of battle. The fact that it does onstage can be chalked up to TSOD.
Onstage, Feuilly announces (in song) that ammunition is short, and first Marius, then Valjean offers to go into the street to collect bullets. But then Gavroche shouts that he volunteers and darts over the barricade amid mass panic and vain attempts to stop him. On film the action is more subdued: the students’ exchange becomes spoken dialogue, and the moment Gavroche hears Marius offer to go, he creeps out unnoticed through an opening in the barricade. Only when it’s too late do the students realize where he’s gone. His death itself is unchanged, except that onstage his body is traditionally left where it falls, while on film it’s retrieved and sobbed over by his best student friend Courfeyrac.
The Final Battle
Onstage, as an insightful young theatre blogger once pointed out, the unseen National Guard comes across as “emotionless” and “monstrous,” making the rebels come across as “saint-like martyrs” all the more. Not so on film, where we not only see the students killing as well as being killed (and not just long range shooting – Marius kills a soldier with a sword!), we also see the army officer who gives them their final warning. Only slightly older than the students, he’s obviously distraught by what he has to do, but has no choice. This brings a very believable sense of balance to the scene.
That sense of balance is needed to keep this moment from being unbearably depressing, because the film students are mowed down more brutally than their stage counterparts ever have been. Onstage the final battle is fairly brief and traditionally stylized. Marius is usually the first to be shot, then Enjolras runs to the summit of the barricade (this may or may not be an anguished response to Marius’s apparent death, depending on the actor) and waves the red flag in a last burst of fervor, only to be shot down as well. Then a single, tremendous, symbolic gunshot resounds, and all at once, in slow motion, all the rebels collapse and die on the barricade amid a grand, dirge-like orchestral reprise of “Red and Black.” It’s heart wrenching, of course, but it doesn’t try to feel “real.”
The film feels very real. The battle is longer and intensely chaotic, as the army rolls out cannons and fires them at barricade. The rebels fight long and hard, but eventually run out of ammunition and are driven back into the café. The fighting turns into slaughter and in one horrific moment two students pound on the door of a house, howling for help, only for the inhabitant to shut the window and let them die. Some Hugophiles criticize Tom Hooper for portraying the rebels as helpless and overwhelmed instead of stalwart to the end, but the former interpretation has never been foreign to the musical (see “Turning”) and the imagery’s visceral impact is undeniable.
It’s at this point that film Marius is shot. Right away Valjean takes him away from the battle. This is much more convincing then the TSOD-drenched stage scenario, where Valjean lies low until the battle ends and only then takes Marius away – how convenient that of all the fighters, the two sole survivors just happen to be the two we most care about!
At last onscreen, it seems that only Enjolras is left. The soldiers are about to shoot him when, in a moving moment taken from the novel, Grantaire approaches and voluntarily joins his leader in facing death, despite not having shared his ideals. (How much more moving it would have been if his verse in “Drink With Me” had been included!) It’s now that we hear the orchestral reprise of “Red and Black,” gentler than it is onstage, as Enjolras and Grantaire are killed in slow motion and as Enjolras falls out of the nearby window and hangs there, upside down.
After the bloodshed ends onstage, a single oboe in the orchestra plays a reprise of “Bring Him Home” as Valjean finds Marius alive but unconscious and drags him down into a manhole. Then (in the standard staging), as the music swells on the melody of “The summers die one by one…” the turntable revolves to reveal Enjolras’s body hanging upside down from the barricade, on top of the red flag, in the same position that the film recreates at the window. Below him lies Gavroche’s body. Then the stage turns again to reveal Javert sitting on the barricade, at a loss as to where Valjean could have gone – that is, until he spots the manhole.
The film reduces the orchestral “Bring Him Home” reprise to only its bridge and offers a completely different take on it than the stage. Here the film’s attempt to humanize Javert reaches its zenith as he enters the café and gazes at the lined-up rebel corpses with deep distress. As the music swells (at the point where Enjolras’s body is revealed onstage) he bends down, takes a medal from his own uniform and places it on Gavroche’s lifeless chest. This touch isn’t in the screenplay; it was Russell Crowe’s idea. Javert, of all people, becomes our emotional stand-in at this point. Though in the end he reverts to “find Valjean” mode, and as on stage, discovers the sewer entrance (incidentally a storm drain in a wall instead of a manhole).
The Sewers/STAGE: Dog Eats Dog
Film Valjean’s struggle to squeeze through the tight sewer pipe and frightening slide into the wide tunnel have no stage basis. (This addition gives us a new reason why Thénardier thinks Valjean is dead at first, Valjean being knocked unconscious by the fall). Onstage this scene opens in the tunnel, where the first person we see is Thénardier. Valjean and Marius only appear, and Valjean faints from exhaustion, after Thénardier sings the first verse of the one song to be completely cut from the film.
Both stage and screen have Thénardier robbing students’ corpses in the sewers, as well as the seemingly dead Marius, but onstage he sings about it as he does so. And after robbing Marius, he sings that his deeds are justified because “it’s a world where the dogs eat the dogs” and that God is “dead as the stiffs at my feet!” Many stage devotees were outraged that this sinister song was omitted onscreen and understandably so. While I don’t think Thénardier is just a buffoon without it, as some of them claim (the very fact that we see him robbing corpses shows his evil), the song gives him more depth than either a stock comic character or a stock villain. It’s a dark counterpart to “Stars” and “Bring Him Home” that makes us understand why he is who he is – perhaps it even shows us just what kind of man Valjean could have become if the Bishop hadn’t saved him.
The stage Valjean and Thénardier don’t speak in the sewer, but on film, true to the novel, they exchange a few lines of dialogue (and Valjean gives Thénardier a much-deserved shove into the sewage). Valjean’s long trek with the unconscious Marius is the same in both versions, though on stage it’s usually very stylized (Valjean repeatedly vanishing into darkness, then reappearing under spotlights at different points of the stage), while on film it’s repulsively realistic, Valjean sinking deeper an deeper into the sewage while struggling to keep Marius’s head above it, and both completely covered in muck when they emerge.
Confrontation II
At the end of this brief scene, stage Javert interrupts Valjean in mid-plea to growl out “Take him, Valjean, before I change my mind!” and warn him that he’ll be waiting. The film cuts this for a more suspenseful moment. Javert threatens Valjean with a gun, “One more step and you die!” but Valjean presses on… and Javert drops the gun into the sewage.
Javert’s Suicide
Javert’s final soliloquy is slightly shortened but otherwise unchanged on film, except, of course, for the realism of the visuals. The classic staging of Javert’s leap from the bridge is an unforgettable coup-de-theatre: the bridge flies upward while Javert collapses to the stage floor, flounders amid swirling blue light, and then lies still as the turntable sweeps him away. The film, of course, replaces this with a real fall from a real bridge and a horrible crunch as Javert lands on the weir below and then vanishes under the water.
Turning
After “Javert’s Suicide” comes possibly the most controversial song in the whole stage musical, a four-stanza reprise of the “Lovely Ladies” melody sung by the female chorus. As traditionally staged, the women gather at what we can assume was once the site of the barricade, and together they mourn the deaths of the students and the futility of their cause, ultimately concluding that “nothing changes, nothing ever can.”
Les Mis devotees are eternally divided about this song. Some despise it, complaining that it detracts from Hugo’s message of hope and paints the rebels as pathetic victims instead of heroic martyrs (“They were schoolboys, never held a gun”). But Herbert Kretzmer has stated that the song was only meant to convey the plight of women bereaved by war and civil strive and that the audience isn’t meant to agree with their cynical despair.
But however you feel about the song, the film reduces it to a fragment. We’re given only the first stanza (“Did you see them going off to fight…”), heard first under the image of Marius regaining consciousness with his grandfather at his side, then with a brief view of the women themselves. Though the image of the women is haunting, showing them scrubbing blood from the pavement where the barricade once stood, the song becomes just a prelude to “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.”
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
Onstage this is traditionally a surreal sequence, conceived by the authors as a hallucination. “Marius, recovering from his wounds, imagines he is back in the ABC Café,” read the stage directions. As he sits and sings among the titular chairs and tables, the ghosts of his friends appear and stand in a row behind him, only to withdraw during the last verse. The film, however, brings the scene into the real world, with an evidently more fully recovered Marius (though still with his arm in a sling and needing a cane to walk) visiting the real, decrepit and battle-scarred café. No ghosts appear; the emphasis is only on Marius and his grief.
Every Day
The location of this scene is never made clear in the stage libretto, but the usual staging implies a hospital, with two nuns who help Cosette to help Marius to a new chair. The lovers sing their “Heart Full of Love” reprise sitting side by side, while Valjean enters unseen and sings his interjections that parallel Éponine’s in Act I. The film, however, shows Valjean and Cosette leading Marius home from the café into his grandfather’s house. The song loses a stanza onscreen (as it often does onstage anyway), as well as one important line: Marius’s “…who was it brought me here from the barricade?” Why they cut that line, I’ll never know – thankfully the wedding scene still reveals that he doesn’t know who saved him.
Additionally on film, the trio becomes a quartet as Monsieur Gillenormand joins in, thanking God for Marius’s return. The contrast between the two old men is striking, Gillenormand reunited with his grandson just as Valjean loses his daughter, though the stage version’s perfect parallel of the Marius/Cosette/Éponine trio is weakened.
Valjean’s Confession
Onstage this exchange directly follows “Every Day,” but the film moves ahead to several weeks or months later, with Valjean and a now sling-free Marius talking in a private room. Apart from a few cut lines, the scene is unchanged – except that Marius’s aghast facial expression evokes a trace of the character’s “darkest hour” from the novel, his prejudice against Valjean as an ex-convict. Note that at the end, rather than Valjean exiting as he usually does onstage, it’s Marius who abruptly leaves the room.
FILM: Suddenly (Reprise)
Here the film adds another new scene, where shots of Valjean loading his belongings into a carriage (with great difficulty, reminding us of his age and foreshadowing his fatal illness) and riding sadly away are interspersed with Cosette mourning his departure and Marius consoling her. A very welcome addition, as a common complaint about both the stage musical and the novel is that Cosette never seems duly distressed by her father’s absence.
The Wedding
In this scene’s traditional staging, Marius and Cosette kneel at the front of the stage, facing the audience, while the chorus behind them sings the Wedding Chorale. Then they stand up, kiss, and then break into a waltz along with their guests. The film, on the other hand, leaves out the actual wedding but goes straight to the reception at Gillenormand’s house. We find Cosette gazing wistfully through a window, presumably still thinking of Valjean, before Marius takes her hand and leads her to the dance. Also unique to the film is the Thénardiers’ stealthy arrival on the back of another guest’s carriage, as is Marius’s exuberant whirling of Cosette on the dance floor, reportedly improvised on the spot by Eddie Redmayne.
Marius’s exchange with the Thénardiers is shortened on film. Stage Thénardier’s humorous attempt to hide his identity (“I forget where we met…”) is cut, his wife’s “But first you pay!” becomes “He speaks, you pay!” (the result being that the film Thénardiers get no money from the encounter), and as in most recent stage productions, we lose a passage in which Marius fondly remembers Éponine and her parents respond by fishing for sympathy money. Cuts aside, both versions of the scene lead to the same revelation of Valjean’s heroism (though film Thénardier describes the “corpse” he carried as “Some boy he had killed in a vicious attack” rather than “Hanging there like a bloody great sack”), and both have Marius reward Thénardier for it with a punch. But on film he also demands and learns Valjean’s whereabouts from him. Onstage (TSOD) we never know how Marius and Cosette learn where to find Valjean.
Last but not least, the Thénardiers’ comic business is traditionally broader onstage at this point. “But first you PAAAAY!” traditionally draws stares from all the guests, to which the Thénardiers respond with embarrassed giggles, and just before their song they usually drop stolen silverware with a loud clang, then either try to frame the majordomo for it, pretend it fell from the sky, or both. This business, or at least their getting away with it, is obviously pure TSOD and not done onscreen.
Beggars at the Feast
The Thénardiers’ final flourish is not only reduced on film to just one stanza, but given completely different visuals that change its meaning. Onstage the song is funny yet cynical. The Thénardiers are completely victorious, having gotten away with every crime, successfully blackmailed Marius and effectively taken over the wedding party. On film, though they still go unpunished, their victory is more hollow. The humor is at their expense as they’re carried to the door and thrown out, without a franc and with only their survival to brag about in defiance.
Epilogue
In the novel, Valjean dies in his apartment at Rue de l’Homme-Armé. In the stage musical, it’s never made clear where the final scene takes place: it traditionally plays out on a bare stage with only a chair and a table containing a crucifix and the Bishop’s candlesticks. The film, however, takes us back to the place of Valjean and Cosette’s old home, the convent, where we find Valjean in a wheelchair before the altar. The candlelit church atmosphere enhances the transcendent quality of our hero’s last moments.
While Valjean is alive, the scene plays out as it does onstage with only a few lyric changes. Cosette’s odd stage line “They said you’d gone away!” becomes “Why did you go away?” and Valjean’s final words to her, which onstage are about her mother, on film describe his own life-changing love for her; she replies with a tearfully whispered “I know it, Papa.”
Both stage and film Valjeans die only to rise up and join Fantine, but on film we see his spirit and his corpse in the same shot as his spirit slowly walks out of the chapel, a feat impossible onstage. Then comes a more important change, very controversial among the fandom. Onstage, the third spirit to appear, who joins Valjean and Fantine in singing “To love another person is to see the face of God,” is Éponine. On film, it’s the Bishop.
The merits of both choices can be debated forever. Éponine (especially in the stage version) is a prime example of selfless love, the audience knows her better than they know the Bishop, and from a purely emotional standpoint her presence is arguably more moving. At any rate, by replacing her, the film loses a lovely two-female harmony on “Take my hand…” which the screen Fantine sings alone. But on the other hand Valjean never knew Éponine, while the Bishop was central to his life, so it makes more sense that the Bishop should welcome him into Heaven. Not to mention it’s the Bishop whose angelic presence the novel implies at this point. (Besides, it’s moving on a meta level that Colm Wilkinson’s journey with the musical ends with him singing the same words as the Bishop that he sang as Valjean in the finale of the show’s premiere in 1985).
From the moment the film was announced, we fans wondered how the musical’s finale would be handled. It works perfectly well onstage to have all the spirits of the dead simply enter and sing out to the audience (in the Nunn/Caird staging they start singing behind a scrim, which then rises, allowing them to walk forward), but to have them all appear at Valjean’s deathbed would hardly feel comfortable onscreen. The film surprised us with its creativity by setting the final chorus on a massive barricade in the Place de la Bastille, climbed and surrounded by thousands of people. The screenplay reveals that this was meant to depict the Revolution of 1848, in which the people of Paris finally did rise, a republic was established and the students’ ideals saw some light. But this context isn’t specified, so it can just as easily be taken as a symbolic tableau of hope never dying.
Either way, on the barricade we see Éponine, Gavroche, Enjolras and all the students, while Valjean and Fantine smile down from atop the Elephant of the Bastille. And since the characters, the former “wretched of the earth” themselves are singing (onstage the finale can be viewed as the actors addressing the audience), every reference to “they” from the stage version of their song becomes “we.” “We will live again in freedom…” “We will walk behind the plowshare…” “It is the future that we bring when tomorrow comes!”
Once again, I’m not trying to imply that either version of the musical is better than the other. In writing this, my only intent was a (hopefully) interesting academic exploration of how a beloved stage show was adapted to the medium of film. The stage version is the form in which this musical “swept the world” and still captivates audiences after nearly thirty years. And judging by its box office success, by the applause at the end of nearly every screening I saw in theaters, and by my own feelings, the film will continue the Les Misérables tradition of sweeping the world for years to come.
...As it turned out, it was a standout number among the many standout numbers in the whole Opening number 
