I just saw Le Miserables.
It was very moving.
I admit, I got teary during "I Dreamed a Dream" and when *spoiler alert*Jean Valjean died. This was because Hugh Jackman's acting and singing were so excellent...*sigh*
It was interesting to see how the director adapted a play to film. I think he pulled it off well. Close-ups helped to underscore when a single actor/actress soloed, and large cast scenes helped make the mood in establishing shots, that certainly would have been hard to do on stage. Also, the use of cgi was effective in expanding the "set" of different scenes. It was interesting that the movie kept stage-like lighting at times (was this intentional?)
I loved the quality of the sound in the movie, too. It took a bit of getting used to hearing all of the dialouge being sung, but once you did, you could hear every word of the songs, which is a big difference from live performance. This way, I appreciated the poetry in the song lyrics!
Seeing it in film makes me curious about seeing it live, but I'm a little worried that I won't be as drawn to the performances of the actors as I was for the movie...
I like this post.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed the movie, but am much happier that you can write about so articulately and support your comments with cogent references to the movie itself. It is your opinion, and you back it up with some gravitas, and in doing so transform your opinion into more.
I love that you want to experience the show in different mediums and contexts. I don't know when it might be returning to the stage in a worthy production (it is done badly all the time somewhere if you really have to see it) but there is the soundtrack from the cast album (Broadway cast album) to hear as well as this:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230534/
to tide you over.