New Poll: Which LES MIS Character Do You Think Deserves Another Song in the Film? — Page 3

I do hope that Tom Hooper takes as much advantage of film as a medium in order to make this a successful piece. Some of the numbers in LES MIZ (and in a lot of musicals) would stop a film cold; with a film adaptation you can establish certain relationships just with a few close-ups of hands, a shot/reverse shot of two people looking at each other, etc. You don't necessarily need a whole song to establish that so and so is so and so's sister and that they get along. I'm excited at the prospect of a LES MIZ that does not feel like they shot the stage production (I feel like I'm still traumatized about THE PRODUCERS).

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I think we are on la misma pagina My Oh My. I hope I didn't sound like a cultural imperialist in my explanation. I guess I would only add that the election of the wrong pronunciation may not merely be because it better suits a linguistic need but because it conforms to convention, and in some cases using the more authentic pronunciation would say something about a character that may be unintended (in certain instances it might even, rightly or wrongly, be seen to imply pretension, stiltedness or whimsicality). Los Angeles is a good example.

You are right that my point was mainly to correct an impression that "Don Zhouan" was used in Les Miz because of sloppiness or ignorance. I do think there is a matrix of confusion however in that in the U.S. (and perhaps in contemporary U.K. and France as well) the iconic character (unlike Romeo) is pronounced, more or less, correctly. But Les Miz is an Anglo-French musical, set in France, in which the original French lyrics were translated into English originally in the U.K. Moreover Don Juan is mentioned by a young student in 1832 when Byronism was still very much in vogue and it is quite likely that the Byronic pronunciation would have been adopted.

Of course I can understand your point as well, and you and I may be more in agreement than I've hitherto implied. Bottom line, for today's audiences, it might be better to aspirate the J for the movie to make the allusion much clearer and avoid confusion.

This is actually a very good example of how translation can be un gran hijo de puta!

Not to belabor the point much further, but it is clear from the novel how much Byron is on the minds of the young rebels, most notably Grantaire:

"Grantaire snorted, and opened his mouth, but closed it at a look from Combeferre, and smirked. "Enough?" He said finally, through the peridot haze on his vision, "Mon cher René-Vivien, I've no faith at all. I've no belief and less certainty, for I was never made to lead men. Wherefore do you deign to transform me into a guiding light? By virtue of grandiose adjectives and revolutionary vowels, crafted with none of Prouvaire's talent and all the more lacking for not being set to verse? I am a better Byron than a Desmoulins, mon cher. Remember that." "

Updated On: 2/6/12 at 08:43 AM

Thanks for that quote from the brick. It does help prove your point and also makes "Dawn Jew-waun" a little less grating. =)

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Updated On: 2/7/12 at 01:11 AM

Not surprised it was my misunderstanding, best12, you being a wealth of info on this.

Yay! Valjean was conspicuously absent from the list of choices, yet he was my choice for the new song. I hope Hugh gets to sing it at the 2013 Oscars.

Sorry, but he is singing about his fatherly care for Cosette, in a song called SUDDENLY!

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/159493-One-Song-More-Les-Miz-Film-Will-Have-New-Song-and-Live-Singing-Cameron-Mackintosh-Reveals-All

Well regardless of Don Juan, they still pronounce Enjolras wrong

My Oh My I appreciate you going through the cuts. I saw the show twice, but that was in one month way way back in the early 90s (I think it was the first Canadian tour from Mirvish? It was a full sit-down tour that played long engagements in only three or four Canadian cities) I'm pretty sure with intermission it ran a bit over 2 hours.

I'd be curious to hear Gavroche's original song. I believe I read somewhere that someone involved (maybe it was the original French concept album and subsequent "tableaux" staging or maybe it was MacKintosh when he heard the score) saw Gavroche as a key figure and a key component to why it could be musicalize (I believe there was some comparison to Oliver and the Artful Dodger in Oliver). At any rate I have to say that has never come off for me and even as a very young teen, who worshipped the show, I found Gavroche and his death scene kinda ridiculous and annoying. Some have said that if he was the son of the Thenardiers as in the novel he would work better, but I don't think that would add too much to the show.

(so NO to the full Little People back please, though I haven't played the French album recently but I remember liking the lyrics for Gavroche's bits much more--of course most of the lyrics are much better--Kretzmer is no master lyricist).