Several new HQ clips - Who Am I, On My Own, Look Down... — Page 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSDgXERsPDA

Does anyone know the male actor's name that sings to Fantine and later throws her out? I feel like I have seen him before!

Kad, is it too advanced for you too, to understand that people can cry after watching the clips of Anne Hathaway?

Updated On: 12/2/12 at 07:29 AM

And there's why I'm trying very hard to resist looking at the clips. Songs in movie musicals - okay, musicals in general - often work because they're greater than the sum of their parts. Like, "Pretty Women" in the Sweeney Todd movie? I enjoyed the hell out of that number in the movie theater. Once I listened to it on the OST, though, it became a disappointment. Context and visuals were needed to make it beautiful.

Now, the "Pretty Women" in the OBC of Sweeney stands up perfectly well without visuals for me, and is better overall. But that doesn't mean that the movie version should be totally dismissed as crap. It worked in its context. So basically, I'm trying to resist my usual urge to gather any and all information and spoilers I can get my paws on, because I don't want to preemptively be disappointed in musical numbers presented on a tiny YouTube screen and laptop speakers with no context coming before.

Or at least that's what I tell myself so I can stop from clicking those links for another 23 days. :P

(My WAG, for what it's worth - which isn't much - is that Les Mis will end up being maybe a half-step above Sweeney quality. Which I mean as a compliment! I haven't been entirely satisfied by any movie musical of the post-Chicago era, but that one probably came closest, in large part because it wasn't ashamed or self-consciously po-mo about what it was. Les Mis looks similarly confident in its way, and I appreciate that.)

Kad, you are correct, Dave19 made up his mind about this film several moths ago when he first saw the trailer recorded by cell phone on someone's computer screen. He will never enjoy this film, and should probably steer clear of it altogether. He seems to constantly fail to understand the difference between screen acting and stage acing, despite constantly claiming the opposite.

Chances are he is a high school kid, or a young theatre student with a highly idealized view of what acting should be. His opinions seem to be largely inexperienced and misguided since they are based on minute long clips, but they are his opinions none the less. I just wish I was able to push a block button so that I quit reading them by accident.

And Jimcurry, this is not about the difference between stage and film acting. In both mediums believability is important.

Is Samantha Barks giving a stage performance on film? No, it's about believability and being able to build that tension arc in your performance to take the audience on an emotional journey.

If anything, Hughs performance is extremely stage-like, with the long vibratos that feel very fake, but that is not the problem. Believable actor/singers (Samantha Barks) do that too, only it has to feel real, the singing has to always feel like an extension of speech, and that does not necessarily mean speak/singing, that can also be done in loud/full singing. If someone belts and acts out a song in a believable way on stage (Philip Quast) it suddenly becomes film-like. Because it feels real.
Hugh Jackman belts out notes in a more theatre way of singing than John owen Jones, a great stage Valjean. So the stage/film thing is not the problem, the believability of the singer is.

And I am 30 years old and work as a professional actor/singer for almost 15 years now. I've always been intrigued by various ways of acting and in finding out what works and what does not. My focus has always been on "acting as real as possible", and I also teach that to youngsters.
I have a passion for music and am always thinking about songs and singers, why certain singers make me believe their story and others don't. Then I came to the conclusion that people with voices that are a direct extension of speech (Whitney Houston, Lea Salonga, Karen Carpenter, to name a few), feel much more real than people that sing with a vibrato that feels like a trick/pose/learned. In some way too disconnected from their real voice/emotion.

So I guess I could also say; I've seen many people giving a film performance on stage and it made the audience cry. So please stop using this as an argument.

Updated On: 12/2/12 at 04:40 PM