On the streets, she sells her hair, then her molars, then her body. Cue the standout solo, I Dreamed a Dream. Like many of the big numbers in this film, it is shot in blistering, uncut closeup. With each actor you get a chance to see the smears of stage blood, the sweat, the tears caught in the eyelashes, the veins throbbing in the forehead on the high notes, the dirt, the spots, the drool, the snot, and the poverty stains on whatever remains of their teeth. In a movie already determined to cover all its characters in filth, vomit and human excrement, this is a bit relentless.
A historian can't complain about the past being shown to be dirty — it was — but it seems contrary to insist on gritty realism if you're going to have your cast express themselves exclusively in show tunes. Hathaway's performance veers between fragile sobbing and Susan Boyle-style operatics. But why is the saintly Valjean hanging around in the red-light district? This is a lot easier to get away with on stage. Melodramatic though it may be, Fantine's story is apparently based on a real event.
No wonder I was confused. The insurrection affected both sides of the Seine, but the flash points were here, on the right bank. Dragoons had been under orders to refrain from the use of deadly force, but when a shot rang out from somewhere, the crowd began to throw stones at the military. But what, exactly, did that mean?
They also scavenged planks and beams from nearby construction sites and improvised tools for prying up paving stones. These classic raw materials were natural choices because they added mass, helped knit the structure together, and were usually found in abundance right at the site of the barricade construction.
Between 5 p. Individual structures took as little as fifteen minutes to erect. Some rebels had to be content with sabers, staffs, or scythes, but rifles were the weapons of choice, and bands of insurgents boldly seized them from small patrols of soldiers encountered in the streets. Why, you may ask, have I chosen to illustrate this post about a doomed revolt with the elegant photos of Nichole Robertson over at Little Brown Pen?
The insurgents staged a desperate last stand in and around this church, at the heart of the district where the fiercest fighting took place. Empty chairs at empty tables. The insurgents pleaded for help, but no help came. The citizens of Paris were not as quick to join the revolution as they were to join the unruly funeral procession. In the theatrical production of Les Miz , the army officer warns the insurgents via a loud-bailer:.
You at the barricade listen to this! And it was true. If nothing else, please remember is that the whole point of the French Revolution is that the revolutionaries won. This was different. Postscript on 27 July, : Comments are continuing to trickle in for this post.
Did that actually occur? Was there an elephant structure in the area during that period? If so — why? Will it help if I actually finish reading the novel? From Wikipedia :. The Elephant of the Bastille was a monument in Paris which existed between and Originally conceived in by Napoleon , the colossal statue was intended to be created out of bronze and placed in the Place de la Bastille, but only a plaster full-scale model was built.
It was falling into ruins; every season the plaster which detached itself from its sides formed hideous wounds upon it. There it stood in its corner, melancholy, sick, crumbling, surrounded by a rotten palisade, soiled continually by drunken coachmen; cracks meandered athwart its belly, a lath projected from its tail, tall grass flourished between its legs; and, as the level of the place had been rising all around it for a space of thirty years, by that slow and continuous movement which insensibly elevates the soil of large towns, it stood in a hollow, and it looked as though the ground were giving way beneath it.
It was unclean, despised, repulsive, and superb, ugly in the eyes of the bourgeois, melancholy in the eyes of the thinker. This entry was posted on Monday, December 24th, at pm by Cynthia Haven and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2. Both comments and pings are currently closed. Congratulations, Linda! You made the th post! Hi Cynthia, Am I number ?
My 15 yr. As far as the historical context, are the events that occur in the story historically correct? The way that the prisoners were treated, the way that Fontine sp?
And probably see the show on Broadway. Thanks for all of your interest and information. Linda was technically , but only for a few minutes. She had an earlier comment that wound up in a spam filter, so when that posted, she was 98 and I believe Humble Moi was , but what fun is that?
That makes you The Industrial Revolution was a pretty nasty time to live. Hi Cynthia — I am a huge fan of Les Mis — book, film, stage, musical anything!! Here in Melbourne, Australia there is an exhibition at our State Library that has as its centrepiece the original manuscript the first ever time it has left Europe — I felt like I was looking on a holy relic!!
Then again Austria produced both Mozart and Hitler — the best and worst of humanity!! Your thoughts? You might look at the conflation of the French Revolution and the Paris Uprising as part and parcel of the same revolutionary tendencies in late 18th early 19th century Europe.
This is one of the greatest literary works of all time. I have read the book, seen the play many many times , and watched the movie. Getting ready to start the book all over again. These characters have beome well known to me. Thank you for the history lesson it is much appreciated. Myriel was the son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the nobility of the bar.
What were his motives or convictions? However, he soon became a leading critic of the new constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe, arguing that it failed to support human rights and political liberty.
He also advocated French support for independence struggles in Poland and Italy. Lamarque's views made him a popular figure. Lamarque served with distinction in many of Napoleon's campaigns. The latter campaign received great praise from Napoleon, who said Lamarque had "performed wonders, and even surpassed my hopes".
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