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| Valjean's journey & Bring Him Home | |
| Posted by: jo 11:53 pm EST 02/06/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Fully Agree - jo 06:57 pm EST 02/06/22 | |
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| Many stage musical fans focus on Bring Him Home as Valjean's most memorable song. And since original Valjean Colm Wilkinson sang it beautifully as a prayer for Marius's deliverance, it became the song people associated with the character in the context of the stage musical. But if one were to relate it to the classic novel by Victor Hugo, Valjean's two key epiphanies were in the first part -- the first one was the grace of redemption through the kind Bishop and the second one was his discovery of love thru the child Cosette. In the film adaptation, the epiphany of redemption was dramatically presented in "Valjean's Soliloquy" ( such intense acting from Jackman of Valjean's realization of what happened to him) and the path to the life with Cosette was first internalized by Valjean in "Suddenly". Notably missing in the stage musical was the intervening period when Valjean escaped with his new ward to the convent ( which explains how they spent those many years and why Cosette was gently reared). Re his relationship with Marius, in the novel, Valjean nurtured strong feelings of jealousy when Marius started expressing feelings for Cosette( Marius actually saw her from when Cosette was still a young teenager). Valjean was still feeling jealous that Marius might take away his daughter when the time comes. In the film adaptation, there was a hint of such jealousy when Valjean received the note from Marius to Cosette delivered by Gavroche. But Valjean decided to go to the barricade to see if the man was worthy of his daughter, while at the same time wondering if there was a great risk to Marius's life that would mean a devastating loss for her . Presumably, when Jackman interpreted BRING HIM HOME, it was initially with mixed feelings about Marius...but then as he thought about the consequences of his loss to his daughter , he realized that Cosette's happiness is the most important thing to him. Hence, he began to pray to God that Marius be spared. That is the context in which I appreciated Hugh Jackman's delivery of Bring Him Home. But it does not end there -- in the finale scene, as he lay dying, Valjean asks God for His mercy and prays to "Bring ME Home" (which I thought was such a beautiful touch - a man realizing his earthly mortality). That was the moment when Valjean makes the song truly his own! I thought Hooper gave film audiences a more fully-realized portrait of the man Jean Valjean! He has always said that his cinematic vision was to focus on the drama, with singing as the means of expressing the language but, foremost, complementing the acting choices. |
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| re: Valjean's journey & Bring Him Home | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 11:07 am EST 02/09/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 10:59 am EST 02/09/22 | |
| In reply to: Valjean's journey & Bring Him Home - jo 11:53 pm EST 02/06/22 | |
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| For what it's worth I always felt Bring Him Home was as much a prayer for Marius as for Valjean himself, and that he was thinking of his own earthly mortality during it (and singing of it). And directors love to hide behind "focused on the drama" or "the acting", or in revivals "on the text" (to excuse having a disappointing/"spare" set, in that case) ... to that I say f*ck off, it's a musical, find a cast and a way of directing it that *utilizes* the score as a *musical* text and way of expressing things. In a musical characters sing to express emotion and both inner-thought and outer-thought. It's so disrespectful and misguided and insulting to the form of the musical when a director decides that you don't need good singers because they're prioritizing the acting. In a musical you need to do both, that's the design, the character's text and the acting need to be done IN their singing and in conjunction/harmony with the music. Not always, not for all songs and all characters, but for Valjean, yes. For Javert, yes. For Fantine, yes. For Les Miserables, yes. This isn't a Sondheim show. This is an epic musical with big songs and big singing and we have had it treated this way for decades in London, Broadway, touring, and around the world, in as many (or more?) cast recordings as any other musical has ever had, including two major filmed staged concerts. You cannot write a score like this, condition the world to hear it at certain levels for 20 years, and then when the film finally comes, say "well we want to focus on the acting this time, the singing will be secondary, and if it sounds bad that just means it's real." |
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