"In this state of reverie, an eye looking deep into Marius's soul would have been dazzled by its purity. In fact, were it given to our human eye to see into the consciences of others, we would judge a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks. There is will in the thought, there is none in the dream."
- Victor Hugo (III.5.v)
Day Count: 80
Page Count: 693
Yesterday, I posted my thoughts on the primaries in the upcoming Les Miserables musical film adaptation. Within a day, it became one of my most-viewed posts on this blog - getting over 50 views in just two days. (As a point of comparison, my most popular blog to date - "My Russian Transformation" - has just over 100 views. With that kind of response, I knew I couldn't wait too long before starting up the second installment. With that having been said, here goes nothin'!
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| Rising star Amanda Seyfried will portray Cosette. Will she be able to make it work? |
I liked up-and-coming starlet Amanda Seyfried since I saw her in the first season of "Veronica Mars" as Kristen Bell's deceased wild-child best friend. I also liked her in "Big Love" as Bill Paxton's eldest, conflicted daughter. However, when it came to film roles, I began to get very disappointed. The films I did end up seeing her in (Mamma Mia! and Alpha Dog) were not very good, though she managed to turn out a halfway decent performance. The other films she was in - the ones that she's 'known' for these days, like Red Riding Hood or Jennifer's Body - looked so horrid that I had absolutely no desire whatever to see them (appearance by Gary Oldman and script by Diablo Cody notwithstanding).
Here's the problem I have with the role of Cosette in the Les Mis musical: she's not the one you're rooting for. In the book, Cosette is a child brought from the most haggard circumstances imaginable into relative piece and security. You feel her abuse. In a musical condensing a 1400+ page novel, you don't have TIME to develop that suffering... especially not with a song as lilting and lullaby-like as "Castle on a Cloud." The extent of her suffering - as far as we see in that song - is that she has to sweep floors, doesn't have toys or friends, gets yelled at, gets lost, cries, and has to get water from the well by herself at night. Also, that she doesn't get to see nice, soft ladies dressed in white that tell her they love her and sing lullabies.
This is not the suffering she goes through in the book! We're talking a little girl who is worked so hard she doesn't know how to play, is ignored and abused by the daughters of the Thenardiers, and is so petrified of "the Thenardiess" that fear of her alone will keep the girl still and quiet while she and Valjean are on the run from Javert. The Cosette from the book is the epitome of pitiable, while her musical counterpart is living the life of luxury by comparison.
This only becomes a problem when the love story angle is brought into the story. We don't want Cosette to get the guy because she's not the abused underdog she is in the book... Eponine is. It is her character that captures the hearts and minds of the audience, not Cosette's. We don't love her and, for that reason, we find her annoying.
All that to say that, while I'm certain that Amanda Seyfried could sing and act the role, I'm not sure that having her play this particular part is a good enough use of her talent. My hope is that she can bring something likeable to the character... but I'm not sure even she can manage that.
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| Tony Award-winning actor Eddie Redmayne will play Marius. |
Eddie who?! I'm not going to lie to you, I have no idea who this guy is. Not living in New York, I've not seen his Olivier and Tony Award-winning turn as Ken in Red (2010 Best Actor in a Supporting Role). I've also only seen one of his film roles (as Edward Wilson, Jr. in The Good Shepherd), but I won't lie, I don't remember him (or much of the rest of the movie for that matter). Still, his film/television resume looks solid (My Week with Marilyn, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and "The Pillars of the Earth"), but I've yet to hear a decent clip of him singing (outside of those "Do You Hear the Cast/Actors Sing?" videos on YouTube). I'll have to wait this one out...
...not that Marius is all that compelling a character anyway (at least in the musical - like with Cosette, most of his interesting character stuff got stripped in the conversion from book to musical). Yes, Michael Ball nailed it in the original, but if Nick Jonas can get cast and manage to convince someone other than teenage girls that he can pull off the role, then I'm sure this Eddie guy will be fine.
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| Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen will portray M. Thenardier. Should I worry? |
This is where I feel like I'm going to start getting into really personal territory. Thenardier is my favorite role in Les Mis and has been since I first experienced the musical as a college freshman. Of all the roles in this epic show, it's the one I would most like to play myself. I have a vision for the role and, to be honest, it's based almost entirely on the performance of one Alun Armstrong - the original British Thenardier and, to my mind, the only true Thenardier. Sure, Matt Lucas did a decent job at the 25th Anniversary Concert, but it's Armstrong who really made the role everything that it could be.
Then we get to Golden Globe winner Sacha Baron Cohen. Sure, I thought "Da Ali G Show" and Borat were pretty funny, but didn't bother to see Bruno and still need to see Hugo. That having been said, we've seen the guy sing as Signor Pirelli in Tim Burton's hit-and-miss adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and, while he's not awful, he's hardly strong enough to be singing that role. Should he be singing Thenardier? I can't help but wonder... This is the role I'm most worried about, to be sure.
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| Tim Burton staple Helena Bonham Carter will play Mme. Thenardier (a.k.a. the Thenardiess). |
And finally (for now), we have Helena Bonham Carter, wife of 'quirky' director Tim Burton and two-time Academy Award nominee (for The Wings of the Dove and The King's Speech). While Helena is certainly not a bad actress (having great turns in the aforementioned films as well as Fight Club and the TV miniseries "Merlin"), I certainly wouldn't peg her as one of the best of her generation. In terms of singing, I really was not all that impressed with her work in Sweeney Todd. (Of course, who can be after hearing the immortal Angela Lansbury or the incomparable Patti LuPone perform the role?)
Sure, Carter plays the skeezy, greasy woman better than just about anyone else... but she is not Mme. Thenardier material. In the book, Hugo describes her as such:
With the exception of perhaps the 'agile' and 'swearing' comments, I can't think of any of these characteristics which describe Helena Bonham Carter. But you know who they do describe? Jenny Galloway! Don't know who she is? Check out the clips of Alun Armstrong and Matt Lucas above - she's playing Mme. Thenardier in both of them. She's also been in the original cast of Mamma Mia! and has played in productions of My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, Sweeney Todd, and Oliver! She's the easy choice for this role as far as I'm concerned. No, she's not a big name star like Helena, but she has more than proven that she can knock this role out of the park!"Since her first appearance, the reader perhaps remembers something of this huge Thenardiess - for such we shall call the female of this species - tall, blond, red, fat, brawny, square, enormous, and agile; she belonged, as we have said, to the race of those colossal wild women who pose at fairs with paving-stones hung in their hair... Her broad face was covered with freckles, like the holes in a skimming ladle. She had a beard. She had the look of a market porter dressed in petticoats. She swore splendidly; she prided herself on being able to crack a nut with her fist... This Thenardiess was a cross between a whore and a fishwife." (II.3.ii)
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| "Wait... 'Elena 'oo?!" |
Alright, Hugo, musical, and film aficionados! That's all she wrote for this evening! Next time, I'll dig into the roles of Enjolras, the Bishop of Digne, and - if I can - Gavroche and Grantaire. Let me know if you agree or disagree with my assessment by commenting below. Keep up with my thoughts on reading Les Miserables by following my Twitter account - @HurdlingHugo! Until next time... stay thirsty, my friends!
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