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vapaus-ystavyys-tasaarvo · 8 years ago

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The Basic Anglophone Les Mis Adaptation Formula

Or BALMAF for short

If you’ve seen more than one non-musical Les Mis movie in English (whether it’s American OR British), you might have noticed that sometimes they’re eerily similar to each other. I’m talking about the 1935, 1952, 1978 and 1998 movies, as seen above.

I honestly think these are all at least somewhat based on each other. They all follow the same rough structure, they share suspiciously specific details… it’s not really hard to make the connections. So I figured I’d try to put that structure into words.

Disclaimer: I’m not necessarily saying these are all bad things. (Although most of them are.) They’re just shared features and I get that plot needs to be streamlined when you adapt a giant novel into a movie. But it’s amusing to make fun of them. Also I only included the ones that show up in at least three of the movies.

BASIC STRUCTURE:

1: This is the story of Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert, everybody else is mostly just there to drive the plot forward.

2: Prison porn, lots of prison porn Okay okay not literal porn but you know what I mean. (exception: ‘98)

3: Fantine? Who’s that? Oh right Cosette’s mom. I guess we should give her a couple of scenes then… (exception: in '98 Fantine gets an actual story arc.)

4: We should really linger on this Montreuil-sur-Mer part of the plot, that’s the good stuff (but we can’t call the town “Montreuil-sur-Mer”, that would be ridiculous.)

5: The Thénardiers can only appear once, when Valjean goes to pick up Cosette, or not at all. Who needs all those plot points later on, this story is about the EPIC CHASE between Valjean and Javert!

6: You can have either Gavroche or adult Éponine but never both and they’re not related to the Thénardiers because we’re done with the Thénardiers already, didn’t I just tell you? Child Éponine may be allowed with the Thénardiers but she’s never named and has no lines.

7: Wow, Hugo really went off the plot rails after they arrive in Paris, didn’t he? There’s barely anything about Javert hunting Valjean in here! Let’s fix that and remove all this irrelevant stuff about all these side characters. We’ll just keep the love story because you gotta have a love story

8: I guess the revolution thing is kind of cool as a set piece for Valjean and Javert’s DRAMATIC REUNION. But we don’t really need to explain the politics and ideology and the fighting and all the minor character stuff, all that has nothing to do with Valjean and Javert!

9: Oh wait I guess we should still kill off whichever not!Thénardier kid we decided to include, though, for Dramatic Effect and to show how Tragic and Horrible revolutions are. (Exception: in ‘52 Gavroche doesn’t die)

10: Obviously Javert should go to the barricades to find Valjean, that’s much more important to him than “spying on the revolutionaries” lol (exception: '78)

11: Sewer chase scene! Yes, finally we’re back to the REAL story of Les Mis! Javert chasing Valjean in the sewers!

12: Well, Javert is dead so I guess we’re done now. VALJEAN WON! WHOO! HAPPY ENDING!

(more details under the cut)

CHARACTERIZATION:

- Javert is obsessed with Valjean! That’s what his whole character is ABOUT, you know?

- Okay we can’t give Valjean a proper love interest but he should at least fall in love with someone. Too bad there’s only two women to choose from so it HAS to be either Fantine or Cosette! (exception: '78 (because that one just fully embraces the homoerotic subtext option… and I’m pretty sure it’s intentional.))

- Cosette should actually get to do some stuff and find out about Valjean’s past DURING the story rather than after it’s over (exception: '78)

^ (Ftr, I have no problem with the above point. I’m all for Cosette having more agency. Not all changes are bad.)

- Does this Marius guy really need all this backstory and hobbies and personality and whatever? He’s basically just Cosette’s love interest. This is all way too complicated for movie audiences, I mean is he even a revolutionary or not? We can’t tell! We should just fuse him with the Enjolras character to kill two bird with one stone. This makes perfect sense. (’78 doesn’t have him fused with Enjolras and does have at least a hint of a backstory but otherwise this still applies.)

MISCELLANEOUS:

- All these French names are so weird and hard to remember. What was the Bishop’s sister’s name again? Actually never mind, I’ll just come up with something that sounds French. Also “Monsieur Madeleine” sounds stupid, let’s just not use his name at all, it’s not like anybody will notice. And Montreuil-sur-Mer is too hard to pronounce, let’s just change the name or awkwardly avoid saying it.

(”Hey guys, what’s the name of this town where we live?” “The Town, obviously.” “What’s our mayor called again?” “He’s called The Mayor.”)

(Alternate options: Monteis-sur-Monteis. Vigaux. Monsieur Madleen.)

- How many years did Valjean and Cosette spend at the convent? Nah, it’s too much trouble to look it up. Let’s just say ten. (What year even is this? Which uprising? Who’s the king we’re talking about here? HOW old is Cosette again? WE JUST CAN’T KNOW.)

- Historical accuracy, what historical accuracy? (THERE SURE ARE A LOT OF TRICOLOR FLAGS IN BOURBON RESTORATION FRANCE. Also What The Hell Are You Wearing Cosette. Valjean are those culottes? Is that a pilgrim hat?? What era IS this? Did you just raid the studio’s costume storage for whatever vaguely old-fashioned clothes you could find? Actually that’s totally what you did, wasn’t it?)

- Valjean needs to be hot and shouldn’t age too much during the movie. I mean we don’t really even know how time works so why should he age anyway? Okay fine, ‘78!Valjean, you get a grey wig and a beard.

- Cosette first sees Marius '35: when he’s giving a speech which is interrupted by guards '52: when he’s running away from guards after giving a speech '78: when he’s with Enjolras who is giving a speech which is interrupted by guards and spied on by Javert '98: when he’s giving a speech which is spied on by Javert

- Valjean takes the wounded Marius to Cosette rather than to Gillenormand (exception: ‘78 where it’s never shown where he takes Marius)

- Valjean witnesses Javert’s suicide (exception: '78)

I think there are also some similarities in editing and blocking and cinematography but it would get really technical if I tried to explain them and I’m not even sure I know enough about the subject to really talk about it. Also there are a bunch of really mundane similarities that I didn’t think were worth mentioning (like the glass walls thing).

I didn’t include the 1917 silent film because I haven’t seen it. I don’t know if it fits this pattern.

Anyway, feel free to add things!

EDIT: Okay something I left out earlier but should be pointed out is the focus on ~*~Redemption~*~ that these movies have. (With the exception of ‘52.) And ‘78 especially does this what with Valjean actually escaping from prison rather than being released and then he just flat out assaults a guy and we never even see if the guy lives. So suddenly the focus is on Valjean being a sinner, rather than on him having been wronged by society.

‘35 does this in another way, having Valjean actually consider killing Javert at the barricades. ‘98 does it by having Valjean be a huge dick. I mean I think that’s what that was about anyway.

#adaptations #balmaf

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