#but so far. liking this jean valjean a lot because. well i liked his beard after he got out of prison

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

not gonna finish it tonight since it's late but i got about halfway through les misérables 1935. so far i think that the relationship between cosette and jean valjean is where this movie really shines but the pacing has... well, issues. can't say i'm surprised though considering that's just a problem almost every version of les misérables faces

[mu-mumie]

My illustration of the beginning scene from the first volume of the Pont-au-Change novels by Arlene C. Harris.

It took 2-3 hours and I have to admit most of it’s caused by the fact that I chose A5 format and decided to draw the small details with the very thick tip of my black dry pastel.

[ID: A charcoal drawing of a night scene on a sparsely-lit bridge. Two men are standing next to the railing on the left side. The first one has white hair and a white beard and is clutching the second, dark-daired one, by the waist. The second man is leaning far over the railing’s edge with his hand stretched down towards the dark river. He is holding the hand of a third man, who is dangling above the river in the darkness. End ID]

Yes, there is a sequel to Les Mis and yes, it is quite good. I’ve added a link to it above and I will rant about it under the cut O.....o

So what is this thing I just sprang at you really about?

Well, to get the basic info look at this great review by @wolfsbaneblooming - it since it covers the main points quite well I don’t want to repeat what’s already been told elsewhere and in a better way :’3

As for me, I’m in the first half of the second book, Sanctuary, and so far I am enjoying it a lot. There’s action, very nice plot twists, quite interesting original characters and a lot, A LOT of historical research. I have to admit I am skipping those bits much the same as I was skipping them in the brick sorry!!

When it comes to the canon characters, I really enjoy the way Cosette’s portrayed here. Marius is.. a good, believable Marius and as such I’d love to smack him from time to time but that’s just natural for me xD I loved the returning supporting characters such as Azelma and..others (not gonna spoil it :’3). 

As for the main duo, so far they seem quite solid. Javert’s derailment and his path to finding his footing again does feel believable as it takes him a long time to figure things out and it doesn’t magically make him a completely fine human being. He rages, he suffers, he refuses to communicate his feelings, he hides and lashes out, all the good stuff is there :’3 Plus it’s fascinationg to see the difference between Javert from after the Seine and Javert from the times they meet Hugo when he’s moreorless at peace with himself. Also the dynamics between him and Valjean is interesting to watch as it changes :’3 ...Jean Valjean is still Jean Valjean and very much so xD I agree with the review I referenced that more depth would never hurt but so far I get surprised by him from time to time so I’m not complaining :’))

Random details? Random details!!

the roses, the roses the rosessss.... O.....o 

Also, the language used is very close to what I think the brick would be like if I were to read the original instead of my translation. 

I very much enjoyed the chaos that was the bridge scene - honestly, in no post-Seine fic I’ve read was this scene so... intense and complicated - for vague spoilers just have a close look at the fanart above :’3

...Javert’s snark IS there. I’m hoping for more of it as I’ll read on! 

I hate Bambatois, I really do xD 

I also hate that one men-hating woman whom I won’t even name because I despise her entire existence for what she’s doing to those gamins.

there’s been many times I had to put the book down because of plot twists. Believe me, even when it’s sequel, Divine Providence is still as unbelievable and still as dumb as it’s in the brick xD

....oh! And ...I cannot stop my mind from imagining JavJav in a Batman-sort-of cape. Because.. spoilery reasons. ...But. Those who have read it have to admit that the general vibe is there :’3 oh my god please stop me from making a fanart with Javert in a Batman cape o___O

[esteliel]

I'm really curious about your take on the Rock Drop scene? I think it's a pretty central scene for this version of Valjean, and I'm still debating what it means--his intent and how much of it was 'planned' vs. reactive, etc (tbc I don't think it's a Bad Scene, actually! but I think it's got a lot of potential ambiguity and bears some real consideration).

Ha, I had extensive conversations about that scene with friends. This isprobably going to turn into an essay because by this point I have spent hourstalking about it. /o\

So my main problem with it is that I’m having a very hard time readingWest’s emotions in that scene, after his first reaction of amusement. I’verewatched all of Valjean and Javert’s scenes six or seven times to try and geta feeling for character voices for fic, and I’ve come to my own theory now, butI do agree that it is a confusing scene on the first watch, and it took meabout three rewatches to come to a conclusion for myself.

I’ve been planning to make a post actually about the execution scene, whichI found way more viscerally affecting than the rock scene, and which in turnalso really influences my view of the rock scene, so maybe that’s where Ishould start.

So that sets the scene before we even get to the quarry: the chains, thewhips, the constant beatings - the fact that a prisoner is beaten even for thesmallest act of self-defense.

All of the guards are presented as brutal bullies, with the man latergetting crushed by a rock kicking a chained prisoner like a dog. We see anotherbrutal whipping when a prisoner dares to attack a guard - and then, of course,we see the execution scene.

Every time I see that scene, it’s like a punch in the gut in the way theyhave framed it. What it is supposed to be is an execution as punishment for aprisoner attacking a guard. What it IS though is Javert killing a man - partlyout of duty, yes - but for the most part out of sheer sadism. He does not evenacknowledge the man whom he kills. He doesn’t even look at him. That man’s lifemeans that little to Javert - or tothe other guards. He kills him the way he’d put down a dog who bit someone.Worse - he looks at Valjean the entire time. He kills a man just so that he can teach Valjean a lesson.

And what that glance says to Valjean is that Valjean’s life is of as littleworth as the man who just got executed. That Valjean, too, could die at anymoment, if Javert wants it. It’s not just a power game, it’s the literal deathof a human being, and that death has absolutely no importance to Javert, hejust uses it as a slap in Valjean’s face, to say “I have the power to kill youjust like this the first time you dare to lift a finger, and I know that timewill come, and I will enjoy it when it does.”

So this is a very longwinded description, but I haven’t seen anyone mentionthat execution so far, and I have such a deep visceral reaction to it - it’sthe most horrifying example of brutality, sadism and dehumanization I have seenin any adaptation.

For me, this sets the scene for Toulon itself: what we see is the entire,horrifying prison system that crushes Valjean like grain of millet beneath the millstone.

He is trapped in a world of chains, of constant beatings, of whips andsadistic bullies, and if he so much as lifts a finger to defend himself, he’sdead. By the time we see him in the quarry, it has been eighteen years of that.Eighteen years to reduce his entire world to a hell where it’s only us versusthem.

How do you survive that? I don’t think I have physical aggression in me atall. But if you are trapped in a system of such crushing injustice andbrutality, how long until you internalize the dehumanization? I think it wouldtake less than a month for me to get to a point where I’d be filled by nothingbut hate and dream about killing all of the guards.

And then Valjean sees one of the guards bully another prisoner. I don’tthink he even needs to feel a protective urge in that scene. There is noindividuality in Toulon (well, except for Javert’s obsession with Valjean, ha);you are either A Guard or A Convict. It’s one of Them brutalizing one of Us. IfValjean had carried the buckets that day, he would have been kicked justbecause a guard felt like it.

And then he sees an opportunity to lash back out, and I think he uses itwith that same, unthinking instinct that we see described in the Brick astaking over when he sees an opportunity for escape:

He escaped impetuously, like the wolfwho finds his cage open. Instinct said to him, “Flee!” Reason would have said,“Remain!” But in the presence of so violent a temptation, reason vanished;nothing remained but instinct. The beast alone acted.

I don’t think he has any plan there. I don’t think he’s planning to create adiversion and maybe escape. Before that scene, we see him looking up at Javert:he knows that there’s a guard above him, watching, and we see yet moreprisoners and guards working behind Javert. A little rock slide definitelywon’t be enough of a diversion to escape that way.

It’s just an instinctive outburst of hate – the way he tries to lash backout at the children who attack him. But now, for perhaps the very first time,he succeeds. He gets his revenge. He sort of smiles – he’s pleased at havingcrushed one of Them.

Then he realizes the man isn’t dead, and I have to admit that I can’t seemto read his facial expression there. One of my initial theories was that assoon as he realizes that the man’s still alive and wounded, he’s hit by asudden moment of compassion and goes to help.

But then I rewatched Javert’s interrogation of Valjean several times, and ifyou watch Valjean’s face when Javert confronts him with his theory that Valjeanonly did it because he was hoping to be released early, to me it definitelylooks like Valjean has the sort of guilty/tired/despairing reaction of beingcaught out.

So informed by that, what I now think happens in that scene is that herealizes the guards can’t lift the beam to get the wounded guard free. Javertis shouting about using ropes, and Valjean realizes that here’s his chance: he’sstrong enough to free the man, and maybe that’ll get him released early, maybeit’ll get him some other advantage. And it might even be coupled with some sortof residual instinctive remorse, but I’m starting to feel like if that were thecase, they’d have lingered on his face longer to give us more distinctiveemotions? Because West can do that,despite the horrid beard, if you look at his reactions to the Bishop and PetitGervais.

So these are my theories about what happened and why he did it. I’ve seensome complaints about how a murderous Valjean is completely out of character,but I very much disagree with that – even though pacifist Valjean who doesn’teven lift a single finger to defend himself against Patron-Minette and whorefuses to use his rifle at the barricade is Extremely Important to me (and Iwish the musical didn’t get that so very wrong, but oh well, at least theshallow part of me can enjoy a menacing Ramin!jean there).

Using an opportunity to kill or at least harm one of the guards doesn’t onlyfeel in character for me, but I’m baffled – given the utter brutality anddehumanization of the bagne we are shown in such explicit detail – how peoplecan expect the victim of that system to notwant to lash back out at it. After eighteen years of that sort of brutal abuse,I know that I would; it wouldn’t even take a year to get me that far. If you dehumanizesomeone to that extent, if you behave so inhumanely, then the only consequenceof that will be that you in turn are seen as not even human, but a phantom, asValjean sees them in the Brick. We are shown how utterly little worth a humanlife has there, so what’s one guard less? One less kick aimed at you, one lessbeating.

So in conclusion, I think attempting to kill a guard isn’t only in characterfor Valjean, but for anyone trapped in that system, and my main problem with itis that I don’t think it should take three rewatches to figure out motivation –West can show emotion despite thebeard and the dirt makeup, so why not linger on his face for another second orthree and show us his amusement turning into a sudden realization ordetermination?

On the other hand, I guess it’s an opportunity to write long essays, sothere’s that (and sorry for the length of this).

[bbclesmis]

The Guardian: Les Misérables episode one recap – it's the big muscle, magnificent trouser show!

Magnificent trousers! A twirly-tached war hero saved on the battlefield! Pretty ladies drinking lots of wine! Revolutionary crowd scenes! A cute starving baby! Dominic West with a convict beard so large it has its own casting agent and dressing room!

You can see why the BBC thought it might be exciting to take on Les Misérables as reimagined by Andrew “Pride and Prejudice” Davies, master distiller of complex stories. It is a bold move calculated to take us into 2019 with a warm glow in our hearts and newfound respect for the BBC’s Netflix-embattled drama department.

Did they forget, though, what they were up against? You can imagine the production meeting. “In your face, world’s longest-running musical seen by 70 million people in 44 countries. Sod you, 2012 Hollywood adaptation starring Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe that cost $61m to make and won three Oscars. Cowed by one of the greatest (and longest) novels of the 19th century? Not I, monsieur. We’ve got the caretaker of Hogwarts, a boy who says “scoundrel” in a really sweet way, Derek Jacobi and women lifting up their dresses to wee in the woods. We’ve totally got this.”

Except so far they haven’t. Setting aside a few bravura performances, this was no War and Peace (Davies’ last BBC outing, with a similar rumoured budget of £10m). One of the biggest problems for anyone attempting to make entertainment out of Les Misérables is that it runs the risk of being, well, miserable. It’s about a load of French people with mostly raggedy clothes being collectively urinated upon from a great height, and not in a “quaint collective urination scene” kind of way. (Did I dream that?) And having some clearly British extras screaming “Allons-y!” in the background does not help, especially when the cast seems to have been briefed to adopt whatever accents they feel like, with a bizarre mix somewhere between My Fair Lady and Last of the Summer Wine.

This first outing was rescued, though, by West as a “noble Incredible Hulk” version of Jean Valjean and Jacobi as the weedy, unassuming bishop who is the soul of all that is good in the world. Jacobi’s “Don’t forget, don’t ever forget” was a heartbreaking delight. Davies has made some bold decisions to break with the narrative of the Hollywood version in order to encourage us to forget that we’re expecting Hugh Jackman to appear and burst into song at any moment. So we had a lot of foreshadowing (the battlefield encounter between twirly-tached Pontmercy – Marius’ father – and the soon-to-be-seen-as-innkeeper Thénardiers) and a lot of heavy-handed explanation of social theory. It sometimes seemed as if the ghost of Karl Marx was about to walk across the screen wearing a T-shirt bearing the words: “Inequality is bad.”

The Fantine setup felt very long. Did we really need to get to know the appalling Felix (played wonderfully by Johnny Flynn)? The time might have been better spent on more tension between Javert (David Oyelowo, who shows menacing promise) and Valjean. But, I suppose, that would have been too much like the Hollywood version. Overall I wanted fewer scenes that seemed to be saying: “We’re showing you this because they didn’t show it in the Russell Crowe one.”

The two main difficulties with this adaptation? So far it doesn’t feel very French. And it hasn’t yet achieved the emotional grandeur of the musical versions. As period dramas go, there’s none of the humour of Dickens or Austen and none of the glamour of Tolstoy. But it’s early days and we must give it time. I did, however, enjoy this line: “By the time you read this, three galloping horses will be carrying us home to the Mamas and the Papas.”

Least convincing romantic encounter

I worried about Fantine’s taste in men. A vulpine dandy who has modelled his look on a cross between Alvin Stardust and Boris Johnson is never good news. “I want to dedicate my life to you … You see, I’m a poet … You will be my muse.” It’s the Tinder profile from hell. Have alarm bells ever rung any louder?

“I don’t want you to be sad ��” “Then …” Oh for goodness sake, Fantine! A man who murmurs “Then …” while he nods downwards towards his magnificent trousers is not a catch. (Also: the bluntness of “You have all the power” felt too #MeToo and anachronistic.) Lily Collins as Fantine is utterly arresting and, of course, we must believe that she was corrupted by a bounder. But she’s got an awful lot of work to do now to convince the audience that she’s a believable character and not just a starry-eyed idiot.

The Gwyneth Paltrow onion for tears on demand

In later episodes this award will belong to Fantine/Cosette, but here the tear-jerker extraordinaire was the bishop (Jacobi). No one does quietly resigned pruning better. Here’s an actor of charm, determination and genius with six decades of experience who is not going to be held back by playing a bit part with added gardening. Pitched against West’s brutish resentment, Jacobi stole these scenes, even trying valiantly to inject them with a touch of comedy and self-awareness.

Thank God they cast him, as to throw away this role would have been to doom this entire project: we must understand that the story hangs upon the priest’s intervention in Valjean’s soul. With this line, Jacobi telegraphed everything: “Even if the world has done you a great injustice, does it really serve you to have a heart full of bitterness and hatred?” Whatever the opposite of phoning it in is (turning yourself into a one-man FedEx?), Jacobi did it here. Full-on tears in our household with extra candlesticks.

‘Ecoutez et répétez!’: classic miserable lines

• “Your strongman act … What for?” Well, it is appreciated by this viewer, at least. I’m not sure Victor Hugo included Valjean’s Feats of Extraordinary Strength exclusively for my benefit, but I am grateful. I might have to trap someone under a large boulder in the hope that he’ll appear.

• “We could be down in the gutter and no one would care.” “But why should it always be like that?” Because this is a drama about social inequality and the audience must be made aware of this before they get too distracted by large beards, big muscles and gigantic emotional upheavals.

• “She will be happy to see you and your magnificent trousers.” This line should feature in every Andrew Davies drama. Or possibly every drama ever.

The Guardian, 30 Dec 2018

[kainosite]

Les Misérables 2018, Episode 1

So I guess all the cool kids are doing episode reviews, huh?

As I’ve said, we can’t properly evaluate this adaptation until we find out whether Gavroche makes fun of Enjolras’s beard, but here are my thoughts so far.

The Good:

• Merging the timelines so the narrative can follow all three protagonist groups simultaneously was a brilliant adaptation decision.  It slightly borks Fantine and Cosette’s timeline, but it was so, so worth it because it solves the “my second protagonist iz pastede on yay” problem that afflicts so many versions of Les Misérables, including the Brick.  I understand why Marius is there, but I’m not convinced Hugo’s audience cared even at the time, and if they did 50% of his narrative purpose evaporated at the Battle of Sedan.  If Davies wanted to do a reasonably faithful adaptation that gives Marius equal time with Valjean he really needed to address this problem somehow, and he did, and it works.  The intercutting was maybe a little faster than ideal, but this was an inspired choice.

• This adaptation has the best sense of place of any I’ve seen, including the 1934 French one which was actually filmed on location but didn’t really believe in establishing shots.  The bagne was extremely well done, Digne looked like Digne, Paris was passible.

• The Pontmercy/Gillenormand group were FLAW FREE.  Baby Marius was adorable, Georges was hot and sad, Gillenormand was a flaming pile of royalist trash.  I felt like this adaptation really got him in his horrible Ultra soul.  These are far and away the best English-language Georges and Gillenormand we’ve ever had, and possibly the best of all time.

• Nicolette is the hero of this episode apparently?  I am very okay with this, and I feel like Hugo would be too.

• Favourite was great.  OOC, but great.  2018!Favourite can stay.

I’m very unconvinced by the “If Fantine had real friends she wouldn’t have so many problems” criticism I’ve been seeing.  Real friends are up for giving you sound advice like “These guys are not marriage material; don’t fall for this ‘I’m a ~poet~’ bullshit” and “Use the tour, Fantine; that’s what it’s there for.”  They are not up for subsidizing your poor family planning choices for more than a decade until your baby is old enough to bring in a wage.  They might be able to club together to cover Fantine’s rent for a quarter – and perhaps they do; she doesn’t leave Paris until Cosette’s a toddler – but they’re living on the margins themselves.  Favourite is canonically supporting her mother.  Ultimately they have to be saving so they have the capital to form their own households.  This is a classic “secure your own oxygen mask first” scenario, and Fantine’s situation is not something they are equipped or morally obliged to handle.

• Good English accent decisions, more or less.

• The costuming was pretty decent.  The bagne uniforms were very, very good.

The Meh:

• So far I am not a fan of the interpretations of either Valjean or Javert in this, although their character-defining scenes won’t come until Montreuil.

That said, I think Valjean’s extreme aversion to violence post-redemption tends to eclipse in people’s minds the bit where he stood over Myriel’s bed contemplating whether or not to stave his skull in for no fucking reason, which was also a thing he did in the Brick.  The fact that we’ve never seen him act violently doesn’t mean he was incapable of it.  He’s clever and good at exploiting an opportunity, and at that stage of his life he hates the world in general and the bagne guards in particular an awful lot.  The “rocks fall, guards die” sequence is not an adaptation choice I like, but I think it’s a defensible one.

Likewise, Smugvert is a time-honored tradition even if it’s one I find trite and point-missing, and Oyelowo is clearly having a ball with it, so you do you, 2018!Javert.

• Myriel was neither great nor bad, although shoutout to Mme. Magloire for that “Was all that silver really ours in the first place?”  “Yes, of course it was!” exchange.

• Baptistine and Mlle. Gillenormand apparently don’t exist in this adaptation?  I’m choosing to believe they ditched their controlling relatives and ran off together to have fabulous lesbian Catholic zealot adventures somewhere.

• There was a shitload of Tholomyès in this.  He was perfect, but there can be enough of a perfectly adapted thing.  In Tholomyès’ case “enough” would probably be around 30 seconds’ worth.  I jest, but I think there’s some merit in the criticism that we were seeing the relationship more from his perspective than Fantine’s.  It might have been better to spend more time establishing the dinginess and drudgery of her daily life prior to becoming his mistress, and less time on him.

• Starting with Waterloo makes the Pontmercys the primary leg of the Valjean/Fantine+Cosette/Marius stool.  On some level I guess that’s fair enough, since they never get their fair share of attention in adaptations and they’re the thing this adaptation is doing best, but it’s very odd.

• I don’t loathe the French background dialogue, but neither am I convinced it was a good idea.

• I’m still a bit annoyed about the inaccuracy of the bagne chain situation, although I think there are actually sound narrative reasons for not giving Valjean a chainmate.

• For an adaptation written by a guy who hates the musical, this miniseries sure seems convinced that the guards only address the convicts by number, and very keen on having Jean Valjean shout his name at regular intervals.  None of that is from the Brick.

The Bad

• The red location titles.  WHY.

• We shall not speak of the women’s hair.

• Not to kinkshame the Telegraph but we understand people in history had the same bodily functions that we do.  It’s not actually necessary to watch them perform them.

• There were some really odd decisions about how to allocate screen time: the timeskip sky montage, picking up Valjean’s nighttime wanderings after he’d been denied a place at the inn rather than spending 30 seconds to show him getting chucked out, some of the grisette scenes.

• Some of the complaints about the dialogue seem unjust to me, but some of it was... not the best.

• I’m happy to accept a pre-redemption Valjean whose antisocial hostility is a matter of firm conviction rather than a vague, inchoate resentment, but even under those circumstances “YAAARGH!” is not an appropriate response to someone you just tried to rob giving you expensive candlesticks.

• Likewise I am happy to accept that the robbery of Petit Gervais was a deliberate act, and possibly a sort of fuck-you directed towards Myriel’s decision to buy Valjean’s soul and sell it to a third party without his consent after nineteen years of people doing shit to him without his consent, but if Valjean’s not in a fugue state running about two feet down the road half a minute after the kid is out of sight does not constitute an adequate attempt at restitution.  This would have been a good moment for a timeskip sky montage.

On balance, pending the Judgment of Gavroche, I think this adaptation is fine.  It’s not doing what I want with my favorite characters, but I got my Valjean and my Javert in 1978.  It’s only fair the Georges Pontmercy fans should get their turn.

[thenardiers]

hello! not at all an expert in anything 19th century french lit, but I have read two separate translations of the brick and been active in online circles discussing les mis (especially javert) for a couple of years. someone more qualified feel free to chime in <3

the first is just a poor translation, I think. the hapgood edition makes hugo's imagery clearer:

There are in this world two beings who give a profound start,—the mother who recovers her child and the tiger who recovers his prey. Javert gave that profound start.

javert has had such a visceral, immediate reaction to recognising valjean that it can only be compared to two things - a tiger sighting prey, and a mother's relief upon finding a child she lost track of. both feel a deep jolt of relief and excitement when identifying the thing they were searching for, and hugo finds javert's reaction comparable!

it's a fun mixture of imagery because javert arguably inhabits both roles, the mother and the tiger, in his efforts to catch valjean. he's oddly precious about catching valjean and really wants to personally be the one who does it, to the point of intentionally not telling his superiors what he's doing because he knows they'd give the task to someone else:

to lay hands on an ex-convict who had made his escape and was reputed dead, on a criminal whom justice had formerly classed forever as among malefactors of the most dangerous sort, was a magnificent success which the old members of the Parisian police would assuredly not leave to a newcomer like Javert, and he was afraid of being deprived of his convict;

as for the tiger/prey imagery... I don't think I need to expand on that 😫

the second quote has sparked a Lot of discussion in the past, you're not the first to ask wtf is going on there 😭 it's open for interpretation but basically, javert acknowledges madame thénardier's bravery and belittles her in the same breath. monsieur thénardier and the patron-minette pretty much fold instantly once javert walks into the room, but madame t refuses to be cowed. javert is impressed - what a grenadier! what a soldier!

some useless info I just stumbled upon that makes javert's comment even more appropriate to the situation:

A grenadier was originally a specialist soldier who threw hand grenades in battle. The distinct combat function of the grenadier was established in the mid-17th century, when grenadiers were recruited from among the strongest and largest soldiers.

he's just throwing out one-liners left and right huh. we've got a regular comedian over here.

is his comment about her beard a petty dig at her unfeminine physical appearance or a more metaphorical comment about her general attitude being more "manly" than any of the men around her? we don't know! maybe it's both!

his comment about having claws like a woman is equally debatable. maybe he does physically have clawlike nails that he's threatening her with, but I like to read it more symbolically. javert has a lot of animal imagery and claw imagery in particular. he never actually uses brute force once in the entire novel, as far as I can recall, being portrayed more as a hunter who stalks and pounces:

Jean Valjean remained inert beneath Javert’s grasp, like a lion submitting to the claws of a lynx.

from his derailment:

���It is well. Deliver up your savior. Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws.”

javert is really unkind to himself throughout the novel. having claws like a woman is not a compliment, but it is a power move. he's basically saying, in the cruelest, pettiest way possible - yes, you have brute strength like a man, but I will maim and ruin you like a woman scorned if you come closer! I have the pettiness and cattiness to do so without remorse!

and the maiming doesn't have to be literal - when madame t weeps for her daughters a few moments later, he flippantly tells her they're already imprisoned without caring how this will affect her. madame t dies in prison! javert's shitty joke is, as far as we know, the last thing she hears as a free woman! grim! it reminds me of madame victurnien's role in fantine's downfall, now that I think about it - not all acts of cruelty need be physically violent. madame t may be about to throw an entire rock at his head, but javert has other ways to threaten her.

that's my take, anyway! there's a dozen other interpretations that could be made from the "claws like a woman" quote in particular, that's just my thought on it. I hope that helped!

can someone who knows more about 19th century French colloquialisms explain what's going on here

[bbclesmis]

LES MISERABLES: Dominic West on the new PBS drama – Interview

The actor talks playing Jean Valjean

When most people think about Victor Hugo’s sprawling novel LES MISERABLES, originally published in 1862, they associate it with the hugely popular stage musical and its film adaptation. However, LES MISERABLES has been adapted as a straight drama on a number of occasions.

The newest version of LES MISERABLES, a miniseries originally produced by and aired on the BBC, begins airing in the U.S. on PBS MASTERPIECE on Sunday, April 14. Dominic West stars as reformed criminal Jean Valjean, trying to live a good life as he is pursued over decades by obsessed law officer Javert (David Oyelowo), with revolution in France looming in the background. The miniseries was adapted by Andrew Davies.

Actor West, originally from Yorkshire, England, spent four years in the U.S. on THE WIRE. More recently, he’s starred in the Showtime series THE AFFAIR, which airs its fifth and final season later this year. West’s AFFAIR character, the adulterous, substance-abusing Noah Soloway, is a far cry from LES MISERABLES’s self-sacrificing Jean Valjean. West has played a number of other conflicted souls – Valmont in LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES (the National Theatre Live production), Hector Madden in THE HOUR, Richard Burton in BURTON AND TAYLOR – as well as outright villains, including the rapacious Spartan noble in 300.

West says of being cast as Valjean, “[David Oyelowo] gets people to approach him when they want a great, good man to be played. And people approach me when they want the opposite. And so I get a lot of villains. It was so refreshing to play a hero, who is a profoundly good man, and I only want to do that from now on. Living with Jean Valjean is a wonderful experience. Living with Noah Soloway is not. A few years ago, in one year, I played Fred West, the [real-life] serial killer [in the miniseries APPROPRIATE ADULT], Iago [in OTHELLO], and some other assh*le, and it was a really depressing year. These people get to you. And I’ve discovered that although making evil is more dramatic, it’s more easily made. The Devil has the best jokes, and it’s much easier to make evil interesting. It’s much more interesting to make good interesting. It’s much harder, and I think it’s well worth it, because at the end of the day, I really realized with this, that if you believe in the subject matter, and if you really believe it’s a story that needs to be told, and that will benefit people, it really makes a difference to your day, and getting out of bed, and your motivation.”

ASSIGNMENT X: In 2014, you played a real-life good guy in PRIDE, a gay rights activist who was also a workers’ rights activist. He seemed like a very warm character who did not seem to have a bad side. Did playing him sustain you for any amount of time, or …?

DOMINIC WEST: [chuckles] Actually, yeah. The guy I played is a good friend of mine now, so he’s real. My guy, Jonathan, was the second guy in the U.K. to be diagnosed H.I.V.-positive, and he’s still very much with us.

AX: Do people you seek you out for the darker parts, or do you seek out those characters? And were you surprised to be offered Jean Valjean?

WEST: No, I don’t seek out the darker parts at all, no. But I suppose once you play one, then that’s how people see you [laughs].

AX: 300 is hard to forget …

WEST: [laughs] Yes, exactly. It is tricky, especially with a part like that, where you have to be the villain for other reasons in order to make the hero more heroic, I suppose. But no, I wasn’t really surprised to be offered Jean Valjean. I don’t know what I thought. Well, I suppose I thought, “Well, it’s been done, in the musical and the film, and why are we doing it again?”

AX: Did you come up with a satisfactory answer for LES MISERABLES to “Why are we doing it all again?”

WEST: Oh, absolutely, yeah. To my amazement, it’s only ever been given a two-hour outing for the [most part]. I think the BBC did an adaptation in the ‘60s, but even that was only five half-hours. This is actually the longest adaptation of LES MISERABLES, I think, I don’t know about French television, but I think that’s probably ever been, and therefore there’s every reason to do it, because of the scale of the book, and because, as people have said, people think of it as a musical. And as wonderful a musical as it might be, there’s more to it.

AX: Had you read LES MISERABLES as a novel before you became involved with this version?

WEST: No, I’d never read it. I didn’t really know it. It never really crossed my radar. I did try and watch the film and didn’t get too far [laughs]. So no, I didn’t know it. I read it once I read Andrew’s scripts, which got me into it.

AX: Did you see yourself in the character, or the character in yourself, right away?

WEST: I suppose in any great, very well-written part, you respond to something in it that chimes with you, and a lot chimed with me in this, because the writing’s so great, it’s universal. It’s why it’s lasted this long.

AX: How do you see Valjean?

WEST: Well, apart from the physical – he’s got to be the strongest man in the world, and the greatest superhero ever – apart from that, the psychological difficulty for me was his guilt, the level of his guilt and his feeling of unworthiness. For a long time, I couldn’t understand how you could feel guilty about stealing a loaf of bread and being in jail for nineteen years. But of course, his psychology is so well-charted. It’s the psychology of someone who’s been incarcerated and believes they don’t deserve anything better, that they’re not worthy of being loved and giving love, they’ve been so starved of love and gentleness that they feel that they’re only worthy of prison life. And that’s why he surrenders himself to Javert three times, I think, and I could never understand why. You have to get into that different mindset.

AX: Valjean starts out with a beard of Biblical proportions. Did you have difficulty dealing with the beard?

WEST: [laughs] Actually, it did most of the work for me. Sometimes great hair and makeup does that for you, and costume. And it really did do a lot, that beard. You don’t really have to do anything with that, except that, with your eyes. The wig was far more trouble. The beard, I loved.

AX: How was it working with Derek Jacobi, who plays the Bishop of Digne, the first person to show kindness to Valjean? He’s not in it for very long, but …

WEST: Well, it’s a tricky part. If you hadn’t read the book, it opens with him, and what you realize is that Hugo has written the nicest, greatest man, the most virtuous, the most wonderful, the most compassionate human being who’s ever lived, in the Bishop of Digne, and you think, who the hell can play that? And there’s only one person who could possibly do it. He was actually supposed to be played by Max von Sydow. He was cast, and we were all going, “Max von Sydow, amazing.” But unfortunately, I think he broke his arm just before [shooting, and had to bow out]. Amazingly, we got Derek Jacobi, and you think, it couldn’t be anyone else. He’s a human being who exudes goodness in some way, and it was just wonderful acting with him. And watching him off-set as well – completely contained, slightly detached, not wasting his energy. It was a real education. He’s been a hero of mine for ages, but it was just bliss, acting with him.

AX: When you realized that there’s a large population that are confused about this LES MISERABLES not being a musical, what was your reaction?

WEST: No. It’s been interesting reading the reviews and the Twitter/social media stuff on it when it was airing in the U.K. For the first episode, people were, “Where are the songs? Can you hear the people sing – no, we can’t.” [laughs] But by Episode 2, they were with us. By Episode 2, people were going, “I’m in there.” Is it Episode 2 when Lily [Collins, who plays Fantine] has her teeth pulled out? That’s the scene when everyone went, “Right. I’m here now.”

AX: When you do play darker characters, do you get try to leave it all at work and then go home and be really kind to everybody in real life?

WEST: I think you have to, yes. The worst part was the Fred West part. Anyone who was ever involved in that case, or who wrote a book about it later, had a breakdown. So you have to be very careful with these sorts of characters, and with him, I think we shot the whole thing in three weeks, and it was in Manchester, and I could go home to London and be with my kids.

AX: Now that you’ve gotten to play Jean Valjean, can you imagine yourself in your later years, playing supreme good guy the Bishop of Digne?

WEST: Yeah, I’d love to. If it works out that well, then I’ve led a good life.

This interview was conducted during PBS’s portion of the Winter 2019 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour.

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