#john valjean

[motions1ckn3ss]

john valjean joins the lineup alongside enjo ass, jon val jon, ja ver, and cuferaque

[secretmellowblog]

Adaptations always make Jean Valjean the main POV character of Les Mis, but that’s not true in the novel! The novel has a genuinely fascinating narrative structure where we spend most of our time with other POV characters, viewing Jean Valjean “from the outside.” To explain—-

The general structure of Les Mis is that

We meet a new character and learn about their daily life, personality, and backstory

Then we see this character meet Jean Valjean, always under a different false identity and alias. We see how the new character interacts with Valjean and how both of them are changed by the encounter.

Smash cut to Jean Valjean’s Pov as he has an emotional breakdown about whatever happened

We meet another character and learn about their life and backstory —

Rinse and repeat!

The novel begins by introducing us to the life and backstory of Bishop Myriel, and then we see Myriel meet Jean Valjean. After that we meet the grisette Fantine and learn about her abandonment, and then we see her meet “Mayor Madeleine.” After that we meet Cosette suffering under the Thenardiers, and then we see her encounter a mysterious “Threadbare Millionaire. Then we meet Marius all absorbed in his love for a girl, then we see him encounter her strange father “Monsieur LeBlanc.” Etc etc etc

So we get this really interesting structure where Jean Valjean IS the closest thing the novel has to a “main character”— But we also spend most of the story viewing him from the outside, through the eyes of other people.

[wronghands1]

[demon4dilfs]

the theme for @valvertweek, “between dog and wolf” immediately made me want to do something with the song “i’m your man” by mitski. so i put together some collages with the lyrics and some brick quotes.

caps are from a west end bootleg featuring earl carpenter as javert and john owen-jones as jean valjean

[symphony-in-a]

John Riddle as Valjean was, in a word, ideal

[paarthursass]

A few thing's about the Muny's Les Mis that really stuck out to me:

Overall this is probably the first time that the interpersonal relationships really landed for me in a production of Les Mis. Intellectually I always understood that Valjean took in Cosette because he felt responsible for Fantine's suffering, but John Riddle did an excellent part in portraying Valjean's guilt. Peter Neureuther and Emily Bautista also got across Marius and Eponine's friendship really well. You felt the friendship and love between them.

The staging for At the End of the Day had Valjean up on the second level, watching the women and the foreman mob Fantine but not doing anything to intervene. In the transition to I Dreamed a Dream everyone left the stage except Valjean (still above her) and Fantine. Fantine looked up at Valjean, and he turned away and left her alone.

Valjean and Cosette both humming Castle on a Cloud while he leads her out of the woods and back to the Thenardier's inn 🥺

Jordan Donica sang the best version of Stars I have ever heard. That's all.

Though the musical never mentions that Gavroche and Eponine are siblings, the director obviously took pains to ensure the actors knew this. Gavroche was always watching Eponine when she was on stage with him, though they didn't interact all that much.

Emily Bautista is probably one of the best Eponine's I've ever seen. She's joyful in her scenes with Marius - you get why she's in love with him - but also has a clear chip on her shoulder when interacting with her father. Her On My Own was likewise great; we love an Eponine who expresses more than just general sadness.

During A Little Fall of Rain, no one notices that Eponine's been shot at first. Marius and Eponine sing while everyone else at the barricade goes on about their business like nothing's happening. Gavroche is the one who notices that Eponine is dying, and he rushes to get Grantaire and Enjolras's attention, at which point everyone realizes what's happened. Gavroche is visibly distraught, and one of the women hugs him and covers his eyes, forcing him to look away as Eponine dies. Graintaire also comforts him, and they continue to shield Gavroche as Eponine's body is taken away.

The aftermath of A Little Fall of Rain is haunting. Even Enjolras is visibly shaken; you can see in everyone's faces that Eponine's death has brought the glory of the revolution to a halt in the face of the reality that they could all die.

During Drink With Me, when Graintaire stares to sing his verse everyone in the barricade flinches, and Enjolras and some of the others rush forward to try and stop him from continuing.

John Riddle most beautiful version of Bring Him Home I have ever heard.

In the after math of the barricade, Javert comes on stage and first sees the bodies of the men. Then the turntable turns to show the other side of the barricade, where only Gavroche's body is. Javert is visibly shaken by this; he struggles to give orders to the other soldiers afterwards. You really get the sense that this, in addition to Valjean's sparing of him earlier, is what tips him over the edge.

I saw this on Friday so I know I'm forgetting other things but this was just SUCH a lovely production. I wish I could sear it into my brain so I could remember every little piece of it always. I'll never be able to watch the movie again.

[markbbrooklyn]

This September 25, 2010 Les Miz London performance has JOJ (my favorite Valjean and arguably the best of all-time) and Earl Carpenter (my favorite Javert).

In addition to being an excellent video of the show, the YouTuber has included THE COMPLETE LYRICS (as subtitles). So if you are unsure of the full lyrics of The Confrontation, One Day More, etc., this will add to your enjoyment of the show!

[24601orwhatever]

TOULON VALJEAN PREPARATION

(restaged ver)

[les-mis-guy-supreme]

ROUND 1-B

[musicalpilftournament]

Character Propaganda Pages Pt 1

Links to all the propaganda pages for each character in the tournament. I plan to add links to each page as new propaganda is released. Some characters don't have pictures, so please send them if you have any. For characters with lots of propaganda I have compiled sections into a "summary" and that's what will be attached to the polls. I also apologise in advance if I mislabel any actors or characters, I have difficulty recognising faces sometimes.

Marvin Trina Whizzer Brown Mendel Charlotte and Cordelia Jean Valjean The Bishop of Digne (X) Linda Monroe Bill Woodward Mother (TTO) (X) Father (TTO) (X) Tom Houston (X) MacNamara Karen Chasity (X) Solomon Lauter (X) Webby (X) Sweeney Todd (X) Mrs. Lovett The Baker (X) Baker's Wife The Witch Armand (X) Diana Goodman (X) Doctor Frank-N-Furter Marya Dmitrievna Pierre (X) Persephone Willy Wonka (X) Munkustrap (X) Elphaba (X) Claire Zachanassian (X) Heidi (X) Madame Giry (X) Gilles André (X) Erik (Phantom) Christine Daaé (X) June George (X) Delia (X) Barbara Maitland (X) Adam Maitland (X) Fanny Gabor (X) Gregor Vassy Anatoly Sergievsky (X) Walter de Courcey (X) George McFly (X) Phyllis Stone (X) Margaret White (X) Mama Rose Desiree Armfeldt (X)

[gavroche-le-moineau]

I know that in French Jean Valjean’s nickname in prison was “Jean-le-Cric” but if we were to fully translate it into English, “John-the-Jack” is just objectively funnier.

[lenievi]

I don't think it's in the book (but I could be wrong), but the scene in Les Misérables (2000) where Javert stops at Thénardier's and sees how a little girl (i.e. Cosette) is treated and asks her if she's happy there and if she likes it there, and she robotically answers "Yes, sir." because that's what she's been taught, and Javert just taking it at face value is so sad :(

and then when Javert gets back, he tries to send Fantine to prison because of the guy who beat her up...

[secretmellowblog]

Jean Valjean’s horrible awful relationship with religion is really fascinating— the way religion becomes deeply meaningful to his life but is also still a tool of social control that is used to violently oppress him. I love this line where he describes how bishops would “preach” to him in the galleys:

“[the bishop] said mass in the middle of the galleys, on an altar. He had a pointed thing, made of gold, on his head; it glittered in the bright light of midday. We were all ranged in lines on the three sides, with cannons with lighted matches facing us. We could not see very well. He spoke; but he was too far off, and we did not hear. That is what a bishop is like.”

Jean Valjean’s early relationship with religion is as this horrible violent obligation. He attends “mass” in the galleys, where cannons are pointed at him, so that if anyone in the crowd acts up they can all be massacred. The bishop is also so impossibly distant that they can’t even hear him. No one in prison is trying to actually speak to Jean Valjean or the other convicts; they’re just violently forcing them to act out the empty forms of Christianity while not allowing them to truly participate in it.

And while Myriel does change his life, and his faith…. Jean Valjean never fully internalizes the way Myriel treated him as an equal and insisted that they were brothers. And that’s in large part because of the hostility or terror which which the rest of the Church and society views him.

We’re told later that in the convent, Jean Valjean prays to the nuns doing penance, because “he did not dare to pray directly to God.”

There’s a fascinating tension between the fact that religion is extremely important to Jean Valjean’s life, but also, that same religion is often used against him as a tool of violent social control. He belongs to a religion that rejects him violently. He prays to a God that he does not dare to pray to directly, out of self-loathing. It’s a really strange complex relationship.

[angstics]

RAMIN KARIMLOO 🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦

[demon4dilfs]

valvert + song lyrics from my playlists part 2

[symphony-in-a]

Not me going through every part of the show where Valjean and Javert interact, regardless of audio quality (popcorn neighbor strikes again on this one)

Jordan Donica’s “shoot me NOW! for all I care”… chills. Just chills.