Les Mis: Right and Left

A lot of the early reviews of Les Miserables I read mentioned the way Tom Hooper frames many of the songs: The actors appear in extreme close up, usually occupying the right side of the screen and leaving the left side empty. At first, it's a strange and seemingly arbitrary choice. Since I had read about it beforehand, I paid extra attention to the composition of those shots while I watched the movie this afternoon, and far from being arbitrary, there is a definite purpose to the right/left framing.

The singing-on-the-right becomes noticeable early on in the film, especially in Anne Hathaway's rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream." Through much of the song, she occupies the right half of the screen, and in addition to that, her face is turned to the left of the camera and her head is inclined upward, as if she's singing to someone just off-screen. This pattern and posture is repeating in Hugh Jackman's early song, as well as young Cosette's "Castle on a Cloud."

When Valjean (Jackman) visits Fantine in the hospital and promises to save her daughter, and later when he arrives to rescue Cosette from the Thenardiers, the framing changes: Fantine (and Cosette and the Thenardiers) are again on the right, looking left and up, while Valjean appears on the left of the screen, looking right and slightly down. Of course, one reason for this compositional change is because it balances the screen (the way most close-up conversations are shot in movies).

I think there's more to it, though. Fantine's "I Dreamed a Dream" is a prayer for someone, anyone to save her from what her life has become. Cosette's "Castle on a Cloud" serves the same thematic purpose. And in response to both of these songs, Valjean appears on the left side of the screen, as if he is arriving to answer the women's prayers.

Once I noticed that right/left pattern, I started looking for it in Les Mis's subsequent songs. There are many more right-side-prayers than left-side-answers throughout much of the film, but the pattern remained consistent. It becomes even more noticeable in the final act songs, as many of the characters' prayers are finally answered.

I'll point out what I think are the two most important examples. (Spoiler warning if you somehow don't already know what happens at the end of Les Miserables.)

When Valjean tells Marius that he has to run away so that Marius and Cosette can be safe together, freed from the ghosts of Valjean's past, he is on the right side of the screen, and Marius is on the left, listening. A crucifix is visible in the background of the room, as if Valjean is the penitent seeking forgiveness, and Marius the priest offering absolution.

When the Thenardiers crash Marius and Cosette's wedding, Marius starts to throw the dastardly pair out, but before he can, they reveal a secret: Valjean was the man who rescued Marius on the night the barricades fell. It's the answer to a prayer Marius has been praying since he awoke and sang "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables." During this conversation, Marius is on the right of the screen, asking questions; the Thenardiers are on the left, providing answers.

In the finale, several characters harmonize on these lines:

"And remember
The truth that once was spoken:
To love another person is to see the face of god"

This idea is at the center of Les Miserables, and it's one that the right/prayers-left/answers framing reinforces throughout the film.

Les Miserables - "Confrontation"

The "confrontation" scene in the Les Mis movie is a little different than the stage version.

The Les Miserables Movie Trailer

Here's the first trailer for the upcoming Les Miserables musical movie (the first time the musical has been adapted for the screen), which stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway. The movie is directed by Tom Hooper (The King's Speech).

Les Mis has a bunch of well-known songs--"One Day More," "Bring Him Home," "Do You Hear The People Sing?" "On My Own," "Master of the House,""Turning," Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," "Who Am I?" "I Dreamed a Dream," and others (there are nearly 50 musical numbers in all)--so it's intriguing that the trailer only uses one song ("I Dreamed a Dream"). And more than that, why choose that song?

(Spoilers follow, if you somehow don't know the plot of Les Mis already.)

While Fantine, who sings "I Dreamed a Dream," is an important character to the plot (Valjean adopting Cosette after her mother dies sets much of the story in motion), she dies less than a third of the way into the story. Besides that, while Hathaway is a star, she's hardly the biggest name in this cast; Jackman and Crowe are bigger stars, and they have much larger roles, too. 

I don't think Hathaway has a particularly impressive voice, either. Compare the trailer to this video of stage actress Lea Salonga singing the same song: 

So, why choose this song? I think the choice has relatively little to do with the Les Mis movie itself. Instead, they used "I Dreamed a Dream" because of another recent performance: 

That's right, "I Dreamed a Dream" is the song Susan Boyle sang in her first audition on Britain's Got Talent. It's probably a safe bet that more people know the song from there than from Les Mis, and if they hear it in the trailer, it will bring up memories of Boyle's performance and create an emotional connection many people don't have to a 3+ hour stage musical about the French Revolution.

It's a smart move from a marketing standpoint, even if it doesn't make the most sense in terms of the movie/musical itself. 

The Fireworks Factory Plot

Itchy and Scratchy, the subjects of an embedded cartoon series on The Simpsons, are basically Tom & Jerry’s ultraviolent cousins. In the episode “The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show,” Itchy and Scratchy’s ratings have been dwindling, so to resuscitate the show, they add a new character, Poochie, who is kind of like Goofy if Goofy had a surfboard, wore shades, and smoked weed.

In Poochie’s introductory episode, which you can watch here (sketchy YouTube version), Itchy and Scratchy are driving to a fireworks factory, where all kinds of explosive mayhem will surely ensue. Before they reach the factory, however, they meet their new friend Poochy, who introduces himself with a catchy rap song. At this point, the show cuts away from the cartoon to show Millhouse (and this part was cut out of the clip above), who voices the audience’s collective frustration, shouting, “When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?”

That is, the audience (of characters on The Simpsons) has come to expect a certain level of violence from Itchy and Scratchy, and the sign for the fireworks factory has whetted their appetites. Instead of delivering the payoff the audience expects, though, the cartoon is waylaid (or derailed) by the interpolation of Poochie.

This episode led to the concept of what I (and others) have called the “Fireworks Factory" plot, wherein the story is set up for an audience to expect a certain kind of payoff or resolution, but which is either absent or significantly delayed because the story goes in a different direction.

Is a writer’s job always to give readers exactly what they’re expecting? No. There can be good and valuable reasons for playing with an audience’s expectations. That isn’t quite what I’m talking about here, however. In a Fireworks Factory plot, all the story elements have been pointing toward a necessary and significant catharsis, which is then not delivered. Instead, the story goes off in an unforeseen direction that pushes aside the very scene readers have been eagerly waiting for.

Here are a few examples of Fireworks Factory plots:

Pretties, by Scott Westerfeld

Around 2/3 of the way through this YA science-fiction novel, the protagonist, Tally Youngblood, is on a journey to reunite with her friends, who have been absent for the entire novel. On the way, she is waylaid and ends up hanging out with a bunch of characters who are basically Ewoks. She stays with them for a rather long time.

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo

There are probably several in this 1200+ page novel, but I’ll highlight two. Early in the book, there is a lengthy description of the Battle of Waterloo. It goes on for close to a hundred pages, the last two pages of which are relevant to the plot of Les Mis­. Later, during the climax of the story, when Jean Valjean is carrying the wounded Marius through the sewer, Hugo breaks off to give you an unbelievably detailed history of the Paris sewer system. Seriously, it goes on longer than the Waterloo part does.

The Tree of Life

This film, directed by Terrence Malick, seems to be a simple drama about a family dealing with tragedy. Around half an hour into the movie, Malick breaks away from the family story to depict the creation and history of the universe. I think it’s a brilliant move (it mirrors God’s responses to Job in the Biblical story of Job in order to show the turmoil the mother character experiences), but I have heard that a lot of people left the theater at this point, screaming, “When are they getting back to the family?” They do get back to the family, although it does take a while.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

In this RPG video game for the Nintendo DS, the story kicks off with the heroes accidentally damaging a flying contraption and then setting off on a quest for a part they need to repair it. At the end of the game, they still have not fixed the darned flying machine. I’m not making this up. You go through half the game trying to find the part to fix it, and then once you finally find it, you never get to fix the thing.

The time-travel season of Lost

Self-explanatory.

Again, having a Fireworks Factory sequence in a story isn’t automatically a bad thing. But it will disrupt the rhythm of the plots--might be want you're going for--and can potentially turn off readers--almost certainly not what you're going for--so if you’re going to do it, the payoff that results from the side-trip really needs to be worth it.