Les Miserables Movie Critique Essay, Research Paper

Les Miserables

The movie Les Miserables was directed by Glenn Jordan and produced by Norman Rosemont. The top three stars were Richard Jordan as Jean Val Jean, Anthony Perkins as Javert, and John Gielgud as Marius grandfather. The movie was based on the novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Jean Val Jean is just one of the many people of France facing the overwhelming problem of starvation. Caught stealing a loaf of bread, he is taken to the terrible Tulan prison where he meets Javert, the prison warden. Javert sees Jean s goodness inside and begins to hate it. After multiple attempts, Jean escapes the prison to flee to his brother s house, a local priest. This priests gives Jean money to start a new life, so Jean vows to help other people as much as his brother helped him. The story then flashes forward five years to a small, prosperous town in France where Jean is the mayor, and Javert has just become the newly elected police inspector. Javert starts to recognize Jean by his good deeds, so Javert decides to rat on the good mayor. Jean runs to Paris with his new foster daughter before Javert can catch him, and over a few years Javert patrols Paris while the French revolution begins. Jean is again found by Javier, and Jean runs for his life. In the end Javert and Jean meet face to face where Javert finds that he s been living his whole life as a lie. Javert then commits suicide because of his wasted life.

All the characters were similar to real common people in France during those troubled times of the French revolution. They were all treated with historical accuracy. The events such as the French rebels fighting the French army were real, but the fighting didn t begin until after the raiding of Versailles. There were no real characters in the movie and reality was omitted to show the perspective of the everyday common man to the revolution.

The movie was set in vaious places in France. The setting started in Faverolles in 1796 where Jean was arrested as a criminal. Then, the setting changed to the Toulan prison until 1815. After Jean escapes and the setting becomes the small town of Monteis Sur Monteis where Jean is mayor. Jean the flees to Paris where the new setting becomes Paris. Off and on the setting is the French countryside. The streams and parries flowed with the movie because the French countryside truly looked like it did in the movie. The small towns and the big city were depicted accurately in the movie. Even the prison was is terrible as is seemed in the movie. The setup of towns and the clothing of the time were magnificently depicted through realistic props.

All actors did a good job playing their parts in the movie. Javert could have been somewhat more hateful, but otherwise he did good. The plot was lively and active, yet at times confusing. When Jean visited his brother, it was hard to tell that the priest was his brother. The roles played were stereotypical roles of the people of the time. The story built itself to the climax of Javert meeting Jean face to face and then resolved itself satisfactorily. The film held the viewers interest because of the action throughout the movie. The film would only be done slightly different now if it were redone because of the lack of clarity of the video. The film made the viewer more aware of the history. The film would only have been better if Javert was more evil and the film was a bit more clearer. I would recommend this film to another student because the student would really learn how hard a life it was for all the commoners of France and why they started the revolution.