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Now on DVD and Blu-ray-Promised Land -
Reacher Coming to DVD and Blu-ray -
Coming to Blu-ray and DVD-Django Unchain ... -
John Ford's Favorite Film -
Coming to Blu-ray and DVD-The Impossible
Now on DVD and Blu-ray-Hyde Park on Huds ...
MAKING FILM SCHOLARSHIP FUN
Now on DVD/Blu-ray—This Is 40
Playing Nationwide: On the Road
Celeste and Jesse Forever on DVD and Blu ...
Photographic Memory—Now on DVD and Blu-R ...
HOORAY FOR 1933—EIGHTY YEARS LATERDISCOVERING ANOTHER 'LES MISÉRABLES'
To quote the Criterion liner notes, “It was Bernard who proposed adapting Hugo’s hefty book into three parts—“Une Tempête sous le crane” (“Tempest in a Skull”), “Les Thénardier” (“The Thénardiers”), and “Liberté, liberté chérie” (“Liberty, Sweet Liberty”)—to be screened as separate feature-length films, thus allowing him to include as much of the original narrative, characters, and details as possible. And because of the great success of his previous film, the forty-two-year-old director got the screen time (nearly five hours) and resources he needed to realize his vision. As his coscreenwriter he again chose critic and playwright André Lang, with whom he had so successfully brought Wooden Crosses to the screen. The influential Swiss composer Arthur Honegger gave the film its majestic score, later so admired by Miklos Rosza and Charles Koechlin and still available on CD in the United States today. And for his cameraman Bernard selected the German-born cinematographer Jules Kruger, who had shot not only Bernard’s first sound film, Faubourg Montmartre (1931), but also Abel Gance’s astonishing silent epic Napoleon (1927).
“Kruger’s penchant for uniquely styled and canted framing, highly influenced by German expressionism, was perfectly complemented by the dazzling art direction of Bernard’s exclusive production designer, Jean Perrier, who fully re-created sections of nineteenth-century Paris on exterior locations (the set was built near the southeastern resort town of Antibes), in addition to incorporating lovely matte paints and breathtaking miniature work.”
Bernard’s Les Misérables was never seen in the U.S. in its original form, although even in a shortened feature version it was well received. Even in France, it existed only in truncated form for decades. It was finally restored in the 1970s, toward the end of the director’s life. There are still missing scenes, and some grainy shots were obviously taken from the only surviving materials. The restoration opens with a likeness of Victor Hugo and this quote: “So long as poverty and misery still exist on earth, works such as this may not be in vain.”
Some parts of the extended film play better than others, and the denouement is not as effective as one might like. Javert’s suicide is especially abrupt, at least in this surviving print. But there are other passages that are simply magnificent. I won’t soon forget the staging, setting, lighting, and astonishing hand-held camerawork for the storming of the barricades. (It isn’t hard to draw a through-line from Gance’s Napoleon to this vision of Les Misérables.)
When the three-part feature was released on DVD in 2007, Dave Kehr wrote in The New York Times, “This is very likely the best adaptation of Hugo’s novel, and certainly the best I know (though I would be curious to see Riccardo Freda’s version, made in Italy in 1947). That’s partly because Mr. Bernard avoids any trace of the literary; this is a film that vigorously expresses itself through performance and visual style.”
If, like me, you have never experienced this milestone in French filmmaking, I urge you to do so. I look forward to watching Bernard’s Wooden Crosses as well—France’s “answer” to All Quiet on the Western Front.
Scenes from Raymond Bernard's Les Misérables
Les Misérables (1934)
Les Misérables (1934)
Les Misérables (1934)
Les Misérables (1934)
Les Misérables (1934)
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4 Comments
RPM | December 28, 2012 5:19 PM
I had recorded the French 1934 Les Miz from TCM, and saw the first episode the morning before seeing the new one. I think this led to some of my disappointment in the latter. I saw the rest of it in the next couple of days, and still feel very impressed by all of it, despite its length. Considering it was made in the early days of sound, especially for Europe, it has a very up to date feel in production, and maintaining its pace. A superb film.
Stephane | December 28, 2012 4:27 PM
I cannot believe I saw a movie before the great Maltin!!!
A memorable movie indeed, some scenes of which being still vivid in my mind after twenty years, in great part thanks to Harry Baur.
Thank you very much for this paper!
I also would like to mention the movie "Un Grand Amour de Beethoven" d'Abel Gance (1936, aka "Abel Gance's Beethoven") with the same Harry Baur, with the same grandeur of cinema.
Jamie | December 28, 2012 2:13 PM
I saw the restoration on TCM recently, and it is wonderful. I've maintained as much as I love it that the Hooper version of the musical suffers from not being able to be long enough to truly tell the story. He does include more than is on the stage, but to do a 1600 page masterwork of a novel justice, it needed to be longer to transition between the songs.
Jim Reinecke | December 28, 2012 12:16 PM
The fact that Criterion is making such gems as this and WOODEN CROSSES (LE CROIX DE BOIS) as well as LUMIERE D'ETE available for home viewing is a real treat. . .and I must add, Leonard, further proof of the necessity of a third version of your Classic Movie Guide (yes, I'm going to keep beating this drum---but I wouldn't be beating it if your Classic Guide, like your Annual Guide, wasn't so well done!).