no snark, no sarcasm, these are just takes on the material that I’ve thought about or heard suggested but never seen done or seen done only rarely and would love to see in film or theater or animation:
– Digressions the Series: a documentary-style take on the book that uses the digressions and side characters to do a series of Historical Documentaries in which the “ main” plot is revealed only through passing mentions or anecdotes with interviewees.
Citizens of Digne mentioning the ex-con their saintly Bishop helped out, A How It’s Made on glass beads with the owner who took over the factory after Valjean/ Madeleine left, a historian doing a walk-and-talk Battle of Waterloo summation almost verbatim and mentioning Georges Pontmercy as one of the missing, presumed dead, soldiers,etc. This is always suggested as a joke but I think it could really be amazing??
the final one in the series could be “Grass Conceals and Rain Blots Out” and be a documentary about historiography, the struggles with preserving historical documents and landmarks, and the work of trying to recreate the past from these fragile things left to us– “for instance, this little grave, off the beaten path. Who was this man? why was he buried so privately and yet with such a poor marker?”– and talking about how the interpretation of the past interacts with our hopes for the future. I seriously want this series so much ??
–I can’t think of a summary title: a version of the story focusing on Cosette, Marius, and along with that the Amis, Eponine, Gavroche, etc; specifically, one that gives no backstory for Valjean or Javert at all, Cosette and Marius and the younger characters are the POV characters, and a core part of the plot is Valjean, who first appears as Cosette’s dear papa/ respectable “Monsieur Leblanc”, slowly becoming a figure of intense and borderline Gothic mystery, with, again, no explanations until the post-wedding confessions.
–Paris Atomized: 1828 to 1832 , but entirely and exclusively centered around Gavroche and his adventures; there’s a lot going on there even in what’s right on the surface of the book, and it would be easy to weave him into even more of the cultural events of the time; Hugo all but gives him a seat for the Romantic Theater Explosion, and he’s canonically in the 1830 rebellion, apparently with a totally different set of revolutionaries! the kid’s got a Story, and I’ve only ever seen it as the sole focus in very short films, but it could be a whole movie, or even a whole miniseries!
– the entire story but done only from the POV of the women; Valjean’s arrival is only seen through Baptistine’s eyes, we enter M-sur-M with Fantine and after her death the story moves to Cosette, etc. Shoujo Cosette sort of did this, centering around Cosette, and it was really great!, but I’d like an even more exclusively altered focus. There are tons of women in Les Mis, and enough of their story to build a basic framework of what they’re doing while the narrative focuses on the men in the story, and it would be great to see someone really go for that the way people do with Shakespeare all the time.
– Les Mis the Even More Musical: a full-plot musical/opera/whatever. FULL. PLOT. ALL FIVE BOOKS. EIGHT-TEN HOUR SHOW PERFORMED OVER SEVERAL NIGHTS. Group songs for the townspeople of Digne, M-sur-M, and Paris! SEVERAL for the people of Paris! A song about the history of the Petit Picpus convent! Victor Hugo as a narrator figure who comes in with songs about the digressions and the Super Specialness of Paris! Azelma gets a song and it’s heartbreaking ! The Madame la Marquise de R—– , Marguerite, the staff of the Corinthe, and Valjean’s last landlady share verses in a Bystander’s Song about being on the sidelines of obvious suffering and horror and trying to help with only very limited abilities to change it! Valjean, Fantine, Georges, and then Valjean again share a song about having to leave their children to what they hope will be a better life, with their different levels of confidence that it will be! EVERYTHING HAPPENS. THE WHOLE BOOK. BRING IT ON.
-Les Miserables, Theo Gautier Edition: the entire cast is housecats, in costumes, with an offscreen narrator describing the scene and tossing in Squeaky Prompts. The script is, really, irrelevant.
Les Mis Adaptations I Would Like to See
Published
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