Another Les Mis Post

Yes, I know we just had a Les Mis post.  And I just want to say that I agree with everything that was said.  I loved the film, it was a great adaptation of the musical, and the acting and singing was incredible.  In fact, I can almost say that Les Mis was my favorite movie of the year (there were so many good ones!).  That said, I liked it so much that I can afford to be nit-picky.  There were a few technical aspects that I thought suffered because of the uniqueness of the film.

Despite the great performance, the framing and eyeline do not match

In a way, this goes back to a lot of the discussion we had in class regarding acting for film and acting for theatre.  Much of the film was shot in such a way to let the actors act as they saw fit.  Because the musical performances set the pacing of the film, the cinematography suffered because the pacing was not as tight as it would be under normal conditions.  For instance, there were framing issues throughout, as the steadicam operators struggled to keep up with the actors moving around so freely.  There were also some weird eyeline issues.  It is obvious that from a directorial standpoint, the performance was placed above the cinematography in terms of choosing which take to put in the final cut.  That said, I am glad they made that choice because it led to the great performances that we saw.

Like I said, this was a great movie that I enjoyed very much, and it was innovative in a lot of respects.  But because of these innovations, it led to some neglect of the traditional approach.

Also, in no way do I mean to knock the steadicam operators.  They did some awesome work as seen in the behind the scenes video below.