This is the first draft of a paper I am writing for my senior seminar film class. It's going to be my big exit paper from college, so I hope to make it as good as possible. I'm very proud of this first draft, but I would take any and all criticism and critiques you, my dearest readers, can offer. Thank you. Yours, etc., RPCT.
PS, here is the final version of the paper. Since no one gave me any feedback, I just wrote "Fart fart fart" a bunch and doodles on pictures of Russell Crowe.
PS, here is the final version of the paper. Since no one gave me any feedback, I just wrote "Fart fart fart" a bunch and doodles on pictures of Russell Crowe.
Do You See the
People Sing?
The Close-up in Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables
Thesis: Tom Hooper’s 2012 Les Misérables extensively used close-ups because, as the musical is composed largely of ballads, Mr. Hooper
wanted to reveal narrative information through face and voice rather than
through images of the entire body.
Based
on the world-famous English-language adaptation of the original 1980 French
musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil & Jean-Marc Natel
(which, in turn, is based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel), Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables was released in 2012
after the film version had languished in development hell for more than 20
years[1].
Expectations were high for the film; when it premiered, reviews of the film
ranged from ecstatic—“Les Misérables overflows with humor,
heartbreak, rousing action and ravishing romance!”(Travers)—to, well, abysmal—“It’s
terrible; it’s dreadful. Overbearing, pretentious, madly repetitive” (Denby).
However,
no matter a given critic’s opinion of the film, one stylistic, cinematographic
choice was remarked upon repeatedly: Mr. Hooper’s penchant for filming numbers
in close-up, filling the screen with the face of the character. While the
film’s biggest selling point in its pre-release marketing was the fact that the
actors sang live on the set (recording their songs as you would hear them if
they were sung on stage), I feel one of the film’s most unique aspects as a
movie musical is its use of close-ups. In the past, the wide-shot and mid-shot
have dominated the cinematography of filmed musicals. Additionally, the film
differed significantly from other musical films due to its dearth of dance
numbers and its overwhelming amount of ballads. Thus, the final edit of Les Misérables consists largely ballads
shot in close-ups and medium close-ups, as Mr. Hooper wanted to convey specific
narrative information that would be lost in wider shots of the characters in song;
this differs from other musicals of the past decade, which favored wider shots
of whole bodies over close-ups.
Before
we delve into our analysis of the film, we must first define the shot
terminology we will be using. Over the course of this paper, you will
repeatedly encounter the terms “wide shot,” “mid shot,” “medium close-up” and
“close-up.” A “wide shot” will refer to a shot in which the entire subject is
presented wholly in frame. For example, in a wide shot of a man standing by a
truck, the viewer would see the man from head to foot, as well as a good deal
of the truck. A “mid shot” describes a shot in which a character is framed from
the waist up. A “medium close-up” pulls in tighter, and presents the character
in question from the chest up, while a “close-up” is a shot in which the
character is presented from the neck up, occasionally to the point when the
whole head fills the screen.
 |
| This decade's musicals. |
To
accurately compare Les Misérables to
other films of the past decade, I have chosen four films which I feel are
representative of the musicals released from 2002 to now. The films are: Chicago (2002, Marshall), The Phantom of the Opera (2004,
Schumacher), Hairspray (2007,
Shankman), and Nine (2009, Marshall). These films were chosen because I feel they
accurately represent Hollywood musicals from the past ten years, as well as
because they each were released 2-3 years one after the other. This allows me
to see if there has been any slow shift in style from wider shots to closer
shots over the course of the decade, or if Les
Misérables is, indeed, as unique as I claim it to be.
Historically, musicals feature a combination of singing and
dancing which would be difficult to film in the close, tight shots use in Les
Misérables. The theatrical production of Les Misérables does not
feature any dance numbers, though there are several group scenes which include
minor choreography. These same scenes—“Lovely Ladies, “Master of the
House,” and “Wedding Chorale”—include some form of dancing in the film. Out of a
total of 54 musical numbers, Les Misérables features only three numbers
in which people dance in any form; that said, the dancing in these scenes is a
far cry from the Bob Fosse-esque choreography of Chicago or the 60s inspired grooves of Hairspray. “Lovely Ladies” features prostitutes showing off to
potential clients, while “Master of the House” takes places at a boozy inn
filled with rowdy customers; finally, the “Wedding Chorale” shows guests
performing period dances during the wedding reception of two of the lead
characters. The dancing in the film is, thus, used to set the atmosphere as
opposed to entertaining, and is consequently treated similarly to how any other
scenes featuring a group of extras would be treated. The film acknowledges they
are there, presents groups of them when needed, but does not focus on them for
an extended period of time. When dancers are presented, it is often in crowded,
close shots, as we see in image 1 below.
 |
Image 1: Dance in Les Misérables is confined to providing atmosphere.
From top left: dancing whores in “Lovely Ladies”; Madame Thénardier and bar patrons in “Master of the House”; Marius and Cosette dancing at their wedding in “Wedding Chorale.” |
us to look at and
acknowledge the choreography (see image 2).
 |
Image 2: Dance in other musicals,
like Hairspray, is there to
entertain.
Edna Turnblad (John Travolta) leads the dancers in the finale, “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” |
Looking
at our sample films, we find the average rate of dance scenes (that is, percent
of totals scenes which feature dancing as the focus of the scene) to be 57%
(fig. 1 below), a far cry from Les Misérables’ 5%.
FIGURE 1:
FILM
|
TOTAL
MUSICAL NUMBERS
|
TOTAL
DANCE NUMBERS
|
PERCENT
OF DANCE NUMBERS
|
Chicago
(2002)
|
12
|
9
|
75%
|
The
Phantom of the Opera (2004)
|
21
|
5
|
23%
|
Hairspray
(2007)
|
18
|
12
|
66%
|
Nine
(2009)
|
12
|
8
|
66%
|
Average Dance Numbers: 8
Average Percent of Dance Numbers: 57%
|
What Les
Misérables lacks in dance numbers, it makes up for in ballads, another
staple of the musical genre. Here, we define a “ballad” as a usually down-tempo
(though sometimes mid-tempo), often sentimental song sung by a single
character, but occasionally one character to another. Sampling the same four
films utilized in figure one, we arrive at an average of 4 ballads per film
(see fig. 2 below), compared to Les Misérables’ 20.
FIGURE 2:
FILM
|
TOTAL
MUSICAL NUMBERS
|
TOTAL
BALLADS
|
PERCENT
OF BALLADS OUT OF TOTAL MUSICAL NUMBERS
|
Chicago
(2002)
|
12
|
3
|
25%
|
The
Phantom of the Opera (2004)
|
21
|
6
|
28%
|
Hairspray
(2007)
|
18
|
3
|
16%
|
Nine
(2009)
|
12
|
4
|
33%
|
Average Ballads per Film: 4
Average Percent of Ballads: 25%
|
But
so what? Why does it matter if Les Misérables features an unusually high amount of ballads?
Typically,
ballads are used to reveal a character’s innermost thoughts, a specific character
trait, or past events of the character to the audience. “I Can Hear the Bells”
from Hairspray features the
plus-sized protagonist Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) fantasizing about what
her life will be like once she marries her crush, Link (Zac Efron). Chicago’s “Funny Honey” shows Roxy Hart
(Renee Zellweger) extolling the virtues of her husband, Amos (John C. Reilly).
“Guarda La Luna” shows Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) dreaming of his mother
(Sophia Loren) and imaging the advice she would give him, while “All I Ask of
You” shows the lovers Christine (Emmy Rossum) and Raoul (Patrick Wilson)
professing to each other their desire to be safe with one another for all time.
Thus, it would seem only natural to film ballads in a way which highlighted the
intense emotions a character is experiencing during the course of the tune.
However,
looking at the ballads from our sample reveals this not to be the case.
Selecting a ballad at random from each of those four films reveals an average
of 32% close-ups (medium close-ups included) per musical number; selecting four ballads at random from Les
Misérables reveals an average of 57% (figures 3 & 4).
FIGURE 3:
SONG
|
WIDE
|
MID
|
MEDIUM
|
CLOSE
|
OTHER
|
TOTAL
SHOTS
|
Guarda la Luna
|
8
|
6
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
17
|
I Can Hear the Bells
|
25
|
11
|
10
|
8
|
1
|
55
|
All I Ask of You
|
3
|
6
|
4
|
10
|
2
|
25
|
Funny Honey
|
21
|
7
|
10
|
4
|
5
|
47
|
Average Number of Close-Ups in a Ballad: 12
Average Percent of Close-Ups in a Ballad: 32%
|
FIGURE 4:
SONG
|
WIDE
|
MID
|
MEDIUM
|
CLOSE
|
OTHER
|
TOTAL
SHOTS
|
Castle on a Cloud
|
0
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
7
|
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
4
|
0
|
7
|
I Dreamed a Dream
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
In My Life
|
7
|
2
|
8
|
28
|
1
|
46
|
Average Number of Close-Ups in a Ballad Les Misérables: 11
Average Percent of Close-Ups in a Ballad in Les Misérables: 57%
(Note: “In My Life” features a higher number of cuts
simply because the ballad is between two people and, thus, engages a
shot-reverse-shot set-up for a portion of the song.)
|
By looking further
at the numbers presented in figure 4, one can see that ballads in Les Misérables contain fewer overall
shots than the other films and that, even then, the majority of these shots are
close-ups, either medium close-ups (chest up of subject) or close-ups
(neck/head up of subject).
In
an interview for Reuters, Mr. Hooper stated that he thought “[...] the great
weapon in my arsenal was the close up, because the one thing on stage that you
can't enjoy is the detail of what is going on in people's faces as they are
singing.” However, interviews with the director following the film’s release revealed
that Mr. Hooper, while filming the picture, had not originally planned to
include as many close-ups as made the final edit. He told USA Today, “We were never tied to using close-ups
over and over.” During an interview with Movieline.com, he
explained that, “[…] the process of moving toward these
close-ups was a process of discovery.” He added, “I didn't assume that the tight close-up was the best way to
do a song.” Mr. Hooper shot each number with several cameras to give him
options and that early edits of the film did not feature the abundance of
close-ups the film is now known for. Earlier edits of “I Dreamed a Dream”, for
instance, began with a mid-shot then tracked in slowly—in fact, this alternate
take can be seen in the first teaser trailer of the film, and in
image 3 below (and over at this post, where I dissected the trailer last year like the freak that I am).
 |
Image 3: “When
hope was high…”
The same moment from the film, presented in a wider tracking shot (left) and in close-up. The character, Fantine, is played by Anne Hathaway. |
“Maybe in the
last quarter of the scene it was a medium close-up,” he says. It was only after
Eddie Redmayne suggested to him changing to the close-up that he began to
re-examine his edit. “The moment we put that close-up in, the film played in a
completely different way. The level of emotion went up about a hundred
percent.” Throughout the film, the emotions of the characters during their
ballads are put on grand display for the audience. During Marius’ “Empty Chairs
at Empty Tables,” the young revolutionary sings of the grief of missing his
best friends, as well as the grief he feels at being the lone survivor. “My
friends, don’t ask me/What your sacrifice was for/Empty chairs at empty
tables/Where my friends will sing no more,” he sings in the final verse of the
song. This final verse is presented in an unbroken close-up of Marius, his
tear-stained face filling the screen (image 4).
 |
Image 4: “Don’t
ask me…”
Marius laments the passing of his best friends. Four of the seven shots in this number are framed similarly to this. |
 |
Image 5: Close-up
on emotions
Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) discovers love for the first time; Eponine (Samantha Barks) wishes for a life that can never be; Javert (Russell Crowe) venerates the stars for their steadfastness. |
In the Movieline.com interview, Mr. Hooper also mentions that
in the close-up, one sees very clearly, “all the muscles in Anne’s neck work as
she sings and the raw power of that.” This statement directly references the live
singing technique used during the course of filming. In a rare (but not
unprecedented) move for a musical, Mr. Hooper made the decision to record all
the film’s singing live on set, as opposed to recording the tracks in a studio
beforehand and then lip-synching to them afterwards, which, according to Lea Jacobs
in Film History, has largely been the
practice in movie musicals since the 1930s—before that time, musicals were
recorded live on set, as was Les
Misérables (pg. 5). Part of the joy of watching this
film is watching it and knowing the
actors were performing the songs live for the camera as we’re seeing them. The
experience is similar to watching a concert recording of a band we enjoy, as
opposed to simply listening to the studio recording.
In
“Aesthetics of Live Musical Performance,” Ervin Laszlo enumerates how musical
enjoyment is, “[…] communicated to the listener because he ‘overhears’ the
interpreter express himself in music, and comes to feel and understand the same
kind of feelings which have originally inspired the work” and that, in a live concert
setting, “the listener not only ‘overhears’ him express himself, but also
‘oversees’ him at this” (pg. 270). This experience can be applied to watching Les Misérables in that the close-up does
not simply allow us to recognize the fact that it was recorded live, but forces us to do so. We overhear and oversee Fantine realize her life has
fallen apart in “I Dreamed a Dream”; we overhear and oversee young Cosette wish someone to care for her in “Castle
on a Cloud”; we overhear and oversee
Jean Valjean contemplate whether he should lie to save his factory, or reveal
the truth and put his business and employees at risk; and so on.
Part
of the joy of watching a live musical number in close-up is in realizing that
it was live; any crack of the voice,
any missed note, any cough or sniffle is picked up and magnified. This gives
the songs the crackle of realism often missing from more polished studio
recordings. In addition, close-ups are much more difficult to lip-synch, as it
is easier to fudge words in a shot that is not focus 100% on the face. If “I
Dreamed a Dream,” for instance, had been lip-synched but still presented in
close-up, any error on the part of Ms. Hathaway would become immediately
apparent, and we’d stop thinking about the character and start thinking about
the mechanics of filmmaking (“Oh, she’s out of synch on that line!”). The live
close-up allows us to both marvel at the technology (“She was really singing when they filmed!”) and
to feel for the characters (“Listen to her cry and belt that note out! I feel
like I’m right with her!”) in a way that would be harder to achieve in
playback.
Les Misérables,
a film over twenty years in the making, was brought to the screen in 2012 as a
sprawling two hours and thirty minutes epic that divided critics with its
unique cinematography. The very source material itself is a different type of musical altogether (sung-through, low on dance-numbers but high on ballads) that called for a unique filming style to bring it effectively to the screen. Whatever your opinion of the film, it is hard to deny
that Mr. Hooper’s use of close-ups to present the raw emotions behind the film’s
many ballads was a brave and ultimately effective move.
[1] Alan Parker was set to direct the
film in 1988, but it never got off the ground. Then in 1991, Bruce Beresford
was hired to helm the picture (Schaefer). In the end, neither version got made.
The film stayed in development hell until 2010 when the new version was
announced.
