Chapter 1: A Surprisingly Huge Bark

May 12, 1924

The metallic clang, repeated several times over and emanating from the front hallway, indicated some friend wished to speak with a member of the household. I moved around my cat Roger, who swirled at my feet like water around the dishes I was swashing, and moved down the high-ceilinged hallway to the telephone stand, which sat next to the window under the staircase. I grabbed the receiver and leaned against the window sill.

“Gooood afternoon, 221 South Fifth, R-P-C-T on the line, how may I help you?” (My mornings working at the newspaper had conditioned me to answer all phone calls in a vaguely important business tone. I had only recently dropped the, “Who is this please?” my mother had taught me to add as a tag to all telephone introductions.)

“Dearest Ry-an,” drawled a voice in a familiar faux-English accent. I smiled. It was Elizabeth Uhlman, who had shared this house with me and three others until almost exactly a year ago today, when life had fewer responsibilities yet a great deal more headaches--thought said aches were, nearly unanimously, caused by a lack of water following a night of liquid liberation.
“My sweetest Elizabeth,” I intoned in return, “how may I assist you this fine eve?”
“I have such news! I have set a date for my departure!”
‘Departure.’ The word shocked me like a surprisingly huge bark coming from an otherwise small dog. When she leaves town, I thought, the book of last summer will slam closed, a book that had slowly been closing since May of 1923. When Elizabeth had declared herself the first to leave the house then, we turned closer to the last page. Then Brittany had gone North, and Jason had left to chase his closer-than-ever Hollywood dream, and I felt the book had only one chapter left, one that Elizabeth and I could still write; she only lived across town, after all, in an apartment just off the tracks of the trolley that had so often ferried us to Wrightsville Beach.
But now, as she continued, “--we shall have a party at Omar’s residence--you know, where he lives, of course, near Dock Street...or is it Orange?--on Thursday night…” I could hear the pages of our life turning, and suddenly there was only a single paragraph left to write.
“--and we shall dance and drink and cry till morning, for I leave Wilmington for all time Sunday next!”

I sighed. If there were a worse correlation of plans between hers and mine, I couldn’t think of it. I dropped the accent, and said, “Liz, you know I work overnights at the paper...and besides, I--I’ll actually be out of town on Thursday night. I have to meet my family in Raleigh to catch a train to Chicago...Meghan’s moving there for the summer.”
Silence on the other end of the line, but I could hear Liz take a drag of her ever-present cigarette--though it very well could have been reefer.
“When do you leave Thursday?” she asked coolly.
“Train from here leaves at 10am.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah…”
“Wednesday I could see you.” She coughed, then chuckled, adding, “I have to give you the part of your front porch railing that I stole.”
“Wednesday morning, yeah.”
Then, nothing. Not even the sound of a cigarette being puffed, or a cat knocking something over in the background, or the trolley rattling past the house. I hung up the receiver, fearing it had been disconnected.
I stayed there, my back against the warm glass of the window, taking in the remarkable ability of this house to completely and effortlessly conform itself to imitate the lifestyles of its inhabitants. We four living there now--one film associate, one dancer teacher, and two newspaper editors--were, in a certain respect, young, working professionals, just mature enough to pass as adults in the world of business yet able to largely retain the joys of not yet being thirty. The house had absorbed that spirit and turned it back on us. The walls, white and undecorated, smiled at you as you entered the house and directed your attention down the long hallway to the attached kitchen, where a smattering of dishes and one or two opened soda bottles indicated that someone did, indeed, make use of it. The house was clean yet inviting, a perfectly respectable house to begin life as a grown person.
How different it had all been only a year ago.

Chapter 5: Young and Perfect

New chapter y'all. It's a first draft; I'll probably add stuff later...
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CHAPTER FIVE
Young and Perfect
Though I continued to occupy the house for a period of time after the events described herein, and though I certainly continued to enjoy the life I had made for myself, the most sparkling section of the year lost its inviting, amicable glean in the cool, windy month of May when, one day, Elizabeth left. She had announced that she and her beau, a jolly, curly-haired man named Rhett Barbour, were going to begin their life together. Naturally, this entailed her leaving the familiar comforts offered by our small, joint estate.
After Elizabeth left, a peculiar melancholy fell over the house. The cats first noticed the change. In an effort to brighten the mood, my orange tabby, Roger, and Bagheera the black-and-grey kitten, conspired to lift our spirits by heightening their feline antics and greeting us more regularly upon our homecomings, but even their gentle affection failed to completely mask the inexplicably glum mood which hung around the halls and rooms like so much cigarette smoke.
The day the reality of her departure fully made itself known to me was May 26th, 1923. After a particularly interesting day of creative endeavors, I made my habitual nocturnal arrival upon our steps. The house, darkened, seemed to look at and pity me as I stood before it in the barely remarkable light thrown by the few electric streetlamps that had been haphazardly installed along the avenue.
I knew she would no longer live with us past today. We had feted her departure, in excess, the night before. None of it seemed real, though, till my arrival on the landing of the second floor. My eyes drifted to the left and I beheld the ransacked carcass that had been her room. I moved down the hallway; in the darkness of the evening and my tristesse, I eyed the remnants left behind—a lamp, a slipper, clumps of her cat’s hair—
“I love you!” she had said, our arms entwined on each other’s shoulders in joyfully inebriated solidarity. Turning to the room, she had proclaimed, “I love all of you beautiful creatures!” in the mock-English tones she affected when her chemical-induced delirium had reached its height.
Now, standing in what used to be her room, I realized how deeply I loved her. It was not a romantic love (for I have, try as I might, found myself entirely incapable of cultivating any feelings of such a nature), but the strongest love I was capable of feeling—fraternal love. She had welcomed me into her home and loved me unconditionally—and so had Brittany, and so had Jason. I felt for these three people—people who, a mere five months ago I had never spent any significant amount of time. Now we were a family.
So I cried. I cried for the bliss of our fantasy-filled nights, I cried for the shared conversations and the meals and the moonlight. I cried because, though I knew they would continue, I knew also they would be altered in a way only perceptible to those who had known what they had been.
And I knew that, in their due time, both Brittany and Jason would also move out and be replaced by new roommates. I knew that I couldn't stay, either, no matter how desperately I wanted to shackle myself to worn knob of the brown front door and cry out, "I cannot leave! I'm home here!" As the invisible yet ever-present force of adulthood did its best to catapult me into the open jaws of a hungry world.
The simplest moments now, somehow, resonated more significantly than before. As I recalled a particular instant that had been engraved into my brain, I swore from then on I would pay closer mind to each second of each as, as days make up months, and months turn into years, and years are precious and intimate moments are fleeting...
I remembered the day that we lay in the living room as we had done innumerable times before and would do again after. For a reason  I have been able to bring to memory, we were tired. Jason, a confused yet profound look plastered on his face, scribbled away furiously at some play he was attempting to finish. Brittany, engrossed in the reading of the third novel she had started in a week's time, sat in a rocking chair opposite him, her knees folded against her chest. I occupied the long green couch between them. Near my head, the phonograph droned noiselessly, the penultimate masterpiece of a revered genius turning in the background, unheard and utterly ignored by the somniferous beings reclining in the wooded room. Our nerves tense, we awaited the occurrence of some unknown event which would divert us for the evening. In its absence, we continued to drearily hold forth in our salon; pointlessly tired, we rested unendingly.
Our aimless reverie was interrupted by Elizabeth's entrance into the house; the click of the door behind her dragged us foggily back to earth. Her companion, Rhett, stood behind her.
"Rhett and I are going upstairs," Elizabeth muttered, gesturing vaguely to Rhett. It would seem the imprecise fatigue which permeated the living room had taken a hold of Elizabeth as well.
Jason, Brittany, and I muttered a non-worded reply. Elizabeth looked aimlessly down the hallway, took one step forward, and then turned to face the room. With a sigh, she added—"We might do it."
A pause.
Then the laughter began and continued as the single diversion we had awaited all night long came to pass then dissipated into the atmosphere. Our appetites for amusement satiated, Jason, Brittany, and I stood to tell each other good night.
I remember that my gaze fell on the empty gold picture frame affixed to the wall. I had, until that point, never fully realized the image which I would have placed between the four wooden beans had I been gifted with the ability to create images with brush and paint rather than mere words. Now, it appeared to me as distinctly as though it hung there in reality.
It would be a portrait of the four of us, and we would be here in this room. Elizabeth and I, holding our cats and smiling with stupid exuberance, would flank Jason and Brittany—she, holding a small instrument age couldn't actually play; he, cradling a bottle of wine (a substance never in short supply at our house). And ever present but out of the bounds of the frame would be our friends, all the beautiful, wistful souls who had frequented 221, hoping to collide with some indefinite yet joyous destiny.
And it would be 1923, in an oft-forgotten southern state, in a moderatly sized port town. And the party in the unimposing pink house tucked behind a fading tree would ever increase its fervor, forever rising, the hilarity never receding nor reaching a dissapointing plateau—
And we would be young. And life—for a short but enduring space of time—would be perfect.

Chapter 2: "Do You Smoke?"

So oops I kept writing in a faux F. Scott Fitzgerald style (as I started to here) and I actually really like how it turned out. Is it funny? Maybe. Is it a really cool exercise in style? Most certainly. It's kinda turning into a book; hence, chapter 2.

Basically, I based it on my real life but transposed it to 1923 rather than 2013 cuz lolololol the 20s. Leggo.

CHAPTER TWO

"Do you smoke?"

January 1923

I looked up at the building which would serve as my home for the foreseeable future. A sloping roof hung over a small front porch crowded with partially-broken chairs and discarded cigarette butts, whispering indications of warm nights and friendly get-togethers both past and yet to come. The brown front door stood starkly against the light-pink paint which covered the walls and columns of the Queen Anne-style structure. My hands full with suitcases and overstuffed boxes, Chelsea left her car at the curb and joined me in front of the house.

Standing in front of number 221, my brain was embroiled in the universal mental conflict that one inevitably faces when upheaval occurs. I had never met any of the people I was about to spend several months with; I knew them only from abbreviated names on a telegram: there was a J. Gudasz, a B. Hailer, and an E. Uhlman. Who these three were, I had no concept of it.

After a few moments:

“Should we ring the doorbell?” Chelsea asked simply. I laughed, not because sounding alarms was particularly amusing, but because the succinctness of her queries always struck me as so. Economical in everything, she chose her words for maximum impact with minimal effort. Looking at her small frame, I was filled with the usual casual admiration that permeated my encounters with Chelsea. I have never respected anyone more than I respected this tiny lady, and it's unlikely that I ever will.

“They know I'm coming today,” I replied, not to her, but to a separate question of my own which had been rattling around my mind since I had left Raleigh that morning. 

“I'll ring.” Chelsea marched up and briskly pushed the pearly doorbell. 

I joined her on the porch.

Something fell in the house; the crash was answered with a bright chorus of laughter from several voices; then, the door swung open and a tall, handsome man in his early 20s was looking at us, one hand holding the door open, the other grasping the fragments of a broken piece of flatware.

“Hullo,” he said to me in a light English accent, a sly smile cracking his lips apart. “I do believe we’ve met.”

Nervousness turned into anxiety as I realized that yes, we had, but that I hadn't the slightest concept of his name. He and I had been classmates in a course several semesters ago, the specifics of which had long been obliterated from my memory by that grand and unflinching eraser called time.

Just as I began to fumble through an introduction, he turned to Chelsea and shook her hand, telling her that he was called Jason Gudasz. I mentally struck through J. Gudasz on the telegram. I had met the first roommate.

“Need help settling in?” Chelsea asked me.

“I think I should be fine, thanks, as soon as I figure out where my bedroom is.”

“Upstairs is your bedchamber, fair Ry-an,” Jason nearly yelled, his preposterous accent more affected with each word.

“I'll see you later, Ry.” I moved fully into the house as Chelsea crossed behind to exit. I thanked her for her assistance; she smiled and, with a pleasant touch of the shoulder to me and a swift pleasure-to-have-met-you to Jason, she closed the door and trotted down to her automobile.

“I like her,” said Jason, looking at her through the window in the door. His ludicrous accent had dropped away, and his real voice, gruff but clear, was infinitely more pleasant than his ersatz Shakespearian tones.

“I do too.”

“Cute girl.” He paused, and then added: “Don’t tell her I said that.”

I laughed, though for the second time in too short a span not due to any particular humor the situation had invoked, but because of the candor of this statement. Frankness, I would come to learn, was the de factor dictum at 221. The months to come would demonstrate this to the utmost degree. A resident or guest of our house could say as they felt, do as they pleased, and behave as they desired, with the sole caveat that the reality of any situation must never be denied, but accepted and addressed.

Still tense, but slightly less so, I walked with Jason down the high-ceilinged hallway. He deposited the shards of plate on a large, ugly wooden desk which sat on the wall facing the cupboard under the stairway. I followed suit.

We stopped, for the hallway had ended and now gave two possibilities for continuation: to our right and directly in front. Jason chose to step into the kitchen, right before us.

The small room was filled mostly by the counter, which was cramped with unwashed dishes and cups and which wrapped along the walls of the kitchen like some helpful culinary serpent, lying in wait to aid us in preparation of our meals. Next to a window on the back wall stood a rickety wooden table, and in equally as precarious chairs sat two young women. The taller of the two was dressed casually, her brown hair cascading down her broad shoulders. The shorter girl opposite her had piled her wavy black hair on the top of her head and had wrapped a shimmering gold headscarf around the entire coiffure. She and Casual Brunette were engaged in an intense match of staring past each other at imaginary yet indelibly fascinating objects on opposing walls.

“Brittany, Ryan’s here.”

Brittany moved her bescarfed head in my direction, reluctantly abandoning her riveting illusion. She stood and I could see the scintillating black fabric of her long dress catch the light as it crept in. She carried herself so that one was intimidated by her very appearance and simultaneously completely beguiled by it, and she wore her clothes as if she were doing them a favor.

Then she smiled and the seduction was complete.

“A pleasure,” she said in a voice devoid of any regional trappings. “We’re delighted to have you living here.”

I had now met B. Hailer and J. Gudasz., leaving E. Uhlman as the final mystery. I turned to Casual Brunette and asked her if she were the unknown third housemate.

Casual Brunette laughed and stood as well. “No; I’m B. Smith, actually—Brea Smith.”

I shook hands with both of them.

“Brea practically lives here,” remarked Brittany, sweeping past me into the hall and then quickly into the living room (the other of the two options offered by the end of the hallway). “So you’ll likely see her around a great deal.”

”Then who’s E. Uhlman?”

“Does someone request my presence?” came a drawling voice from the living room. Intrigued, I followed the rest of the party and found myself in a dark, spacious room, the walls the color of a sweet, red wine. In the far corner stood a phonograph, flanked on either side by a couch—one pea green, the other the identical color of the walls. Brittany and Brea deposited themselves on separate couches. I noticed that, above the red couch (and, consequently, Brittany’s head) hung an empty gilded picture frame—to be filled, I was sure, with the alluring mirages only one’s individual mind could invent for itself.

Directly across from Brittany: the fireplace, its white mantle gleaming even in the dark of the room. Between the hearth and the mantle moved the form of a small being, her face clouded by a thick wisp of haze which hung indifferently in the air. The creature took a step forward and the low-flying cloud was obliterated; I could now see the pretty face of a small girl with bobbed brown hair. In one hand she held a disproportionately large cigarette lighter; in the other, its object—a light blue holder freshly adorned with a newly lit smoke.

“You asked for an E. Uhlman, didn’t you?” she said, looking at me with a delightfully playful look, her voice low and inviting.

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, your wish has been granted.”

“Elizabeth,” Jason said, pressing me forward a slight touch of the shoulders, “this is—”

“Ryan, yes, I heard,” she responded, her voice brusquely rising in mock anger and twisting into an exaggerated rage. “I have ears, ya know!”

“I was just trying to be helpful, ya dumb flapper!” he answered, matching her tone and face.

The good-humored look was back as she turned to me and took a drag of her cigarette. In one deft movement, she turned the holder to face me. “Do you smoke?”

Realizing it was an offer, I made a bizarre, tense gesture and shook my head slightly. “I appreciate it,” I choked out. “But I don’t.”

“Oh, but you will!” boomed Jason, his false British accent returning suddenly. “If you live with people like us long enough, you certainly will!”

“Smoking is a very important part of our lives, Ryan,” Elizabeth intoned in an imitation of Jason’s imitation accent. Her warm smile unwavering, she looked at me. I smiled back. “You must get accustomed to it.”

I took in the room and its inhabitants. Brittany and Brea had returned to their wordless contest (I’m not sure how I could tell, but I think Brea was winning); Jason had picked up a small black and grey kitten that had been swirling around his ankles and was teasing it mercilessly as the kitten was hardly resisted; and Elizabeth simply smoked, smiling and enjoying every second of every moment.

I exhaled, finally letting out the nervous breath I had been holding in since Chelsea and I gazed up at the enigmatically comforting structure. I had resisted its effects then, but I now allowed them to wash over me and permitted the happy future which stretched before me to ruminate in my soul.

I live here now, I thought.

I was at peace.

I was home.

Young and Perfect

Written as a parody of F. Scott Fitzgerald's style. It's also kinda based on real life. Bye.

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We--Jason, tall and handsome, a confused yet profound look forever plastered on his face; Brittany, short, yet still handsome, but in the way women in Jane Austen novels are described as handsome; and myself, short, not unhandsome--lay, flawless, in the living room. The record player droned noiselessly, the penultimate masterpiece of a revered genius turning in the background, ignored by we, the somniferous beings reclining in the wooded room. Pointlessly exhausted, we rested unendingly.

Our aimless reverie was interrupted by the entrance into the house of Elizabeth--shortest, with some hands. The click of the door behind her dragged us foggily back to earth. Her companion, Rhett (taller, so handsy) stood behind her.

"Rhett and I are going upstairs," Elizabeth muttered, gesturing vaguely to Rhett. His head nodded. Jason, Brittany, and I muttered a non-worded reply. Elizabeth looked aimlessly down the hallway, took one step forward, and then turned to face the room. "We might do it."

She turned away and headed up the stairs, followed, obediently, by Rhett.

The house was an unimposing pink building tucked behind a fading tree at the end of south 5th Avenue. The year was 2013. And we were young. And we were perfect.

Do You See the People Sing? The Close-Up in Tom Hooper’s 'Les Misérables'

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.

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.”

This, in opposition to the dancing in Hairspray, in which the characters are framed in such a way that forces

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.

This technique is mirrored in most of the other ballads in the film (see image 5), where the emotions range from newly found paternal affection (“Suddenly”) to longing for a life that can never be (“On My Own”) to reverence and respect for law and order (“Stars”).

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.

A full list of works cited can be found here.

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^[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.