Sunday, April 28, 2013

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 ecstaticLes 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 Th
énardier 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.





[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.

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