It seems like only a month ago I watched the 1998 movie version of Les Misérables. Well, here's the 1995 "dream cast" concert. I'm sure many of you are sick and tired of my Les Miz love, so I'll keep this post brief. First off, this truly was a "dream cast" in every sense of the phrase (except perhaps the Sega console one). I guess for this 10th anniversary concert they pulled out all the stops in acquiring the people responsible for the greatest performances in the show's international history. And it totally works. It doesn't even seem a bit weird that one of the key characters is portrayed by an Asian woman. The greatest performance of all was given by the Irish dude who played Jean Valjean, which only seemed fitting. Now, a point of critique, and not even a minor one - this DVD lacked the necessary narrative pieces that come between the songs. If you were unfamiliar with the Les Miz story going into this DVD viewing, you simply wouldn't get the full effect of the story or the songs. So while I do think the two-and-a-half-hour performance was amazing, I also think it could have been a full three hours long and included some simple transitory scenes. Oh well. So now I've seen the most recent film adaptation as well as the be-all, end-all concert performance. It's an apples to oranges comparison, but I'm still left craving a film version of the musical. If done properly, that would certainly be the best of both worlds. And yeah, someday, I'm reading that 365-chapter book. One final note to end on: I didn't know what to tag this post! Obviously it's not a book or a video game, but it also isn't really a movie or a television show. However, since it aired on television (but never in theaters), I went with "television." Still doesn't seem very accurate, but I suppose it's the best option I've got.
No comments:
Post a Comment