Megan's Blog, Les MIs Assignment 1

      Hello fellow bloggers, Megan bids good-morrow.

From the movie I learned that after watching it for the eighth time it is still just as good. In 2012 when the movie Les Mis came out I decided to embark in an outing to view it, before going to see I had no idea that the entire movie was going to be sung. I learned from the movie how to portray my character of Mme. Thenardier in a much better light, I was enlightened by the extreme vulgarity the actress Helena Bonham Carter used to authenticate the character. You can see a lot of similar characteristics in previous roles that she has done, I also found it interesting that in last years musical Big Fish I played the role of "the witch" and that part was also played by the same actress in the movie. So by watching the movie I learned more about that actress and different roles with similar characteristics to help me with playing the role much better.

My favourite scene for sure has to be "the docks" scene along with the song "lovely ladies" and i really hope that during our production of Les Mis that i get to be a part of making the scene come alive. The other scene that I fell in love with the moment i saw it was the " master of the house scene". I loved how up beat and memorable the song was, along with the extremely flamboyant characters!


Three common themes I found that come up in the musical are: love, forgiveness and desperation. The theme love is shown in three different cases with Cosette (shoutout to Michelle), the first case is how much Fantine (shoutout to Mary) loves her daughter and becomes desperate to make money to care for her (also an example of desperation), Cosette is also extremely loved by Val Jean(shoutout to Tristen). Val Jean takes her in as one of his own and it is very sweet. Cosette also experiences a romantic love between her and Marius (shoutout to Wes). I also think a good example of love (or lack there of) is the love that Mr. and Mme. Thenardier have for their daughter. The third theme is forgiveness, the most obvious one is in the end when Javert after all the years finally decides to forgive Val Jean. I also think that at the end of the movie in some sense Val Jean forgives himself. Last but not least the theme of desperation, which  is an underlying tone throughout the musical. The first example of desperation that comes to mind in the musical is how desperate Fantine is to make money for her daughter Cosette, most characters are consistently desperate to make money including all the "lovely ladies" and the "Thenardiers". Then finally desperation causes the revolution because people don't know what to do anymore because they are all desperate and poor and hungry.