javert's suicide / david thaxton, 17 march 2023
i had to share this truly balls-to-the-wall rendition of javert's suicide. yes those howling/grunting noises are thaxton. he performed the whole thing swaying from side to side, sobbing. genuinely not a clue what was happening here
ok, little rant about a use of a leitmotif in les mis that i think has slipped under most people's radars!
so you the know the police leitmotif? the "tell me quickly what's the story/who saw what and why and where/let him give a full description/let him answer to javert!" tune that appears whenever somebody gets arrested?
now turn your ear to javert's suicide, specifically the "i am reaching but i fall/and the stars are black and cold" part. it took me a while to notice, but this whole section of the song is just a snippet of the arrest leitmotif:
but he never completes it. the snippet repeats and repeats. try as he might, he finds himself unable to sing the same old song of Justice and Law and Righteousness and Order. he's like a jammed cassette player spitting out the same second of music over and over and over and over again, unable to follow his old ways, but unable to let them go. he's stuck, but he will keep throwing himself against the walls of the cage.
javert is desperately trying to run on his old tracks of thought, but, as vicky h puts it, he experiences "the derailment of a soul, the shattering of an integrity irresistibly propelled in a straight line and dashed against God".
: )
Not enough people talk about the frankly insane word choices in Volume 2 when Javert is chasing Valjean near Petit-Picpus.
I can't tell if it's just the Finnish translation being weird or if this scene just has psychosexual undertones. Like Javert is described as "toying with his prey", he has "a moment of hellish pleasure", he's so happy he indulges in some snuff, he "swallows [Valjean] with his gaze", and one sentence is literally just "Javert enjoyed [this]." They also use the word "arouse" and an adjective I've never seen used outside a sexual context (it translates to something like licentious or orgiastic).
I need some French or English readers to pitch in. Is the scene always this homoerotic or did the Finnish translator just go wild?
ill just leave this here
not a single reason why he should be posing like that
and i’ll dance with you in Vienna, i’ll be wearing a river’s disguise
(listen to take this waltz by leonard cohen PLEASE it HITS)
[ID: a digital drawing in the style of a tarot card, VI- the Lovers. Valjean and Javert from Les Mis are shown. They are waltzing. Javert’s hand is on Valjean’s shoulder, and Valjean’s hand is on Javert’s waist. They are both smiling. Valjean wears a green waistcoat and blue pants, while Javert wears a blue tailcoat and green pants, with black leather gloves. Javert wears a blue earring in the shape of a star. A crescent moon is behind him. A yellow circle is behind Valjean. The moon has a blue eye, and the sun has a white carnation in outline. three blue decorations hang from the moon. A white swallow flies behind them. End ID.]
JAVERT. FROM LES MISERABLES.
Please reblog for a larger sample size.
Crucial update: I didn't go back to the beginning of the blog, but I did scroll back through several months of poll, and this is the largest discrepancy in either direction of any poll I encountered.
I'm sorry but i just noticed this comment
ID tags reading: if pursues your orgasm like he hunted the protag you're gonna do fine / end ID
... So he's gonna take nearly 20 years, lose track of what he's doing completely several times, and ultimately have a personal crisis about it and leave Very Finally rather than finish the job???
"i will never rest, till then..."
the les mis section of the paris 2024 olympic games opening ceremony:
Motherfucker probably spends all his free time trying to catch a bread thief
devastating! local man is wrong and always has been wrong!
if you want a good laugh i would suggest looking at the letterboxd reviews for the 25th anniversary les mis concert…they are GOLD
To the Les Mis fandom
a bit different from how i usually draw things but i was listening to a lot of horror songs lately and got Inspired
happy barricade day, fellas
..and looking that up is how I learn the NEXT LM movie is already on the way!
Cavayé said he plans to “take things from the book that have never been adapted on screen, particularly expanding the scope of the female characters like Fantine, Cosette and Eponine…We need to make movies that make people want to go to the movies.”
Tentative enthusiasm???
a little javert sketch for the barricade day
It's June 1st, which means that 192 years ago Gavroche was telling Enjolras and Les Amis de l'ABC that General Lamarque just died. And Grantaire just realised that Enjolras was 100% serious about dying for the cause for the first time. And his heart broke at the sight of the guns because he knew he was about to lose the one person he loved.
For a cause he didn't believe in.
