Preview

Les Miserables

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1336 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Les Miserables
Mikhail Rivera
TREDFOR – EE
10812601

Film Analysis Reflection paper

“All are called to love. This is the vocation of every person.”

In what way was this expressed/articulated or communicated in the film? Explore the depth of the message of the film. In what did the theme challenged you as a person?

The film, Les Miserables, I have to say has a bitter-sweet ending. I would describe the film to be displaying dynamic message as the story did not revolve around one setting, place, or one character such Jean Valjean (Prisoner 24601), Marius Pontmercy, or even Cosette. The film showed an equal importance to the majority of the characters as each of the characters of Jean Valjean (Prisoner 24601), Javert, Frantine, Marius, and Cosette were highlighted in the film. It showed intense not just the poverty and struggles of the lives of Jean Valjean, Fantine, and Cossette who were abused, used, cheated, wronged and taken advantage of but from the setting itself as there is an ongoing revolt between the government and the poor. But despite the many hardships and wrong the main characters faced in the film, still they choose the path of righteousness as many of the characters who were wronged still chose to forgive the people who wronged them and in a way loved thy neighbour.

For the vocation of every person, “All are called to love”, this one was first expressed in the situation where Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) was released from parole of nineteen years of imprisonment by the Prison Guard, Javert (Russel Crowe). Despite of Jean Valjean released from imprisonment, Javert gave him yellow papers meaning that wherever Jean Valjean will go in the country, everyone will he is a former prisoner or an ex-convict. As Jean Valjean went from town to town looking for work and begging people for shelter and food, he is continuously beaten up and rejected until the Bishop of Digne offered him refuge giving him food and a place to sleep in his Parisian. This was the first

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Incendies Worksheet

    • 501 Words
    • 2 Pages

    1) Describe the narrative structure of the film. How does it emphasize the film’s themes, or mirror traumatic memory?…

    • 501 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Four Little Girls

    • 256 Words
    • 2 Pages

    5. How do you think the filmmakers want the audience to respond? Is there a social justice message? If so, what is it?…

    • 256 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Les Miserables (Les Mis for short) is a musical that was composed in 1980 by the French composer Claude-Michel Schonberg with the libretto, or text, by Alain Boublill and lyrics by Herbert. It is one of the most performed and well-known musicals in the world. On October 8, 2006 Les Miserables celebrated 21 years on London’s West End and became the longest running West End musical in history, reaching 9,500 performances. The show continues to be shown at London’s Queen’s Theatre. Based on the Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, Les Miserables, it is set in the early 19th century France and with a cast of interlacing stories. We watch as they struggle for redemption and revolution while they are joined by an ensemble that includes prostitutes, student revolutionaries, factory workers, and others. The Tony Award-winning score features the songs I Dreamed a Dream, a solo sung by the character Fantine, and On My Own, a solo sung by the character Eponine, which have had many professional artists record covers of these songs.…

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    M. Myriel “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Guidelines: You are required to write a total of three essays, one each from Sections A, B, and C. Each essay answer must be 500 words. You may write about the same film more than once ONLY if you are writing about different subject matter. You may not write about the same film more than twice. You may write only on films viewed in class. Films viewed outside of class are not eligible for analysis. Please indicate, by number, your answers.…

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    • What are the themes of the story? Which theme did you think was the most important in…

    • 3402 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Les Misérables, published in 1862, is a story that focuses on an ex-convict, Jean Valjean, on his road to redemption. Through his course, he encounters characters such as the relentless and unforgiving police inspector Javert, the saintly Monseigneur Myriel – Bishop of Digne, the naïve orphan turned unmarried mother turned prostitute Fantine, the illegitimate child Cosette, the greedy con artist couple M. and Mme. Thenardier, and the upper class boy estranged from his family Marius. With these people, he learns compassion, forgiveness, mercy, and love. What’s outstanding about this story is how Victor Hugo incorporated his beliefs without making the story flat. He was able to articulate the struggles of class oppression and social injustice in such a way that not only the upper classes would understand, but also the lower ones who are the main reason he wrote the novel for.…

    • 3032 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Written by Victor Hugo after the French Revolution, Les Misérables is a story that examines the many levels of social injustice in nineteenth-century France. Its protagonist, Jean Valjean, is central to the understanding of this injustice. Sentenced to 19 years in prison for committing a petty crime, Valjean comes to observe the law as an arbitrary force lacking in compassion and equality. However, Valjean's view is fanatically contradicted by Inspector Javert, a man whose commitment to the law is absolute. Through Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Reasoning, the successive conflicts between these two characters are given a basis of reason that is defined by the stages at which they function. Kohlberg's theory can also explain the opposing interpretations of the Common Good in relation to the moral stages of Valjean and Javert.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Q5. How do you think the filmmakers want the audience to respond? Is there a social justice message? If so, what is it?…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The project will highlight a focused area of investigation and must be approved prior to commencement. Whatever the area of investigation, the research should endeavour to identify what is distinctive about the chosen focus and related films within the chosen context and to demonstrate how this distinctiveness contributes to making meaning – in essence working from text to context. In practice, candidates will constantly be interrelating aspects of their chosen film(s) and their research materials.…

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Les Miserables

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo portrays human nature in a neutral state. Humans are born with neither good nor bad instincts, but rather society affects our actions and thoughts. Hugo portrays the neutral state of mind through Jean Valjean and Cosette. The two extremes of good and evil are represented through Thénardier and the bishop. Good and evil coexists in the society and affects Valjean and Cosette. It is the two extremes of good and evil that dictate the lives of Valjean and Cosette. The bishop represents charity and love. Everything he's ever had, he gave to charity. When the bishop first met Valjean, he said, "You need not tell me who you are. This is not my house; it is the house of Christ. It does not ask any comer whether he has a name, but whether he has an affliction. You are suffering; you are hungry and thirsty; be welcome. And do not thank me; do not tell me that I take you into my house..... whatever is here is yours." (pg. 15-16) The bishop didn't look at him as a convict; he looked at him as a fellow brother. Later, when the bishop found out that Valjean stole his silver, he wasn't mad, but offered all of his silver to Valjean saying, "Don't forget that you promised me to use this silver to become an honest man." Thénardier, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of the bishop. He represents the corruptive nature of society. He's the one that changes people for the bad. An example of how Thénardier represents greed and evil is how he mistreated Cosette when he was taking care of her. He made her wash and clean, while letting his kids run around and play. Thénardier took advantage of Cosette's mother, Fantine. He kept on asking her for more money, when in fact he didn't really need it. When it was cold, Thénardier told…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The main message in the movie is that despite all our outer differences, we are all going through the same type of problems. Even more, the theme is that we have to accept the differences because inside we are all alike.…

    • 895 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Les Miserables Essay

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “So long as the three problems of the age- the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night- are not solved… books like this cannot be useless,” (Hugo Preface). In his novel, Les Miserables, Victor Hugo illustrates these problems throughout the plot, adding to the public obsession over the book. Most went crazy over the light he shone on the struggles of France in the late 1800s, instead of the happy love stories many authors were writing about at that time. Through Les Miserables, Hugo ties the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, or the dwarfing of childhood into almost all of the characters introduced.…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    I agree with the statement, “In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo is trying to say that human nature is basically good”. Victor Hugo is doing this by having his book consist of many characters who symbolize human nature’s goodness within the story. This is because he creates goodness within the characters by making them be forgiving, thankful, become morally righteous, and possess good intentions towards helping others therefore, Hugo’s message is to tell people that human nature is good but society is what makes them sometimes posses a bad personality. Another way Hugo is saying that human nature is good is when he makes all the characters, which resemble human beings, forgive their antagonist, be compassionate, and become unselfish just like Jean Valjean and Javert did by both freeing each other. Human nature is not bad because in the book human beings do not let their id take complete control of their decision making instead they let their superego and ego take part in their decision making. Another reason why human nature is not bad is because people learn fear and hatred thus meaning that in the beginning they were good but toward the end they learned but not are bad just like some characters in the book. I agree with the statement, “In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo is trying to say that human nature is basically good”.…

    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    There is a profound essence of self sacrifice, beliefs, and symbolic patterns within the plot. As I evaluated the film, I found that it definitely had several moral statements that would “persuade us to apply the principles in our own lives.” (Boggs & Petrie, p 17) I perceived this to be a concept of, stay true to your beliefs, humanity, and moral obligations. I also found the overall film along with the characters to incorporate social problems and the truth of human nature. “Because those characters are representative of humanity in general, they serve as a cinematic vehicle to illustrate some widely or universal acceptable truth about human nature”. (Boggs & Petrie, p…

    • 1756 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics