A gripping tale of love, conscience, sacrifice and redemption, Victor Hugo’s timeless “Les Misérables” has been made into a movie more than 50 times, including a forthcoming BBC mini-series. But this universal story might be best known through the award-winning stage musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg.
Schönberg and Boublil will be artists-in-residence at the University of Virginia from Feb. 22 to 24, sharing their experience and creative insights with students, faculty, staff and the Charlottesville community. The residency is funded by the Arts Endowment, a permanent endowment established in 2014 dedicated to expanding, improving and promoting excellence in the arts at the University through investments in new and signature arts programs that enhance the University and the student experience.
As part of the residency, the University will offer an exclusive screening of the recent London stage production, “Miss Saigon: The 25th Anniversary Performance courtesy of Universal Pictures, UPHE Content Group.” The screening includes a special finale, with the 25th Anniversary cast joined on stage by original cast members Jonathan Pryce, Lea Salonga and Simon Bowman. The screening will take place at Newcomb Hall Theatre at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 22, with a brief introduction by creators Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg.
Claude-Michel Schonberg Photo by Seamus RyanAlain Boublil Photo by Daniela Beltran.
Two free conversations will also be open to the public.
On Feb. 23 at 6:30 p.m. in Old Cabell Hall Auditorium, Schönberg and Boublil will talk with Marva, a professor emeritus who formerly taught in UVA’s Departments of French and Drama. The discussion will cover their careers, musical theater today and their current and future projects. The evening also will feature the University Singers led by director Michael Slon and guest artists performing several Boublil and Schönberg songs from “Les Misérables” and “Miss Saigon.”
On Feb. 24 at 4 p.m. in the Ruth Caplin Theatre, Boublil and Schönberg will share with Department of Drama chair Colleen Kelly their insights about theatrical creations and performances.
Tickets for these events are available at the UVA Box Office, limited to two for each patron.
While at UVA, Schönberg and Boublil will conduct workshops with students and faculty members and discuss their composition and libretto-writing experiences and musical theater careers.
“There will be a variety of conversations with the students – all the way from details about how the musical came to fruition, to acting in musical theater, to songwriting, mostly in English, but also in French,” Barnett said. “Claude-Michel has told me several times that they come to UVA ‘for the students.’”
As part of the residency, the University will screen the 10th-anniversary “Dream Cast” production of “Les Misérables” on Feb. 26.
Broadway, January 2015 Photo by Marva Barnett
Lyricist Boublil and composer Schönberg’s “Les Mis” opened in Paris in 1980, and then became a smash hit on the London stage in 1985. Seen by more than 70 million people in 42 countries and 22 different languages, the musical has received more than 140 major theater awards and is still on stage after 35 years.
Their “Miss Saigon,” first performed in London in 1989 and on Broadway in 1991, will again come to Broadway on March 1 following a successful London revival. Schönberg said he was inspired to retell Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” when he happened to see a photograph of a Vietnamese mother leaving her child at the Tan Son Nhut Air Base – the “ultimate sacrifice,” Schönberg thought, of giving up her daughter so that her American ex-G.I. father could give her a better life.
Schönberg – a record producer, actor, singer, songwriter and musical theater and ballet composer – is best known for his collaborations with Boublil, a musical theater lyricist and librettist, author and producer. Their other major works together include the rock opera “La Révolution Française” (1973), “Martin Guerre” (1996), “The Pirate Queen” (2006) and “Marguerite” (2008). Schonberg’s shows have won many awards over the years, most recently the WhatsonStage audience awards for Best West End Show and Best Musical Revival for the new London production of “Miss Saigon,” which opened in 2014. A Golden Globe winner, Oscar nominee and Grammy award winner, Schönberg has been appointed visiting professor of contemporary theater at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University – a position funded by the Mackintosh Foundation.
Boublil’s many awards include two Tonys, two Grammys, two Victoire de la Musique and a Molière Award for “Les Misérables” as well as an Evening Standard Drama Award for “Miss Saigon,” a Laurence Olivier Award for “Martin Guerre” and a New York Chapter Honors Grammy for his outstanding contribution to the creative community. He co-wrote the screenplay of the Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated film, “Les Misérables.” Currently he is working with Schönberg on a revised version of “Martin Guerre.” He is also working on a symphonic concert and an animated project of their first rock opera, “The French Revolution.”
Schönberg and Alain Boublil were honored in May at a New York Pops gala concert in Carnegie Hall, celebrating their 40-year collaboration.
Marva Barnett’s primary research centers on Hugo. She edited “Victor Hugo on Things That Matter,” a reader that highlights Hugo’s ideas and their contemporary relevance, and this spring teaches a first-year University Seminar “Les Misérables Today,” in which students will explore why the novel and musical resonate so much with so many people today.
“When I first met Claude-Michel and told him that I had taught Hugo’s novel in conjunction with the musical several times, he asked whether I would like him to come to UVA,” Barnett said. “He then invited Alain Boublil to join him.”
The visit is co-sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the Vice Provost for the Arts, the Department of Drama and the Department of Music.
By Caroline Newman, University News Associate, Office of University Communications, U. of Virginia, cfn8m@virginia.edu
Hugh Jackman spoke with Marva in January 2015, after his performance in The River at Circle in the Square Theatre, New York. Sharing his thoughts about playing Jean Valjean in Tom Hooper’s 2012 musical film Les Misérables, he is helping Marva explore the power of Hugo’s work for us today. Jackman admires—and aspires to—Jean Valjean’s tenacity in the face of pain and his selflessness for his community.
Is Hugo relevant?Jackman thinks so:“I think what Victor Hugo was seeing in his backyard, really, in his country, this great inequity and this incredible injustice going on, is exactly the same today and sparking pretty much most of the conflicts in the world today. I know some of them seem to be veiled in religion, but I’m sure most of them start with poverty. And there’s about a billion people on the planet hungry right now—all the time.”
Admiring the Salon rouge. Photo credit: Gérard Pouchain
At the Victor Hugo in Guernsey Festival, Marva joins other Hugo specialists for a private tour of Hugo’s Hautville House with Gérard Audinet and for a tour of the island led by Gérard Pouchain in April 2016.
In the garden at Hauteville House, Hugo’s exile home on Guernsey, with Hugo specialists and friends Gérard Audinet, Alain Lecompte, Jean-Marc Hovasse, Sophie Hovasse, Gérard Pouchain, Jean Maurice, Florence Naugrette, and Odile Blanchette. Photo credit: Gérard PouchainAdmiring the Salon rouge. Photo credit: Gérard PouchainNo wonder Hugo called Guernsey “the rock of hospitality and freedom” when he dedicated Les Travailleurs de la mer to the island.
After the Live Arts Theatre production of Les Misérables
Live Arts Theatre’s Jigsaw Jones interviews Marva about Les Misérables for their winter 2014 production, which Marva saw with the students in her course Les Misérables: From Page to Stage to Screen.
Les Misérables is now the longest-running musical in the world, having been seen in over 40 countries over the past 25 years. But there’s still a lot to learn about this beloved, monumental story. We talked to Marva Barnett to get some insight.
LIVE ARTS: Firstly, thank you for taking the time to talk with us! Please introduce yourself and let us know a little about your history with the works of Victor Hugo.
MARVA BARNETT: Thanks for your interest in Les Misérables, and thanks to Live Arts for bringing Boublil & Schönberg’s musical to us. I have been fascinated by Victor Hugo’s work since I first read Notre-Dame de Paris (in English) as a young teenager. In grad school, I explored more, ending up writing my master’s thesis on the theme of love in Hugo’s works. I tried to read Les Misérables on my own, in French, but I met my Waterloo with the “Waterloo” chapter, letting the book (all three volumes) languish on the shelf.
Years later, as I looked for a new UVA French course to teach, I rediscovered Hugo’s genius. In that course, we read Les Misérables in an abridged version appropriate for American students learning French. But, just like a three-hour musical, an abridged version leaves out important information. Why did Valjean turn himself in when he could so easily have gone free? Why on earth did Javert commit suicide? I had to read the original novel, and this time I flew through it. And I found so compelling the whole story, the philosophy, the history, the social commentary that I began teaching in English so that students could read the entire novel. Discussing Les Misérables with them even led me to see why Hugo spends so many pages on Waterloo.
Seeing the musical, recognizing how well it captures the heart of Hugo’s novel, and finding so many people moved by the story sent me on a journey exploring why this particular story is so timeless and compelling. For that book project, I’m looking into Hugo’s life and ideas and talking with the artists who created the original musical and the 2012 musical film. Their insights have enriched the musical theater experience for me and for the 100+ students who have joined me on this journey. I hope my eventual book will bring as much pleasure and insights to other lovers of Les Mis!
LA: Les Misérables was first published in 1862, in the middle of what appears to be a revolution-free period of French history. Can you give us an idea of the context of that time in France and how it relates to the novel’s setting a few decades earlier?
MB: This is a big question! Like much of Europe, France was reeling a bit, looking for the best form of government, with camps on all sides. The haggling over which form of government is best, which future the country will have—and the difficulties and despair experienced by those who have not—repeats itself in all cultures and all times. Our time and our place are not exempt. All times and cultures need their Victor Hugo.
The first principle of history, since day two of humankind, is that no day is unprecedently and entirely new. Thus what becomes most instructive is to look for repeating patterns— and they always manage to repeat. In the period from 1789 to 1832, roughly two generations, when we consider the amount of change that the French populace had faced in its governance, it’s hard to see a lot of repetition. There was the bloody overthrow of monarchy (the 1789 French Revolution) succeeded by a period of violent imperial expansionism (Napoleonic Empire) followed by a supposed restoration of monarchy (the Bourbon kings) succeeded by the July Revolution of 1830 that brought in the constitutional monarchy of “citizen-king” Louis-Philippe.
LA: How has your experience with the musical informed later readings of the novel?
MB: When I read the novel now that I know the musical so well and admire it so much, I see many moments in the novel that lie behind important moments in the musical. Several lines from “Stars,” for example, were clearly inspired by Hugo’s thrilling description of Javert when he captures Valjean in the guise of M. Madeleine. To quote just a few words: “He, Javert, personified justice, light, and truth, in their celestial functions as destroyers of evil” (Part I, Book 8, Chapter 3, “Javert Satisfied”).
We can see much more of the novel in Tom Hooper’s 2012 movie version of the Les Mis musical. As many people know, Tom encouraged his actors and crew to read Les Misérables before making the film, and many did. My students and I, especially, enjoy finding the dozens of subtle ways in which they incorporated details from the novel—in ways that work on film but would be difficult or impossible on stage.
LA: Victor Hugo said of his novel, “I don’t know whether it will be read by everyone, but it is meant for everyone.” Do you think he would have been pleased with the global success of the musical? Or would he wish more people picked up the book?
MB: That’s a hard question, especially as Hugo strongly believed (and accurately) that his entire body of writing was an integrated work. I suspect that, like me, he would want people to experience the truly big ideas in the novel. But he may well have liked the musical and the way it has spread his story in new ways to a new audience. He did, after all, write the lyrics for an opera based on his Notre-Dame de Paris, working with family friend Louise Bertin, who composed the music in the 1830s. And he applauded his son Charles’ success in adapting Les Misérables to the stage in the 1860s.
LA: On a heavier note, do you have any tips for picking up the book? Are there special exercises you can recommend to help lift it?
MB: When you’ve gotten far enough into the novel, it lifts itself—and you with it. Seriously, read through the first 100 pages before giving up. Meet the bishop and see what an amazing person he is. Agonize with Jean Valjean over his lost 19 years and experience with him the turmoil the bishop’s gift provokes. Then skip any parts that seem boring to you. Don’t get stuck, as I did the first time I picked up the book. As timeless as the novel is, Hugo was writing to his nineteenth-century French peers, and they knew the history of King Louis-Philippe’s reign and the Napoleonic Empire, for instance, in ways that only fans of French history come close to knowing today. Follow the stories of the characters you love, and you might find at the end that you want to go back later and figure out what those “digressions” say to you. “I think I’m going to miss Jean Valjean,” one student wrote me at the end of the semester, “is that weird?” No. He’s someone many of us like to spend time with, and he’s always there inside the book’s covers.
LA: If someone seeing the show is inspired to look more deeply into the works of Victor Hugo, where do you suggest they start?
MB: I recommend “the brick,” the Signet paperback translation by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee. It’s modern in the way Hugo’s French remains and nearly always accurate. Just as important, their translation is based on Charles Wilbour’s original 1862 translation, which is the most faithful to Hugo’s French. But any translation that you find readable you will find pleasurable. Reading the same pages from different editions online will likely tell you which one is the one for you.
LA: Throughout all these changes, the newly risen middle class, the bourgeoisie, remained relatively comfortable. By the time of the 1832 barricades, an insurrection or attempted revolution, the bourgeoisie had generally enjoyed plentiful opportunity. But the lower classes were very poor and increasingly repressed.
Victor Hugo—who grew up with a monarchist mother (who had, too, the free-thinking leanings of Voltaire) and a father who was a Napoleonic general—surely had some insights into top-down social arrangements. By the time he began Les Misérables in 1845, he had become concerned about the direction of French society. Whether you call the person at the top of the pyramid “king” or “emperor” is not so germane as the fact that the privilege and power all live there and exert themselves downward. This concerned Hugo greatly. As governments gained power, they policed the French citizenry more and increasingly suppressed dissent, which alone might explain the relative lack of revolutionary ferment in the 1860s. But Napoléon III also made sure that domestic discontents were muted by France’s involvement in a variety of what might be called small foreign wars.
In December 1851 Hugo was forced to flee into exile when President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte took over the government and soon assumed the role of emperor, calling himself Napoléon III. Hugo had been forcibly separated from France and living mostly in the Channel Islands for nearly a decade when he had the chance to resume writing Les Misérables in 1860. It is possible that he felt a freedom and a necessity to speak for that large part of the French public which did not have a political voice.
LA: Though this might be the first time Hugo’s novel was set to an orchestral score, Boublil & Schönberg were not the first to attempt to bring the story to a greater audience. There have been numerous film, television, and radio adaptations stretching back to the beginning of mass media. Yet it is this musical that seems to be the most widely known adaptation. Is that just because it’s a musical, or does this adaptation capture something fundamental to the original book that resonates?
MB: Yes, over 50 films from countries as diverse as India and Poland, with even a Japanese anime version. Although the 1934 and 1954 movie versions are perhaps best known and loved in France, the musical is, as you say, probably the most widely known version throughout the world. I believe its success is due to the creative genius of the artists who created it: Claude-Michel Schönberg’s remarkable, opera-like music and his goal of writing music that tells the story without words; Claude-Michel and Alain Boublil’s insights into Hugo’s novel that they brought to their moving original musical book; James Fenton’s and Herbert Kretzmer’s stunning lyrics; the theatrical genius of producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh. They captured, I think, Hugo’s passion in support of the outcasts, the downtrodden, the hardworking regular folks who can hardly get a break. And they show us through memorable music and lyrics Hugo’s picture of the power of love for bettering oneself and society.
LA: What is it about this story that has us all retelling it?
MB: Ah, you ask the question the more or less prompted my book project. In a nutshell, I believe that the story of Jean Valjean’s multiple moral challenges and triumphs touch something deeply human inside many of us, prompting us to be better people, “to be a better man every day,” as Hugh Jackman emailed me about the impact of playing Valjean in the 2012 movie musical. At the same time, the big sweep of the novel, so many realistic, touching characters, and the social justice issues raised makes us believe, for a while at least, that the world can truly be a better place. Hugo hoped that his novel would transform society, as he wrote to his editor and as he claimed at the end of his preface (often quoted at the beginning of French versions of Les Misérables): “as long as ignorance and misery exist in this world, books like this one cannot be useless.”
LA: Apart from having more songs and way fewer digressions, how does the musical differ from the novel? How closely to the text does the play adhere?
MB: Of course, the musical must simplify the complexities of human nature and the epic social struggles that Hugo portrays. But, beyond that obvious difference, my students and I spend a semester answering this question. I’ll touch on just a few points relevant to main characters that I find key. I could go on and on!
The bishop’s spirituality is broader than the Christian framework we usually see in the musical. Jean Valjean is just as larger than life as he is in the musical, but the novel gives us a stronger, clearer understanding of how incredibly human he is. Hugh Jackman told me when we talked about the film that Tom Hooper noted how important it was to “play the long game” with Valjean. Valjean struggles with his darker side, his weaker side, all the way through the novel.
Inspector Javert is a much, much more complex character in the novel—he’s not the villain that many spectators find him to be. And Hugo’s Gavroche is so delightful and heartwarming that it’s almost worth reading those 1,400 pages just to spend time with him. The musical captures Gavroche’s spirit but doesn’t have time to show us who he really is. And, of course, the novel’s huge themes are deepened and enriched by what appear to be digressions.
LA: On the topic of Hugo’s many digressions, what purpose do the serve? What have we lost by not including some of that authorial voice in the stage adaptation (aside from an additional few hours of running time)?
MB: Waterloo, life in convents, the criminals’ slang, and the Paris sewer system are certainly digressions in one sense. But when we read the novel thoughtfully, we see how much they have to tell us about social ills and the potential for progress. As Hugo recounts the Battle of Waterloo and its surprising turns of fate, he is prompting us to wonder: are these random accidents or God’s providential hand? That question about fate, destiny, providence, and chance flows through all the characters’ lives (not to mention our own), and “Waterloo” gives us another way in which to grapple with it. The history and description of the sewers are a marvelous metaphor for the way in which society often wastes human potential.
This interview was published in the Live Arts newsletter:
THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE UP THE PLACE THAT IS THE THING
A QUARTERLY EFFORT DECEMBER 2014 THROUGH FEBRUARY 2015
Tony Award®-winners Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, creators of the musicals Les Misérables and Miss Saigon (among others), are artists-in-residence at UVa, September 30-October 2, 2014, at Marva’s invitation. In introducing her guests, Marva explained how the visit came to be:
When Claude-Michel Schönberg invited me to his London home in June 2014 to talk about Victor Hugo and Les Misérables for my book project, we shared at length our ideas. Sitting in his garden, we discussed the novel’s characters, Schönberg’s thoughts on his music, and how he and Alain Boublil translated the novel into the musical. Schönberg gave me many new insights on Les Misérables.
And then he showed me around his studio and played a bit of the demo tape that he and Boublil had used to find their first producer for Les Misérables. It’s powerful stuff:Schönberg playing the piano and singing the all the original French songs! As we shared our experiences with Les Mis, I mentioned how much I loved teaching Hugo’s novel in conjunction with the musical—and that I would be teaching the course again in the fall.
“Would you like me to come?” Schönberg asked.
I said the only possible thing:“Yes, that would be amazing!”
“Invite me,” he responded.
I was again delighted when he invited his collaborator of over 40 years—librettist, lyricist, and author Alain Boublil.
The result:these brilliant artists came to the University of Virginia primarily to talk with students about composing, writing a musical book and lyrics, and bringing Les Misérables to stage and screen.
The evening of September 30, on stage in Culbreth Theatre, Boublil and Schönberg were amusing and heart-warming as they talked with me about their careers writing sung-through musicals. Over 400 attended, including nearly 100 University Singers, who, directed by Michael Slon, opened the program with songs from Les Misérables and Miss Saigon.
They wanted to be busy, and they were! Their first morning, they did a Q&A with the nearly forty students in my Drama course Les Misérables: From Page to Stage to Screen. Over lunch and in the afternoon, they talked with many other students and faculty. All in all, the artists met with seven separate groups of students and associated faculty.
Claude-Michel Schönberg consulted with the director and cast of Live Arts Theatre’s December production of Les Misérables. He also coached the University Singers on Les Mis songs during their rehearsal class.
Marva is invited to share her work on Les Misérables with students and faculty at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio on February 21, 2014.Beginning her talk with the famous line from the musical Les Mis, “To love another person is to see the face of God,” Marva asks how well this statement reflects Victor Hugo’s views within and beyond his famous Les Misérables.Sharing insights from her conversation with Hugh Jackman, who starred as Jean Valjean in the 2012 Universal film, Marva Barnett explores on how Hugo shows love’s capacity to change people.
After experiencing with her students Tom Hooper’s 2012 Les Misérables film, she opened the conversation to the wider University community with Les Misérables: Inspirations for Today?, a Flash! Seminar on January 22, 2013,@ 5:00 p.m., with this description:
As Hugh Jackman toured the world promoting Les Misérables, he emailed me, “one question i am getting a lot is….does playing valjean change you…and the answer is yes!!!!!!!it makes you want to be a better man….every day.”
Has seeing the movie, watching the theater musical, or reading Victor Hugo’s novel changed you?Why or why not?We will particularly consider Hugo’s preface (below) and his story about what Jean Valjean and the bishop of Digne did after the bishop welcomed the ex-convict into his home (Part I, Book 2, Chapters 9-13).
Location: Hotel D, East Range (just behind the Pavilion VI Garden)
Hugo’s Preface to Les Misérables: As long as there exists, thanks to laws and customs, a social damnation which artificially creates hell at the heart of civilization and tangles destiny, which is divine, up with human fate; as long as the three problems of the century—man’s debasement through his proletarian situation, woman’s degeneration through hunger, the child’s atrophy through darkness—are not solved; as long as social asphyxiation is possible in certain places; in other words, and to take an even broader view, as long as ignorance and misery exist in this world, books like this one cannot be useless.
Young Cosette (Isabelle Allen) holds on tight to Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) in “Les Misérables” Universal Pictures
Summary
Timeless themes about God, redemption and social justice fill the new film “Les Miserables” — making the epic tale of Jean Valjean just as vital and relevant today as when Victor Hugo first published the novel a 150 years ago.
“Anyone can lead a better life, feel more love, move toward God, as does Valjean. We can work our own transfigurations if we truly work at them. Even if we feel as downtrodden as Valjean, we have hope.” —Marva Barnett
When Victor Hugo published “ Les Miserables” in 1862, the world looked nothing like it does today.
Barely a billion people roamed the Earth. Average life expectancy hovered around 41 years, and America was staggering through its Civil War. Railroads and light bulbs were relatively recent inventions, but several decades would still pass before the advent of automobiles, airplanes or telephones.
Yet the visionary Hugo infused “Les Miserables” with enough timeless themes about God, redemption and social justice that the epic story of Jean Valjean remains as vital and relevant today as 150 years ago.
The Deseret News recently screened the new movie “Les Miserables” that arrives in theaters on Christmas day and is an adaptation of the stage musical. The film remains true enough to Hugo’ s original work that the enduring themes of the novel shine through.
‘Committed to God’
Born in 1802, Victor Hugo managed to keep organized religion at arm’ s length throughout his life even though he came of age at a time when the Catholic Church played a preeminent role in French society.“
Hugo wasn’t baptized as a child, and was baptized only so he could be married,” said Marva Barnett, editor of the anthology “Victor Hugo on Things That Matter” and a French professor at the University of Virginia. “He didn’t attend church even at a time when all French people were Catholic and it was very important to go to church.”
But Hugo’s lack of religiosity did nothing to diminish his faith in the divine.
“Hugo always believed in God,” Barnett told the Deseret News. “He was committed to God — you can see it in the (‘Les Miserables’ ) novel, and you can see it in his poems. He saw God in nature; he saw God in people. … He wrote a lot of poetry where he said by loving people you are connecting to God.”
On at least two occasions during the plot of “Les Miserables,” Hugo clearly depicts divine providence as a powerful force capable of interceding in moments of personal crisis and despair. The first such instance occurs early in the book when Jean Valjean is caught stealing silver from a church — and the only thing that saves him from being sent back to prison is a wise priest who mercifully declines to denounce Valjean to the police.
Although the religious overtones are more overt in Hugo’s book than in the new film, a second allusion to God’ s intercessory hand happens when Valjean and Cosette meet for the first time.
“(In the book) Jean Valjean appears miraculously in the woods and finds Cosette with the water bucket struggling to carry it,” said Kathryn Grossman, a Penn State University French professor who has written several books aboutVictor Hugo.” At the depths of her despair she says, ‘ Oh God, my God.’ And then this hand comes down and carries the bucket. Clearly he intervened in her life as a kind of divine presence.”
How Hugo inspires
Barnett — who the French government recently recognized with the honorific title of knight in the Order of Academic Palms — taught a seminar course to 17 University of Virginia freshmen during fall semester about the enduring legacy of Hugo’ s “Les Miserables.”
“About two-thirds of them love the staged musical,” she said. “The others took the course to read a great classic. They have been able to step back from their beloved musical version of the story and recognize what theatrical constraints have sometimes done to the story and in what ways the musical is faithful to and, in effect, reinforces the power of the novel.”
Barnett recently penned an op-ed piece for the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper in which she recalled her recent conversation with actor Hugh Jackman, who plays Jean Valjean in the new “Les Miserables” movie. Jackman told Barnett that he read the novel twice before filming began, and then on the set he reviewed relevant excerpts from the book every day depending on what scenes he was acting. Ultimately Barnett concluded there is no substitute for Hugo’ s original words, and exhorted her audience to read the book in addition to seeing the new movie.
“With philosophical insights and poetic language,” Barnett wrote, “Hugo keeps us beside Valjean and thus inspires us to continue our struggle: Anyone can lead a better life, feel more love, move toward God, as does Valjean. We can work our own transfigurations if we truly work at them. Even if we feel as downtrodden as Valjean, we have hope.”
Redemption and social justice
After the merciful priest inspires Jean Valjean with the notion of God’s redemption, the protagonist’ s odyssey essentially amounts to a series of redemptive acts. For example, Valjean singlehandedly raises Cosette after the death of her mother, Fantine; spares the life of his nemesis, Javert; andrescues young Marius from the barricades.
But the ever-present redemption of Jean Valjean is more than just a means for advancing plot; it’ s also symbolic of Hugo’s hope that his beloved France could be redeemed from the French coup d’état of 1851 that ended the Second Republic and re-established a ruling emperor in the form of Napoleon III.
“The (world) will identify with jean Valjean as we watch his moral progress, from moral failure to redemption,” Grossman told the Deseret News. “That’ s
really important in the book as a parallel between individual and collective progress. … Hugo is hoping for the redemption of his country. His country has taken a huge step backward: A lot of people are miserable, and the country is a dictatorship.”
Barnett explained, “The redemption (of Valjean) would be connected to Hugo’ s belief that people were progressing, that people could get better, that civilization could get better. … That’s taking the idea of redemption up to the whole idea of society or culture or civilization.”
In making the case that France’ s redemption is not just possible but actually necessary, Hugo steadfastly shines a light throughout “Les Miserables” on the social ills that, by the 1860s, had come to permeate French society. Fantine, for instance, epitomizes the plight of the desperate women who turned to prostitution in order to survive.
The fact that decent, honest people are still being exploited today is surely an integral part of why “Les Miserables” never stopped resonating with audiences.
“Certainly Hugo is looking at the whole question of the exploitation of men, women and children, which continues to this day all around the world,” Grossman said. “He lays it out very clearly in the book, just by enacting the lives of the famous characters. …It’ s a very strong push for this human dignity and faith — you know, caring about your fellow man, woman and child.”
Jamshid Ghazi Askar is a graduate of BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School and member of the Utah State Bar. Contact him at jaskar@desnews.com or 801-236-6051.
Marva Barnett’s USEM, Interpreting “Les Misérables,” where the class is watching a student’s digital media project
Marva Barnett’s USEM, Interpreting “Les Misérables,” where the class is watching a student’s digital media project
December 12, 2012 By Anne E. Bromley
The latest version of the popular musical, “Les Misérables,” will open in movie theaters on Christmas Day. Why have more than 60 million people made “Les Misérables” the longest-running musical worldwide? What is it about Victor Hugo’s 19th-century novel that has prompted directors to make 50 film versions?
Marva Barnett, a French professor in the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences, posed these and other questions about the novel in a University Seminarthis fall. Also director of U.Va.’s Teaching Resource Center, Barnett, with advice from her colleagues and the Robertson Media Center, incorporated multimedia in the course, culminating in a creative final assignment for her 17 students.
University Seminars – or USEMs, as they are commonly called – are taught by prominent faculty, designed for first-year students and “based on ideas that have changed the way we think about our relation to the world around us,” as described on the website.
Assigned to create five-minute digital media presentations exploring a theme in Hugo’s novel, Barnett’s students first took a tutorial in the Digital Media Lab.With assistance from the staff there, they combined visual imagery, music, quotes from the book and their own narration of ideas to explore themes such as divine providence, the power of love, character transformations and societal problems, past and present. The students also conveyed a sense of what the novel meant to them personally.
Barnett, who taught the class in English, is an expert on Hugo and is working on a book about what “Les Misérables” – both the novel and the musical – says about living well.
Against the backdrop of political uprisings in France in the early 1830s, the story centers around Jean Valjean, who has just been released from prison after serving 19 years of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread. The novel follows the highs and lows of his life as he transforms into an honest, moral man, along with the characters he helps and those who help, hinder or pursue him.
Barnett called it a “story of love, grace and redemption.” She said she is impressed with how deeply her students have come to understand the novel and embrace the power of literature in today’s fast-paced, online world.
“One of them starred as Jean Valjean in his high-school production,” Barnett said. “About two-thirds of them love the staged musical. The others took the course to read a great classic.
“They have been able to step back from their beloved musical version of the story and recognize what theatrical constraints have sometimes done to the story and in what ways the musical is faithful to and, in effect, reinforces the power of the novel.”
Students Katy Greiner, Maria Lee and Ruth Long opened their video with a quote from “Les Misérables”:
“Is there not in every human soul a primitive spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world and immortal in the next, which can be developed by goodness, kindled, lit up and made to radiate, and which evil can never entirely extinguish?”
The trio compared Valjean to another major character, a police inspector named Javert, and their video notes when in the novel each man realizes he has this “divine spark” and how each one reacts to that revelation in very different ways.
Just as television shows give a commentator’s name and affiliation, Lee, Greiner and Long, speaking to the camera one at a time, are identified as “divine spark expert,” “character enthusiast” and ‘“Les Misérables’ analyst.” Their commentary is interspersed with etchings from an early edition of the book.
“I really enjoyed following the characters on their journey and watching them develop,” Long said in the video.
Stretching to nearly 1,500 pages, “Les Misérables” is not an easy read, but Lee said she couldn’t put the book down and has urged friends to read the novel before seeing the movie.
“You gain so much more. The surprises are more powerful,” said Lee, who plans to major in English and physics.
Another student group’s video looked at “Societal Problems According to Hugo: Past and Present,” to assert that Hugo’s work is still “necessary” today. Lhousia Jaring, Alys Herbert and Megan Harper focused on Hugo’s critique of society, which he says in the novel’s preface resulted in “the degradation of man by the exploitation of his labor, the ruin of women by starvation and the atrophy of childhood by physical and spiritual night.”
With songs from the musical playing, the students’ video showed how these problems are still prevalent today in the resurgence of prison chain gangs, the international exploitation of women and numbers of neglected children who live on the streets in many countries.
Their video quotes Hugo, who also says in his preface, “as long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be a need for books such as this.”
In her video, Rachelle Husband explored how Hugo uses nature as a physical manifestation of “providence,” or God’s love and guidance. Gardens provide an environment in which the characters reflect on providence and feel closer to God, she said in her narration.
In the book, a young couple, Cosette and Marius, fall in love in a garden. “Hugo compares their pure, ethereal love to the work of providence,” Husband said, quoting the novel: “They exchanged the song of the birds, the perfume of flowers, children’s laughter, sunlight, the size of the wind, the starlight, the whole of creation.”
Making it personal, Husband concludes with: “I only need to look up to the sky or walk around Grounds to see providence’s infinite work and masterpiece.”
During the course, Barnett was able to share the personal experience of the actor Hugh Jackman, who plays Valjean in the upcoming film. Through mutual friends from Paris, she and Jackman got in touch with each other earlier this year, exchanged emails and spoke on the phone. In his preparation for the role, he read the novel twice, he told her, and it influenced how he acted the part and sang his character’s songs.
In an opinion piece to be published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch this Sunday, Barnett discusses reasons to read the novel before seeing the movie, including some of Jackman’s and her students’ comments.
Even though the course has ended, Barnett and the students plan to see the new film together when they return from winter break in January.
Marva receives the insignia of chevalier des Palmes académiques in honor of her work in support of French language and culture, especially her work on Hugo.Gérard Pouchain, agrégé de l’université, chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, du Mérite national et des Palmes académiques, traveled from Paris to present Marva with the insignia in the presence of Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia, and Jean-Claude Duthion, Attaché de coopération éducative of the French Embassy in the United States in the University of Virginia Rotunda Dome Room on Friday, October 19, 2012. Read the UVa news story.
Marva talks with her Les Misérables studentsGérard Pouchain presents Marva with the Palmes académiques
Here are excerpts from Gérard Pouchain’s remarks that day (first, the English translation, followed by his original French):
I would like to express my pleasure at returning to the Rotunda, where in April 2005 I came to talk about Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet.
And this pleasure is even greater since I am here not as a speaker, but as the representative of the Ministry of National Education charged with paying tribute toMarva Barnett’s great merits and allthe work on behalf of French language and culture which has earned her this official recognition.
Gérard Pouchain speaks to the invited guests
Victor Hugo obviously brought Marva and me together.In spite of her modesty/Putting her modesty aside, I am eager to say publicly how widely she is recognized in France as one of the most eminent Hugo specialists.Marva’s publications are read with the greatest interest by the Hugo scholars and the members of the Society of the Friends of Victor Hugo who have heard her speak in Paris, most notably at the Sorbonne Nouvelle.
It is only proper that today, on both sides of the Atlantic, voices such as Marva’stransmit ideals dear to Victor Hugo, who never stopped working for peace, for respect for life, for women’s and children’s rights, for the poor, and for justice.
This week, UNESCO published a report on children’s education throughout the world.School for everyone— something Victor Hugo wished for—has been battered by the current financial crisis.Forty-seven percent of children may never have a chance to go to school.Which is to say that our author, deeply engaged in the battles of his time, ardent defender of “free, required instruction,” is still relevant.Thank you, Marva, for taking part in this work.
Je ne cache pas mon plaisir de retrouver la Rotunda où je suis venu en avril 2005 évoquer Victor Hugo et Juliette Drouet.
Et ce plaisir est d’autant plus grand que je ne viens pas en tant que conférencier, mais comme représentant du ministre de l’Éducation nationale pour saluer les grands mérites de Marva Barnett et tout son travail en faveur de la langue et de la culture françaises, qui lui valent cette reconnaissance officielle.
C’est évidemment Victor Hugo qui nous a rapprochés. N’en déplaise à la modestie de Marva, je tiens à dire publiquement combien elle est reconnue en France comme l’un de plus éminents spécialistes de l’écrivain. Les publications de Marva sont lues avec le plus grand intérêt par les hugoliens et les membres de la Société des Amis de Victor Hugo qui l’ont écoutée à Paris, notamment à la Sorbonne nouvelle.
Il est bon qu’aujourd’hui, des deux côtés de l’Atlantique, des voix, comme celle de Marva, se fassent les passeurs des idéaux si chers à Victor Hugo qui n’a cessé d’œuvrer en faveur de la paix, du respect de la vie, des droits de la femme et de l’enfant, des misérables, de la justice.
Cette semaine, l’Unesco a publié un rapport sur la scolarisation des enfants dans le monde. L’école pour tous, comme le souhaitait Victor Hugo, est mise à mal par la crise. 47% des enfants risquent de ne jamais aller à l’école. C’est dire si l’écrivain, profondément engagé dans les luttes de son temps, ardent défenseur, je cite, « de l’instruction gratuite et obligatoire », est toujours d’actualité. Merci, chère Marva, d’y participer.
Broadway, January 2015
Photo by Marva Barnett 
Admiring the Salon rouge. Photo credit: Gérard Pouchain 
Young Cosette (Isabelle Allen) holds on tight to Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) in “Les Misérables” Universal Pictures 
Marva Barnett’s USEM, Interpreting “Les Misérables,” where the class is watching a student’s digital media project 
Gérard Pouchain presents Marva with the Palmes académiques 
