Torn-coattail - Give Us This Day Our Daily Mask

Notes on Jean-Paul Le Chanois’s Les Misérables (1958) from French costume drama of the 1950s: fashioning politics in film (2010) by Susan Hayward 

-The film was primarily funded by Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (a state owned East German film studio) and Pathé but was shot with Technicolor’s Thechnirama screen process (rather than the East German Agfacolor) -It was filmed in Berlin, except for the location shoots in Toulon, Digne, the Luxembourg gardens, and scenes along the Seine. (Some French critics thought it was “anti-national” to recreate Paris in Berlin.) -Real soldiers from Easy Germany’s army acted in the battle of Waterloo and the June Rebellion scenes. -The film was criticized for being condescending, as well as for supposedly inaccurate sets and for reusing sets (the houses in Toulon are also the houses in Digne, despite the fact that they did film on location and the dining room of the house on the rue Plumet is also in the house on the rue des Filles du Calvaire.) -Le Chanois originally planned for the film to be 5 hours and 25 minutes. The producers cut the film from four and a half hours to three. The excised footage has been lost.  -She notes how Marius and Cosette’s romance, along with Eponine slow down the movie, which I have seen said of a lot of film adaptations!  -The actor who played Thénardier (André Bourvil) was known for his roles in comedies and therefore he was hesitant to take the role. Obviously different comedians have played Thénardier in various musical productions but have there been other examples of comedians playing him in film? I feel like there is one but I’m forgetting it!  -The film included 28 different sets designed by Serge Pimenoff. She remarks in particular on the accuracy of the streets surrounding the Corinth, as described by Hugo, as well as Valjean’s homes in Paris.  -Overall, the rebellion is toned down. She places this in the context of the controversy at the time over Algerian independence. -No red flag is waved at Lamarque’s funeral, possibly to avoid censorship, but it is draped over Mabeuf, Eponine, and Gavroche. She says that a tricolor flag (held at General Lamarque’s funeral) would represent a desire to return to the republic. Is that true though? -She points to Portrait of Monsieur Bertin as a possible inspiration for Jean Valjean’s bourgeois clothes.  -This sentence about Cosette stands out: “The bouffant mutton sleeves, so popular at the time, further enhance her aura of dematerialized being.”  -She says that Mabeuf, Eponine, and Gavroche, laid out all three together under the banner “Equality to man and to woman” make there own sort of symbolic work-class family, which counter-balances Cosette and Marius’s bourgeois family.  -When the film was released in West Germany, the censor cut out the scenes with rioting.

From left to right

Gillenormand: "By the way...you have an intimate friend?"

Marius: "Ah! Uhm...Yes, Courfeyrac." Is he really...is it true??

Gillenormand: "...and what has become of him?"

Marius imagines various interactions he had with Courfeyrac

Courfeyrac: "Come and live with me, monsieur,"

"Good morning, monsieur l'abbe!"

"She's loooking at you, Marius!"

"Unexpected! But I'm glad you're alright."

Marius comes back to reality

Marius, shaking with anger: "He is dead."

Gillenormand: "That is good!"

I'm mourning, Marius is mourning, we all want to kick Victor Hugo in the head.

Bousingo Fashion: Rash Waistcoats and Scarlet Opinions

something of a companion piece to my recent post on Romantic fashions, dealing with a subset of it –specifically, the Bousingo style, or. What Would Bahorel Wear?  

( @badassindistress​, this is for you XD)

First, for those who’ve missed my other rambles on the Bousingo/Bouzingo/Bousingots group, a quick description of their general Deal, from Jehan Valter’s account of the  premiere of Hugo’s le roi s’amuse:

No doubt, the Bousingots had fought at Hernani and broke their share of seats, but …The Bosingouts alone were at the barricades of 1832. There is the difference between them and the Jeune-France,… while the Young-France, inspired by the Byronnian sadnesses, hid their health and their good humor under elegiac and morbid exteriors, while they were satisfied with the freedom of the enjambement, and that they dreamed of revolutions as those of art, the Bousingots manifested political sentiments of extreme violence at least in form.

There’s a LOT of room to debate this description, but it gets across the general contemporary view of the group: the street-fighters types of Romantic republicanism, or of Republican romanticism; whichever side of it you like to emphasize.  The stereotype of their character was…well, Bahorel,pretty much to the letter. Hugo knew what he was writing, down to the Rash Waistcoats. Bahorel dresses Bousingo!  which means a very identifiable and politically loaded style But what exactly did that look like?

Let’s get some more 19C quotes in here!

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