JAVERT: I have been making some recommendations for the more efficient running of the service, Rivette. I entrust you with the task of bringing them to the attention of the Commissioners.
Episode 4 has lots of little scenes cut that flesh out Mariusâ life a bit more - thereâs a notable scene with Courfeyrac that was cut which gives him Bossuetâs lecture backstory from the Brick, and Ăponine has more dialogue in many of her scenes.
These short scenes arenât found in the broadcast episode - they come right before we see Marius encounter Mabeuf in the church for the first time to hear the truth about his father at last.
These scenes are also missing from the episode as we saw it, which instead leads us right from Mariusâ conversation with Mabeuf to the scene where Marius bursts in on Gillenormand and confronts him about it.
Another cut scene that gives us more Courfeyrac, who gets Bossuetâs backstory with Marius while at the same time managing not get expelled from his studies for it.
This encounter with Patron-Minette is missing from the episode as well, as is Mariusâ conversation with Courfeyrac which fleshes him out a little more
While this scene did make it into the episode, much of the early parts of this conversation here didnât. While Valjean does tell Cosette reluctantly about her mother, the episode misses much of the details he gives here.
Missing from the episode is also this encounter with Patron-Minette on Valjean and Cosetteâs first outing to the Luxembourg.
This scene ends much earlier in the episode we saw, ending with Valjean declaring it too chilly. Itâs missing Valjeanâs paranoia and anger at Marius following them - on TV, Marius loses sight of them while they leave the park and never follows them through the streets.
Also missing is this scene between Marius and Eponine following Mariusâ return from the Luxembourg.
Mariusâs dream starts somewhat differently - in the show, Cosette enters his bedroom.
This scene plays out on screen much as it does in the script, but there is a lovely bit of Valjean characterization in the script, and we unfortunately donât get to hear the convicts sing.
About half of the dialogue is missing in the version we saw, including Eponine showing that she can read and her speech about sleeping under the bridges and what it feels like to starve.
Also most of the dialogue from the end of this scene is missing.
The visit to the Gorbeau house plays out as it is in the script, but Iâm enjoying this scene description too much not to quote it. :D
While this scene mostly plays out on screen as it does in the script, we are unfortunately missing out on this utterly delightful ending where Javert disdainfully refuses to shake Mariusâ hand.
Also cut is this short moment of Marius cocking his pistols and nearly giving himself away.
Missing from the script, for a change, is the tense ending to this scene we saw on TV where Javert looks out of the window for long moments with Valjean clinging to the outside wall only a few centimeters away from him.
While the episode opens straightaway with Champmathieu before the judge, the script has additional scenes before that which show Valjean with the court usher.
In the script, Champmathieuâs speech is longer and gives us more Brick details about his background and his daughter.
Instead of Javertâs very memorable âCUFFS!â moment on screen, the script is a bit more laid-back here.
In the show, we see Valjean retrieve a file heâd hidden in his mouth in this scene to show us that heâs planning to escape, and to lead us towards his next scene where we see him free in the forest. In the script, there is no file. Instead he gets to have an emotional moment with the little bird Fantine made - which also leads us to Cosette and the promise he made, but perhaps, without the Orion, makes his transition from prisoner to escaped convict too confusing.
Furthermore Valjean and Cosetteâs conversation after they leave the inn is longer in the script; Valjean explanation about Fantineâs death and Cosette asking if he is her father arenât in the broadcast version.
Also missing from the actual episode is this scene with its nod to Javert disguised as the Gorbeau beggar.
This scene has some additional dialogue in the script that seems to place more of an emphasis on Javertâs part in it.
Also missing from the show is this scene of Valjean and Cosette running from the police after they escape the Gorbeau tenement.
The only part of this scene that made it into the show is Cosette complaining about her hurting feet, which unfortunately means that we are denied a Valjean whoâs seeing visions of Javertâs smiling face.
Unfortunately also absent from the episode is this moment of Javert savouring his game just as he does in the Brick.
This scene mostly plays out as it does on screen, although both Valjeanâs and Simpliceâs dialogue is longer, but I am mostly just awwing over the description of Valjean looking like a dumb animal pleading for its life. The best convent Valjean.
The final scene of episode 3 brings us one final change from script to screen: instead of overturning the bed in rage, Javert seems more of a Disney villain here as he keeps stomping on poor Catherine the doll. Nevertheless, as glad as I am that TV Javert got to keep his dignity, I enjoy the description of Javert looking at the doll âas if it were a precious icon,â underlining the fact that the pursuit of Valjean has turned into a nearly religious act for him.
This long, delightful scene from the Brick is unfortunately missing in the episode we saw - I assume it was cut for length which is a shame, because I enjoy the way it both fleshes out Fantineâs Montreuil grisette friends and gives us the Brick scene about Madeleineâs âgrottoâ and the townâs gossip about it, which never makes it into adaptations.
We see this scene play out pretty much the same on screen, but the script confirms what the actors have told us in interviews: both recognize each other from the start in this scene.
Plus we get this additional explanation from Javert about what sort of town Montreuil is, presumably cut for length or because it interferes with the tension of this game of double meanings they both know Javert is playing.
My favourite find in this episode: An entire cut scene in which Javert converses with Police OC Basquiat, who at first glance seems to fulfill the function of giving us more exposition about the good Madeleine has done for the town, but at second glance seems to ship Javert with Madeleine.
Also cut was this scene with Sister Simplice that foreshadows what is to come.
Madame Victurnienâs visit to Montreuil has a bit more dialogue here, plus details about the wine sheâs served.
This scene also has some additional dialogue in the script for Javert that we donât get to see, although the scene has tension enough without Javert having to spell it out like that.
Another scene missing is this little interlude at Laffitte, where, curiously, Valjean only withdraws 70 000 instead of 630 000 francs.
Just as curious is that while the script had Javert on a horse in Toulon, we see him walk in Montreuil and in Paris here - compared to the broadcast episodes where Javert walks in Toulon, but is set above others on the scene as he rides his horse both in Montreuil and on this ride to Paris, where he gallops up to the Prefecture in a rather spectacular fashion.
More historically accurate, of course, Javert would have taken a coach to Paris, but I for one enjoy the visual of Javert racing up to the Prefecture too much to want to argue with this decision.
In the show, this scene takes place at night, and Valjean and Javert encounter each other on horseback - no cronies, only horses.
There is some additional interaction here - a named OC called Marguerite who doesnât have any lines in the broadcast version of the Bamatabois scene.
This part of Javertâs speech was partly cut, perhaps because method actor David âJavertâ Oyelowo realized that talking about Valjeanâs wise and kind features is a bit too much even when heâs playing with him.
There is some additional information here that the episode as broadcast doesnât give us, namely the fact that Javert (or so he claims) has already been visiting Champmathieu in Arras.
This part of the script is of especial interest to me because the showâs most visceral part of Valjeanâs dark night of the soul - when Valjean takes the burning coin out of the fire with his bare hand and intentionally burns his palm with it - seems to be entirely unscripted. Perhaps a very late addition or improvisation - although the latter seems unlikely, given that there surely have to be some sort of special effects or a stuntman involved.
Changes, missing scenes and additional interesting details I found comparing the shooting script to the show we got to see. Iâm trying to do one episode per post, which means this posts will be rather long. Iâm hoping to do one episode per day.
Exposition that did not end up in the TV cut, featuring a visiting cardinal high up above the convicts (recalling the scene in the Brick where Valjean sees a visiting bishop from afar) as well as Javertâs Thoughts on Crime and Jean Valjean in Particular. Furthermore this is quite a change from the rock scene we got to see on screen.
In the script of the interrogation scene, Valjean speaks - the stony silence we see in this scene during the broadcast episode is a far more effective choice than this rather awkward repeated âNo answer,â of course.
The script also names one of the Toulon OCs here: Gambon the guard.
Gillenormand/Nicolette in the shooting script, which did not make its way onto the screen - a scene that seems to take the place of Gillenormandâs glee at being accused of having fathered his former servant Magnonâs children.
Javert was suposed to ride a horse both in his first scene with the cardinal as well as in his later scene guarding the quarry.
The way the final cut sees him progress from standing on his feet and walking in the dusty heat of Toulon to riding his horse through the streets of Montreuil seems indeed a better visual representation of his rise.
Furthermore, in the episode we saw this attack of a prisoner on a guard leading to the execution scene didnât happen in the quarry but while the prisoners moved through Toulon.
Fantineâs conversation with Favorite is longer than what we see on the screen - the shooting script puts a lot more emphasis on her thinking that sheâs special, which the final cut lacks.
Felix talking with his friends about their coming abandonment of their girlfriends only exists in the script and is missing from the episode.
Also missing is this following scene of Fantine at her former job, still secure in her current happiness, not realizing that sheâs only days away from losing all security.
This scene showing us Valjean trying to spend the night in an inn after being released from Toulon also did not make it into the final cut.
Also originally in the script and not in the final cut, the Brick scene in which Valjean tries to sleep in the dogâs hut.
Additional Bishop feelings in this scene, the end of which did not make it onto TV.
After being released by the Bishop and leaving with his candlesticks, Valjean has a flashback to his childhood and his mother which isnât in the final cut.
I have spent the past week going through all scripts which hold many interesting additional details as well as several scenes which have either been cut or changed at a later date, or perhaps have been filmed but not used for the final cut of the show.
As we have a photo of the script used on David Oyelowoâs first day on set on February 19, we can see that these shooting scripts from February 1 are the version that was used on set - which might mean that all these scenes we havenât seen were indeed filmed.
I will post comparisons of script vs show with all notable changes or interesting additional details throughout the next days. Iâm aiming for an episode per day, plus a general timeline.
David Oyelowo, who plays Javert in the new BBC version of Les Miserables, says Victor Hugo's story will never be irrelevant.
David Oyelowo says Les Miserables is a story for today
The real tragedy of Victor Hugo's 1862 post-French Revolution novel, Les Miserables, is that the story of injustice and unrest seems ever more relevant. In 2018, while filming was underway on the BBC's miniseries adaptation, British-American actor David Oyelowo (Spooks), who plays sadistic Inspector Javert opposite Dominic West as Jean Valjean and Lily Collins as Fantine Thibault, recalls that the streets of Paris erupted with Yellow Vests protests against economic inequity.
Now, with the six-part series due to air next month on the ABC (Saturday, July 4 at 8.30pm and currently available on iview), Oyelowo is confined to his Los Angeles home, and not just by the pandemic. When he spoke with The Sunday Age/The Sun Herald, curfews in response to the Black Lives Matter protests across America had been lowered to 5pm. Five miles from his house, he said, military tanks were rolling down the streets.
"I wish Les Miserables wasn't as timely as it is, but here we are, and that's exactly why I wanted to do this show," Oyelowo says. "If a period television show is just a chocolate-box piece of entertainment, I'm not interested. History is reflective of the now and Les Miserables, unfortunately, will never be irrelevant, considering how insistent we seem to be on subjugating people and marginalising them â economically, racially and along gender lines as well."
Although reluctant to call himself a method actor, Oyelowo declined to joke along on set with "prankster" West, and found the conditions in freezing rural Belgium where early scenes were shot helped with character immersion. He hopes viewers will gain a deeper understanding of Javert than the archetypal villain of the musical version.
"Javert's the antagonist, but he really believes, from a moral perspective, that he's doing the right thing. His job is to keep order. In his mind, he was doing something incredibly noble and heroic."
Oyelowo is "not so naive" as to have been surprised at controversy surrounding the decision to cast, for the first time, a black actor as in the role. His 2001 award-winning performance as King Henry VI with the Royal Shakespeare Company had also bothered pedants. He calls such reactions "selective outrage", and explains that what has been termed the "colour blind casting" of Javert isn't merely creative license.
"We have whitewashed history. There were black people, and not just subservient black and brown people, in France at that time. The Count of Monte Cristo is based on a black French general. There's a book called The Black Count. All people would have to do is read a little bit to realise that they've been sold a bill of goods in terms of how black and brown people participated in European life back then.
"I'm constantly trying to debunk revisionist history because partly how black and brown people have been subjugated is to tell lies about their history and their contribution to the great things that we as human beings have accomplished. If you buy into the narrative that black people, back in the day, were only slaves, you're able to buy into the notion that, as a white person, you're superior."
Interestingly, no one seemed much to mind that the French peasants in the miniseries speak Cockney and that iconic scenes play out on London streets.
"We did a far weirder thing than me playing Javert by transposing Paris onto London life. People think, âAs long as I'm represented, as long as I'm satisfied'. Prejudice is born out of ignorance, but that surely is where we all celebrate and embrace education. So if a byproduct of me playing that role is people's ignorance being eroded then I'll take that as a side dish to entertaining them."
I began this study with the best intentions, and then it got too eyelashy, and then I started to play it up, and now he looks like a Hugo-Dumas collab.
