Les Misérables (1913)
Directed by Albert Capellani

Film Review

At the time it founded its subsidiary Société cinématographique des auteurs et gens de lettres (S.C.A.G.L.) in 1908, Pathé was already the world's largest and most successful film production company.  Albert Capellani's remit as artistic director of S.C.A.G.L. was to oversee the making of quality adaptations of literary classics that would further enhance Pathé's reputation as the pre-eminent leader in the new medium of mass entertainment, cinema.  Capellani was ideally suited for the role, being not only an excellent administrator (a skill he had acquired by managing theatres for several years before he joined Pathé) but also a talented experimental artist, and it was with gusto and élan that he directed many of the new subsidiary's most ambitious films, immediately setting a high standard with L'Homme aux gants blancs (1908).

Capellani's ambitions were wildly extravagant and in his efforts to adapt the great works of literature as faithfully as possible he soon came up against a seemingly insuperable constraint.  To be commercially viable, a film was limited in length to around 30 minutes (two reels), the assumption being that audiences would not be able to comfortably sit through any single film longer than this.  It was the case that films were being made around this time which exceeded this limit - for instance Charles Tait's Australian bushranger film The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), which ran to a full hour - but these were few and far between.  In his first few years at S.C.A.G.L. Capellani was able to push the envelope a little with his three-reel adaptations of works by Émile Zola and Victor Hugo - L'Assommoir (1909) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1911), running to 40 and 36 minutes respectively.  But how could he ever hope to squeeze a novel as long and complex as Hugo's highly revered masterpiece Les Misérables into such a ridiculously tight temporal space?

Breaking the time barrier

It was an impossible challenge, and so the solution that the ebullient, red-haired genius came up with for his daring magnum opus was to make it as a series of four films, each lasting around 40 minutes.  (The film was originally released in France over four consecutive weeks in 1913, from 3rd January).  In doing so, Capellani effectively paved the way for the film serials which Pathé's nearest rival Gaumont would have great success with over the next decade (notably those directed by Louis Feuillade - Fantômas, Les Vampires, etc.).  In addition, when it became apparent that audiences reacted positively to an extended film narrative, Pathé soon woke up to the fact that longer films were a commercial necessity.  This is the point at which the feature film as we know it today suddenly began to take off.  In this light, Capellani's Les Misérables was probably the most significant film to have been made in France - its contribution to the meteoric growth in the reach and importance of cinema in the mid-1910s throughout the world cannot be understated.

Buoyed up by the success of his second Victor Hugo adaptation, Capellani then attempted equally ambitious film versions of Zola's Germinal (1913) and Alexander Dumas's Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge (1914), both highly popular when released as single features.  The director's subsequent adaptation of another Hugo epic, Quatre-vingt-treize (1914), was interrupted by the outbreak of WWI, which led to Capellani's migration to America and a no less prodigious career on the other side of the Atlantic.  By the time Capellani returned to France in the early 1920s, his career prematurely terminated by ill-health and a series of professional setbacks, America had take over as the preeminent force in the brave new world of cinema and the short film had been all but totally supplanted by its meatier big brother, the feature.

A masterpiece of innovation

Running to 12 reels (with a total run time of just over 160 minutes), Les Misérables was the most ambitious film project undertaken up until this time.  It vastly dwarfed an earlier American version of the same novel directed by J. Stuart Blackton in 1909, a four-reeler that is considered American cinema's first feature film.  With its expansive narrative - which encompasses practically all of Hugo's 1862 book whilst remaining true to the original in almost every detail - and multitude of authentic-looking sets, Capellani's film created an extraordinarily high benchmark not just for subsequent prestige productions, but for cinema in general, as it raised audience's expectations for future films by at least an order of magnitude.  Deftly scripted by the director's younger brother Paul, it still holds up remarkably well compared with later adaptations of Les Misérables, including Raymond Bernard's 1933 three-part epic to Jean-Paul Le Chanois's widely acclaimed 1958 version starring Jean Gabin.

Capellani may not have been the first director to attempt a full adaptation of Les Misérables for the cinema (that honour goes to J. Stuart Blackton), but he did direct the first film drama to reference scenes from Hugo's monumental tome.  His 1905 film Le Chemineau, one of his first projects after joining Pathé, recounts the famous episode in which Jean Valjean receives alms from the Bishop of Digne, only to repay his benefactor by purloining his silverware.  Lasting just five minutes, this early short already shows Capellani's flair for innovation - note the moment when the camera moves from one room to an adjoining room in the bishop's house, avoiding the need for a cut.  Les Misérables employs the same device for the sequence that establishes a connection between the hero Marius and the loathsome Thénardiers.  Beginning with a shot of the Thénardiers in their dismal Paris lodgings, the camera seemingly passes through a wall and takes us into Marius's adjacent room, establishing an important link between the characters that would not have been as apparent had Capellani simply chosen to cut from one scene to another.  The director's aversion to editing is one of the most striking characteristics of his early work, apparent in the length of the shots in his films and the paucity of cuts.

The shift in location between the rooms occupied by the Thénardiers and Marius is one of the very few instances in Les Misérables where the camera moves.  For the most part, in keeping with the convention of the time, the camera remains fixed for the duration of a scene, with no edits, certainly no close-ups, within the scene.  If the camera moves at all, it is usually only in the exterior locations, where movement is required to keep the character of interest from moving out of shot.  Capellani deserves to be credited as one of the first filmmakers to link consecutive shots through the movement of people or objects within a frame.  For example, one shot of a character exiting the frame to the right is immediately followed by another in which the same character is seen entering the frame from the left, apparently from the same vantage point.  This enhances the viewer experience by reducing the distraction of a necessary edit - something that would be improved further once directors had learned to move the camera and began employing developing shots.

Another innovative technique that Capellani used to great effect on Les Misérables is the use of depth of field.  In many films of this time, virtually all of the action takes place within a fixed focal plane, with actors moving across the field of view but rarely towards or away from the camera.  Capellani's films were pretty well unique in that the actors appear to move in a three-dimensional space - not just across the screen but also up and down, and backwards and forwards.  Whilst most of the action is confined to the midground, there are many scenes in which action simultaneously takes place in the foreground and background - most notably in the crowd scenes at which Capellani was particularly adept.  The barricade scenes and violent street skirmishes that serve as the film's arresting climax would not have had anything like their visual impact without Capellani's extraordinary flair for choreographing such technically demanding scenes.  Examine these sequences carefully and it is apparent that every single actor in the frame is fully engaged in the action.  There are no 'extras' in Albert Capellani's films.

The idea of over-layering images (through superimposition and multiple exposure) had been used as a gimmick by filmmakers since the earliest days of cinema (most creatively by the legendary pioneer Georges Méliès), but Capellani uses this as a marvellously conceived narrative device on three occasions in Les Misérables.  In the scene in which Fantine recounts to Valjean her sorry past we see an image to the right of her in which her younger self and baby daughter are abandoned by her selfish lover.  Later, when Valjean is seen agonising over the prospect of an innocent man being tried in his place, we see what is in his mind - a terrible miscarriage of justice - as an inlaid shot of a courtroom scene.  At the very end of the film, as Valjean dies in the presence of his beloved Cosette and Marius, his ghostly spirit is seen waving farewell in the background to the right of the screen, thereby enhancing the poignancy of the moment.  There is also one notable use of flashback, for the sequence in which Fauchelevant recalls the occasion some years before when Valjean came to his aid after he was run over by a cart.

The miserable ones brought to life

One of the most idiosyncratic features of Capellani's cinema is its unrelenting realism.  Capellani had the advantage over many of his contemporaries that he had begun his career as an actor and consequently had the facility for working with actors to nurture and develop the kind of naturalistic performances needed to achieve the authenticity he was always striving for.  The casting choices for Les Misérables are particularly impressive, with a literal giant of the stage - Henry Krauss - admirably chosen for the part of the lead protagonist Jean Valjean.  With his immense physical bulk and astonishing charisma, Krauss dominates the film from start to finish and evokes the magnificence and sublime pathos of Hugo's most famous literary creation more than any other screen actor to take on the role.

It is a very different kind if performance to the one that Krauss had supplied as Quasimodo on the director's earlier Notre-Dame de Paris (1911), which had a more stylised, expressionistic feel.  Here, the actor is far more measured and restrained, conveying Valjean's alternating moods much more subtly and with far greater emotional impact.  The character's scenes with the dying Fantine and infant Cosette are especially memorable for their controlled poignancy and depth of human feeling.  Krauss was no less impressive in a leading role in Capellani's later historical epic Quatre-vingt-treize (1920), and he would continue being a major force in silent French cinema for the next decade, in which he would be immortalised as Monsieur Lepic in Julien Duvivier's Poil de Carotte (1925).

Marie Ventura is no less impactful in her portrayal of the adult Cosette in the latter half of the film.  Without the benefit of close-ups, it is truly remarkable how vigorously Ventura is able to connect with her audience, the emotional turmoil of a nascent love affair powerfully expressed in the subtlest of gestures and movements.  One of the leading French stage actresses of her genertion, Ventura also has the distinction of being the first woman ever to direct a play for the Comédie Française (Racine's Iphigénie in 1938).  The other notable name in the cast list is Mistinguett, suitably cast as the Thénardier's streetwise and seedily seductive daughter Éponine.  It was through her several collaborations with Albert Capellani that Mistinguett found her feet as an actress (having already obtained considerable fame as as a singer and dancer), excelling in the lead role in Capellani's La Glu (1913).

Henri Étiévant makes a formidable adversary as Javert, the over-conscientious police inspector whose single-minded pursuit of Valjean drives the narrative through its meandering 17-year span.  Étiévant wasn't only a highly prolific actor of stage and screen, he was also an accomplished filmmaker, with around thirty titles to his name.  In contrast to some subsequent adaptations of Hugo's novel, Étiévant's Javert is not a conventional anti-heroic nemesis but a complex, totally believable character who ultimately gains our sympathy as he slowly begins to realise the injustice of the mission he is engaged on.  The scenes depicting Valjean's recurrent run-ins with Javert are the most intensely dramatic in Capellani's film, and it is through the conflict between the two men - beautifully played by both actors - that we start to see who they really are - opposing souls with differing notions of justice, eternally bound to one another by a common thread of humanity.

For a picture of true, undiluted villainy we have a ready example in the form of the world's worst foster parent, Thénardier, played with relish by Émile Mylo.  Thénardier's unstinting villainy is of such an egregious hue that we can only laugh at his self-serving and pretty nasty mischief-making - this is the only sliver of comic relief that the film affords us.  And yet, despite his pantomimic Mr Evil excesses Thénardier still comes across as a real character, a man driven by the cruel necessities of his time to commit vile acts merely to survive in a world that, quite frankly, doesn't give a damn about vermin like him.  His atrocious behaviour serves an important part in the drama, heightening the nobility of those characters (Valjean, Marius, Javert) who, in the face of outrageous personal adversity, manage to hold on to a sense of responsibility to their fellow man.  Thénardier's moral opposites do not act merely out of self-interest, but rather out of duty for the common good, a desire to bring about a better world.

The birth of modern cinema

Albert Capellani's Les Misérables was an outstanding achievement for its time, not just because of its groundbreaking length, but also because of the care and attention lavished on every aspect of its production.  The sets designed by Henri Ménessier were meticulously researched and are striking in their period detail, although it is Capellani's liberal use of real location exteriors (in and around Paris) that is perhaps more impressive.  As in the director's subsequent Germinal (his greatest film), it is in the exterior settings that the film most comes to life, particularly in the busy crowd scenes that make up the film's dramatic climax.  The gruesome bloody reality of the 1832 popular uprising is powerfully captured in a few memorable images, prefiguring the horrific spectacles of carnage offered by the director's subsequent Quatre-vingt-treize.

The 1913 version of Les Misérables represents an essential milestone not only in French cinema but in the development of the Seventh Art in general.  Today's multi-million dollar, action-packed blockbuster extravaganzas are the direct descendents of this magnificent, insanely ambitious work, a film that transformed the phenomenon of cinema in a flash, and to an extent that would have been totally unimaginable to its director.  The fact that Albert Capellani's staggering contribution to filmmaking still continues to be overlooked and downplayed is a tragedy - one that is perhaps every bit as unjust as those myriad human tragedies conceived by Victor Hugo for what is probably the greatest novel ever written.

Film Synopsis

Époque I - Jean Valjean

France, 1815.  Unable to find work as a labourer, Jean Valjean is forced to steal a loaf of bread for his starving mother.  For this crime, he is arrested and sentenced to five years' hard labour in Toulon.  He escapes from prison and arrives in the town of Digne, where he is offered a meal and a place to lodge for the night by the kindly Monseigneur Myriel.  Valjean repays his benefactor's hospitality by running off with some silverware.  Captured by the police, he is set free when Myriel professes to having given him the stolen items.  For this act of generosity, Valjean becomes a changed man.

Époque II - Fantine

Some years later, Jean Valjean has become Monsieur Madelaine, the respectable owner of a glassware factory.  He takes a benevolent interest in one of his employees, Fantine, who sends all of the money she earns to a couple, the Thénardiers, in return for rearing her illegitimate daughter Cosette at their home in the country.  Valjean's real identity is uncovered by an overzealous police inspector, Javert, who recognises him as a former prisoner from his time as a warder in Toulon.  Before he is arrested, Valjean makes a promise to the dying Fantine that he will take care of her daughter.  Escaping from prison a second time, Valjean heads off to the country to begin his search for Cosette.

Époque III - Cosette

On arriving at the Thénardiers' modest homestead, Valjean introduces himself as a generous benefactor.  Noticing how Cosette has been neglected by her slovenly foster parents, he willingly hands over a large sum of money so that he can take her off the Thénardiers' hands. Pursued by Javert, Valjean and Cosette take flight but find a safe haven within the walls of a convent, where the former is offered work as a gardener.  Untroubled by the law, the two enjoy a peaceful existence as father and daughter for several years.

Époque IV - Cosette et Marius

Cosette and her adopted father have settled in Paris and lead a comfortable life on Valjean's remaining fortune, under the name Fauchelevant.  Now on the verge of womanhood, Cosette attracts the attention of a young student, Marius Pontmercy.  Not able to see eye-to-eye with his stuffy bourgeois grandfather, Marius lives in a dingy boarding house, adjacent to a room occupied by the Thénardiers.  Through the latter's daughter Éponine Marius is able to find where Cosette is living and pays her a visit - to discover that his love for her is requited.  Whilst Valjean has no objection to their marriage, Marius's grandfather forbids it, and so the student storms off to play his part in the popular uprising of June 1832.

In the midst of a bloody street battle between protesters and soldiers, Marius receives a near-fatal gunshot wound.  Javert is captured by the opposing side and sentenced to be executed as a spy.  Valjean releases him, but the police inspector still refuses to give up on bringing him to justice.  It is Valjean's willingness to risk his own life to carry the dying Marius to safety that leads Javert to renounce his mission and commit suicide.  To repay Valjean for saving his grandson's life, Colonel Pontmercy gives his blessing for Marius's marriage to Cosette.  Just when Cosette's future happiness appears assured, Thénardier shows up and confronts Marius with the awful truth of his prospective father-in-law's criminal past.  Valjean has no choice but to recount his personal history.