Exilic Response (3)—Les Misérables

A year ago on Round and Square (25 December 2011)—Hurtin' Country: Country-Western Holiday
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Exilic Response" 

[a] Power RF

This is the second post in a three-part series about holiday music and freedom. Click below for the other posts.

Egalité 1                    Egalité 2                    Egalité 3

Well what a long, strange day it's been. It began with Patsy Cline, continued with Chinese food and a movie, and is wrapping up with just a little bit more reflection upon life, liberty, holiday, and Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer. If you recall yesterday's post, I was hoppin' mad about the Entertainment Tonight-Meets-People magazine superficiality of the 1939 Montgomery Ward catalog song that has raised Rudolph as a cultural hero, even as it showed the pettiness of shallow, fawning, go-with-the-crowd and don't-rock-the-boat reindeer flatterers and peep-like hangers-on.

I was not amused.

[b] Opening RF

On the other hand, I slept well, woke to a beautiful Christmas morning, and prepared for a trip to Chinatown with Pat for what has become an annual family event. I had hoped to pick up my yearly stock of Hong Kong-style (港式) almanacs before the movie, but the gift store only had the slender little Taiwan versions. It was really my only disappointment of the day. The food was great, we topped it off with a nice Christmas-blend from "Asterism-bake (星巴克), and then headed for the movies. The line snaked, long and dense, through the whole front of the theater and all of the way back to the escalator. It was opening day, and we were ready for the ceremonial first pitch of the Les Misérables season.

We had hardly settled into our seats (and watched twenty minutes of previews) when whack, thwap, it had begun. By the time Jean Valjean had recovered the flag on Javert's orders, Valjean and little Rudolph cohered in my imagination as one. Powerful, misunderstood loners—each found ways to make life better for his fellows. Through the very grace of stuff (the stories differ a good deal on this theological point), they rose above their exilic pain to aid mankind.

They were bigger than the smallness around them, and I am still pondering their lessons.

As for the film itself, I am probably the only person in the Western Hemisphere not to have seen a stage production of Les Misérables. I have read the novel several times, though, so I was hardly unprepared for the story of love, loss, retribution, revenge, despair, hope, and intrigue. I knew what was coming, braced myself for the emotional kick of Fantine's plight and the sad trip to the forest taken by little Colette (er, Cosette).* I knew of Javert's indefatigable pursuit, Marius's family challenges, and the squalid conditions among convicts in post-Napoleonic France. I knew what to expect.
*If you have seen the film, you will understand.

[c] Place des Martyrs RF

And, still, I cried like a baby.

John Boehner has nothing on me when it comes to tears. I have often thought that it was a good thing that I never won an Olympic medal, because I would be the guy standing on the podium, weeping uncontrollably, even as the cameras from NBC zoomed in to milk the emotion down to the last, salty drop.

And yet it occurred to me that my emotions were of a peculiar kind during Les Misérables. Sure, Fantine's ordeal made me sorta sad (as we say back home), and life on the run for JVJ could be stark and worrisome. Nonetheless, my eyes were dry throughout most of the movie, as death, love, illness, and anxiety swirled, foamed, and hung in the emotional haze above me. I was doing fine.

Until I saw the barricades.  

Until 5-6 June 1832. Until the little Rudolphs stood up against the big, mean, and terrible ferocity of the in-crowd. Yes, I am a(n) historian, and I realize that I do some violence to the record of the past in this account. Alas, I am also human (hear me roar), and that little Christmas ditty that bothered me the day before now began to spin its way into the lyrical threads of a resonant—and also sung—movie. From the windows, down fell the furniture. From the corner by the Rue de la Chanverrerie, up went the barricades. This is the stuff of legend, and the Hugoian fervor wrapped its emotional blanket tightly around me. Yet even through death on the barricades, I remained stoic as I cheered inwardly for the cause, failed though it was in the moment. Through it all, I held my fragile emotions together.

[d] Night lights RF

I finally lost all composure at the end, as the voiceless began to rise and sing.

You see, I'm a sucker for egalité. 

And that brings me back to Rudolph on this merry Christmas night. There is hope for the people, reindeer with red noses, and social outcasts everywhere when the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums.

It is a story of exilic response—of rising up and doing something about being left out in the cold. It is a story of finding a voice for the voiceless.

And it is also the story of Rudolph the June Rebellion Reindeer.

At least for me.

This is the second post in a three-part series about holiday music and freedom. Click below for the other posts.

Egalité 1                    Egalité 2                    Egalité 3

[e] June voices RF