Les Misérables

Forget Auguste's film with Liam Neeson, forget the legendary version with the amazing Jean Gabin, or the mediocre series with Gérard Depardieu....The best Les Misérables was made by Robert Hossein: raw, unembellished, almost cruel in places, fantastically directed and masterfully acted, led by the charismatic Lino Ventura, who was probably born to play Jean Valjean. Hossein, you don't have to worry, de Peyrac is forgotten, movie heaven awaits you for this masterpiece. (05/15/2007)

Robert Hossein gave a new look to Les Misérables. By the 1980s, the decorative historicism of the 1950s was gone; the new look brought more squalor and despair. The stoic face of Lino Ventura became synonymous with a new narrative pace, a new shortcut. Hossein chose to leave out some details - for example, he depicted the fall of Fantine in an impressive montage of a human face that went from beautiful to unrecognizably ugly. Not surprisingly, such mastery soon earned Evelyne Bouix a starring role in another French national film, Edith and Marcel. (01/01/2021)