Do You Hear the People Sing? (Ab)Using Music and Technology in 'Les Miserables' (2012)

Tom Hooper and Cameron Mackintosh’s cinematic adaptation of Les Misérables (2012) opened to mixed reviews from critics and the public. While Kenneth Turan’s LA Times write-up praised Hooper for “finding ways to magnify the musical’s ability to create those waves of overwhelming feelings in an audience”,1 Todd McCarthy, writing in The Hollywood Reporter, instead viewed it as “heavily, if soaringly, monotonous”.2 Singing was a central focus for many reviews, particularly the casting of the show and the process by which the songs were performed and recorded. Indeed, while Les Misérables was by no means the first, or even the first contemporary film musical to feature sound recorded live on the set, this apparently novel approach to vocal performance was much publicised in the lead up to the film’s release. However, despite all of this exposure, the impact of the musical and technological decisions on those working behind the scenes remains unclear. The project’s team of music editors were left with the significant challenge of creating the soundtrack using the shot footage, and to do so they had to overcome a range of issues not usually encountered in films including matters of musical and performative continuity such as phrasing, dynamics, intonation and diction. The decision to cast mainly (Hollywood) actors rather than (Broadway) performers resulted in sometimes questionable vocal performances, that also served to force the music team to operate outside of their normal practices in order to fully realise the sound world of the film.