Revolutions come with great dreams and aspirations for the future, but gains are not made quickly on the ground. The French in the nineteenth century went through a long series of political turmoil, ravaging the lives of millions, and aborting many dreams of the French Revolution.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was born in this era of his country’s history, and became a distinguished poet and writer in a society torn between the struggles of governance, the cholera epidemic and the consequences of the industrial revolution, and because the true creator is not isolated from those who write for them, his ideas biased towards property, influenced by his mother, He is witnessing radical transformations due to maturity and experience, and he has taken upon himself the task of defending issues of public liberties.
His romantic tendency made him preoccupied with the pain of the simple, contemplating their conditions, and tracing their stories saturated with oppression and corruption, and his spirit was not able to withstand the injustice of laws and the darkness of society, so he set out to write his immortal novel “The Les Miserables” aspiring to improve the reality of the suffering on earth.
He did not complete it all at once, as he took years to write it, going through pauses and preoccupation with his political struggle and other creative projects. After being exiled, its termination became an inevitable matter that could not be postponed.
The anthem of freedom, the gospel of social justice, and the symphony of human progress.
Translator Mounir Baalbaki describes it in his captivating introduction to it: “It is in the words of the anthem of freedom, the gospel of social justice, and the symphony of human progress, through race, blood, and tears, towards the goal for which reformers of all ages worked: achieving human humanity and establishing an optimal society.”
The novel, published in 1862 in five volumes, was very popular, not only in France, but throughout Europe. People were queuing in front of bookshops like they do in bread queues, and hundreds of copies were running out in a few hours. Despite the critical reservations at the time, many attached to her hero Jean Valjean, and those whom he meets on his journey across time and space.
The novel has become one of the most important classics of world literature, almost without a language of translation, and it is difficult for its shows to be absent from the theaters of the world for a long time, conjured by filmmakers in different periods of peoples’ history, and reproduced in different forms and methods, without losing its luster with the passage of time. .
We called “Les Miserables” in Egyptian cinema twice; The first was during the reign of the monarchy by director Kamal Selim, and the second during the Sadat era, bearing the imprint of director Atef Salem.
In the first half of the 1940s, the raging battles between the Allied forces and the Axis powers in Europe affected the lives of people in most parts of the world, and imposed harsh living conditions on them.
Egyptian newspapers say that the vast majority of the people were suffering because of the lack of food, the spread of epidemics, as well as the return of martial law.
Director Kamal Selim felt that this stifling atmosphere corresponded to the world of “Les Miserables”, and decided to work on the Egyptianization of the novel in line with his cinematic inclination. He is the pioneer of realism, whose film “The Determination” was an important event in the course of Egyptian cinema, conveying it to the life of the popular neighborhood and its simple characters, and exposed to their problems and hopes.
Selim’s desire coincided with the convictions of the producer, Michel Telhami, who defended the quote, saying: “The motive for me to choose the novel (Les Miserables), was the same motive that prompted American and European companies to produce this immortal story, which addresses the diseases and social problems of the world, and when The East had a share of these diseases and problems as did the West, so we produced this film to complement what the West has already done.”
The film preserved the structure of the novel and its melodramatic events, which begins with the release of Jean Valjean after 19 years in prison for stealing bread, under the weight of hunger, and repeatedly escaping from the jailer’s grasp.
She distanced herself from politics, eschewed a sense of revolution, converted Christianity to Islam, and the hero’s sympathy for a poor character turned into a love story… About the first Egyptian cinematic version of “Les Miserables”
Society pronounces him, but fate leads him to a meeting with a bishop who awakens faith in his heart, and gives him what he needs to start over.
Valjean achieves richness, and meets Fantine, who is in the utmost misery and downfall. Before her death, he pledges to her to save her daughter Cosette, and raise her in his custody.
Despite his attempts to close the door to the past, his rival, Officer Javier, has been chasing him for many years, seeking to implement the law with his professionalism without his soul.
The Christian tendency in the novel turned into Islamic, and Valjean’s sympathy with Fantine turned into a love story, but in general Kamal Selim was keen to adhere to important details in the novel, such as the various internal conflicts that Valjean is going through, or as he called in his version of Al-Sharqawi (Abbas Fares), though Rely on presenting it on dialogue only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hqVz-q6dGI
The main drawback to this version is its complete detachment from the political aspect, and its avoidance of the revolutionary sense characteristic of the classicism of Victor Hugo. The novel is not a social show that is limited to criticism of poverty and injustice in society, but it is originally a great epic that mixes the private and the public, and links the reality of human beings with the historical and political circumstance.
The novel is exposed to the abuse of power and the dreams of young people for change, and triumphs in rebellion against oppression and tyranny. Written by the French writer, calling for the humane and socialist teachings in which he believed, and in its folds, he draws close between the slogans of the Great Revolution and the lives of the characters and their miserable fates.
The 1943 version also distances itself from the sad ending of the novel and its eulogy for the marginalized, and is heading towards a happy ending, like the films of this time period. We do not see Javier (Siraj Munir) commit suicide in the end after his opponent saves him, and he meets his hatred with forgiveness and charity, and Jean Valjean does not suffer because of his separation from Cosette (Souad Hussein) after her marriage, but everyone lives in bliss.
Certainly, all of these options greatly affected the content of the work displayed on the screen, and made it lose its influence and credibility.
Just as there is a great discrepancy between the state of the film at its beginning and its end, there is also a discrepancy between the acting performance of its heroes. For example, Siraj Munir presents a balanced performance of a man of law, who throughout his life has known nothing but obedience to orders, and deals with everything firmly and without equivocation.
On the other hand, Amina Rizk exaggerates during her embodiment of the character of Fantine, and drowns in tears, although the role itself is different from the stereotype that she is famous for.
As for Abbas Fares, he was fabricated at first, then he controlled his emotions after he became rich during the events!
At the end of the seventies, the actor Farid Shawky was approaching the age of sixty years, but he was still passionate about his profession, and was ready to enjoy his various roles.
It seemed that the time had come for him to introduce the character of Jean Valjean, whom he had always dreamed of embodying on the screen, and his young age prevented him from doing so. And he decided that the film would be his production so that the epic of Victor Hugo would come out in the best possible way.
He says: “The story of Les Miserables was captivated by me as well as writers and artists all over the world… I lived as a young amateur actor, a student at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts, a professional actor and co-acting in more than two hundred and fifty films. I lived this artistic life, and I dreamed of representing Jean’s character. The elves are in this story.”
Farid Shawky chose to collaborate with director Atef Salem, to make, with his unique sensitivity to reality, an Egyptian work that has its own peculiarity, regardless of the quote.
Les Miserables is exposed to the abuse of power and the dreams of young people for change, and triumphs in rebellion against oppression and tyranny. It was written by the French writer calling for the humane and socialist teachings he believed in, so how did it become a cinematic in Egypt?
Of course, he was aspiring to a similar success to their first movie together, “They made me a criminal”, which contributed to raising the first precedent from the criminal newspaper, and gave the wrongdoer an opportunity to start over.
Rafiq Al-Sabban and Ahmed Bahgat also wrote the script, and the former was famous for turning international plays and novels into films.
This version is closer to the world of the novel, and it comes in contact with its ideas better, and it adheres to the majority of its narrative threads and the destinies of its characters.
Politics is present here, but instead of addressing the effects of economic openness on the lives of Egyptians in the era of Sadat, or exposure to the important political events that they experienced in this era, the film makers tended to the trick of returning to the past, and the events took place during the era of the monarchy, and focused on the student uprising, and the movements workers in the mid-forties.
This option serves the general context of the Egyptian story, although its effect is faint on the screen, despite the attempt to highlight it artistically with black and white photography.
Jean Valjean becomes in Atef Salem’s version of Hamed Hamdan, the advocate of the oppressed, whose years of imprisonment doubled because of his defense of his colleagues in misery, not because of his escape, as if he is an icon of justice whose life testifies to its absence. Farid Shawqi embodies it smoothly, and with disciplined expressions, assimilating his psychological conflicts and his past, which burdens him and his pent-up anger.
As for his rival Javier, who is presented by Adel Adham, he is a fierce dictator, who despises the outlaws, and oppresses them mercilessly, believing that they will not change.
Therefore, when Jean Valjean frees him from the grip of the revolutionaries, his thoughts are disturbed, his convictions shake, and he prefers to commit suicide.
The seventies version tried to mitigate the sad character of the story with scenes of a degree of lightness, but in general it was preoccupied with expressing the novel’s prominent themes, such as the struggle between good and evil, sacrifice instead of greed, and love in the face of the ugliness of the world.
In the end, we hope to see a contemporary cinematic version soon, which avoids the shortcomings of the two films, and offers a more lively and daring treatment. Filmmakers around the world will not stop calling Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, “as long as the three problems of the age – the devaluation of men by poverty, the destruction of women’s dignity by hunger, and the dwarfing of childhood by ignorance – have not yet been resolved.”