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| Hugh Jackman shook our hands--Ichabod and LI--at a Walmart meeting. When a college student heard that, she swooned, "You shook Hugh Jackman's hand?" |
When I have plenty of grading to do, listening to Les Miserables is great fun - the one above is all music, on stage, with a mass chorus and orchestra, and the best singers in all the roles.
I played the Hollywood version of Les Miz for my English and literature classes, so I have seen or heard both versions many times.
There is just one problem with the movies - the plot has changed. In the novel, Jean Valjean's future son-in-law Marius is not a revolutionary. Instead, he is tricked into being at the barricades, which are a backdrop for a novel about poverty and unrest in 1800s France, after Napoleon's great dream dissolved at Waterloo.
But in the Jackman movie and the stage presentation above, the barricades are central to the story of Marius as a revolutionary leader.
Red and Black Song - http://www.azlyrics.com/l/lesmiserablescast.html
Red: the blood of angry men!
Black: the dark of ages past!
Red: a world about to dawn!
Black: the night that ends at last!
Do You Hear The People Sing?
[Enjolras:]
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
[Combeferre:]
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
[Courfeyrac:]
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!
[All:]
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
[Feuilly:]
Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!
[All:]
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes
***
The movie makes a bloody, senseless revolution sound so romantic and fun. In fact, the revolutionaries are all alive again at the end of the movie, singing and waving the red banner! Even the Paris street urchin with the British accent - is singing with a big grin on his face instead of a bullet in his heart.
UOJ does the same thing with justification by faith alone - changing the plot completely:
- Nowhere is it found in the Scriptures - UOJists call it "The Gospel."
- The Reformation only taught justification by faith - UOJists call their dogma the Chief Article, when that term was only applied to justification by faith.
- The Book of Concord editors fought against the Calvinism of UOJ, but the UOJists find their pet prevarication here and there and everywhere in the Confessions.
- Halle Pietism (Stephan's and Walther's) taught UOJ, so UOJ is called the hallmark of Lutheran Orthodoxy.
- UOJ did not take over the Missouri and WELS leadership until fairly recently, Gausewitz being a good example of justification by faith alone, but the SynCons call UOJ their everlasting and eternal truth.
