Analysis of Les Miserables

Les Miserables

The purpose of a film trailer is to advertise a movie, attract an audience, build anticipation for the movie, informs the audience of things such as: release dates, dedicated websites and social media. The trailer also raises enigmas and may give little clues to the audience about the movie. It also tries to bring more audiences into the cinemas. The trailer can also be used to inform audiences of who will be acting in the movie as well as the director and producers of the movie and their previous works.

Things that make up a trailer are: Music, multiple clips taken from the film, release dates for the movie, names of companies involved in the production of the movie and in some cases text onscreen which can add to the narrative.

Les Miserables seems as if it might be a musical drama. The reason I say this is because the song that is played during the trailer seems to non-diegetic but there is an instance in which is syncs with a clip in the trailer which could imply that the song was part of the movie. There was also a clip from the trailer which showed several women bursting out of a building in synchronization which could imply that the clip was part of a dance routine that would commonly be found in a musical. The most obvious implication that the movie is a musical is that it is the movie rendition of a Broadway musical. The reason I say it is drama is because during the trailer we see many different facial expressions that display many different emotions but many of them look sad rather than happy.

The style of the clothing looked historical and by the costumes some of the men who were in the army wore I would say it was set in France at some point during the civil war. The buildings help support this point as they seem to be made mostly from wood which is very different from any modern city in present times. There is also a lack of vehicles and people seem to be using horses and carriages as the main form of transport.

I think that the main target audience of this film are people who have seen the musical live, however it could also be aimed at people who would like to have seen the musical but found it too difficult and or expensive to travel to a venue that staged the musical and buy the tickets as movie tickets can be considerably cheaper compared to theater tickets. It would also be aimed at people who read the novel as well as they may want to see a visualization of it.   

The trailer attempts to interest the audience in several ways. One way in which they do this is by mentioning the names of the well known actors who will be appearing in the movie as the audience may be more willing to see the movie if they know skill actors are going to be appearing in it. The trailer also mentions the director and producer of the movie and their previous works as this may cause the audience to be more willing to see the movie if they are familiar with the director/producer and their previous works, especially if they were well received. The trailer also raises enigmas such as what was the dream that is sung about and what did the text at the end mean when it said that the dream lives on?

The trailer shows a lot of soldiers in uniform which creates the atmosphere of war. There are also a lot of sad facial expressions shown within the trailer which may cause you to think that the environment they're in is a depressing one.

The trailer uses many different shots from the movie and has things like close ups on characters or long shots on things such as buildings and places. The music played in the trailer is non-diegetic but there is a point within the trailer where the clip and the song synchronize this could imply that the song is a diegetic sound within the movie but it is used as a non-diegetic sound in the trailer, however the orchestra that play while the song is being sung is non-diegetic. The costumes worn by the characters are designed to match what would be worn in civil war France and this would come under mise-en-scene. The horses and carriages could be considered as props and extras within them movie.

The trailer is indeed conventional as it includes things like: multiple clips taken from the film, an approximate release date for the movie, the names of directors/producers involved and their previous works and it also introduces some of the actors who will be appearing in the film.

The song used in the trailer is about a person's dream, this could have been used because the movie is about someone who wishes or tries for their dreams to come true. The song could also be used to set the atmosphere in the play as the song sound like a depressing one and it could imply that the movie will be a sad depressing movie or that the characters will suffer through sad a depressing events .Some of the last lyrics in the song are "life has killed the dream" this could imply that the movie is about shattered dreams that don't come true.