The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Nov. 12th, 2010 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerFirst: I am SO EXCITED about Yuletide already! Even though sign-ups aren't technically open yet! (Though they may be by the time I've posted this. I will exert myself not to check every five minutes.)
Yuletide is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. Like hot chocolate and snow and watching White Christmas and the advent calendar (I'll be home all December! SO WE CAN DO THE ADVENT CALENDAR YAY!!!!) and Frank Sinatra Christmas songs, even though those make me a little sad, because I bought those the week my grandfather died.
But that also means I remember him every year, which is worth being a little sad.
***
Second: my roommate and I watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame yesterday, the Disney version, which I had never seen before and IT WAS EPIC. I love Esmeralda! I love Quasimodo! I love Frollo's dastardly evil, which makes him deliciously easy to hate!
He gets the best song in the movie, I thought - where he's singing about his lust for Esmeralda and the demon figures and shadows stream up the wall. I wonder if kids get anything out of that song beyond "Well, he's pretty evil."
But I really liked Esmeralda's "God Help the Outcasts," too. Just in general I love her. I love the way she revels in her physicality: she knows she's beautiful, but more than that she loves moving, both dancing and fighting. As long as she's moving, she's having a great time, never mind danger. That's why she would wither if she got stuck in Notre Dame: even a great cathedral is too small to contain her energy.
And she's kind, and radiates confidence: here is a woman who knows who she is and loves it. I entirely sympathize with Quasimodo's unrequited love.
Mind, I don't want Esmeralda and Quasi to get together. Even leaving aside the fact that he's hideous he's clearly beyond damaged by his childhood and lacks the self-confidence to be lovable. Esmeralda and Phoebus the soldier are much more likely to be a happy couple. I can see him leaving the army and becoming a gypsy to be with her*.
But still, I'm so sad for Quasimodo, because he sings about how he's too hideous to be loved and events prove him right.
One last thing: I kept seeing parallels between Quasimodo and the Phantom of the Opera. (I haven't read the originals of either, mind.) Both are too hideous for human contact. Both love women who can't love them back. Quasimodo fills his isolated bell tower with beautiful things (the scene where he shows Esmeralda in, and the sun is shining through his glass mobile? wonderful), while the Phantom fills his dungeon with same. Quasi who lives in the sun saves Esmeralda, while the Phantom who lives in the dark kills innocent people and abducts Christine.
Quasimodo is an angel...and the Phantom a fallen angel?
*Apparently this is actually possible. I read a book about gypsies (in Romania; I suppose it might be different among gypsies in France), and the author mentioned that he met some gypsies who had been born Romanian or Jewish. But no one seemed to care that they weren't gypsies by blood; they were Roma now, because they acted Roma, and as far as the Roma were concerned the past was very definitely past and didn't matter.
Yuletide is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. Like hot chocolate and snow and watching White Christmas and the advent calendar (I'll be home all December! SO WE CAN DO THE ADVENT CALENDAR YAY!!!!) and Frank Sinatra Christmas songs, even though those make me a little sad, because I bought those the week my grandfather died.
But that also means I remember him every year, which is worth being a little sad.
***
Second: my roommate and I watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame yesterday, the Disney version, which I had never seen before and IT WAS EPIC. I love Esmeralda! I love Quasimodo! I love Frollo's dastardly evil, which makes him deliciously easy to hate!
He gets the best song in the movie, I thought - where he's singing about his lust for Esmeralda and the demon figures and shadows stream up the wall. I wonder if kids get anything out of that song beyond "Well, he's pretty evil."
But I really liked Esmeralda's "God Help the Outcasts," too. Just in general I love her. I love the way she revels in her physicality: she knows she's beautiful, but more than that she loves moving, both dancing and fighting. As long as she's moving, she's having a great time, never mind danger. That's why she would wither if she got stuck in Notre Dame: even a great cathedral is too small to contain her energy.
And she's kind, and radiates confidence: here is a woman who knows who she is and loves it. I entirely sympathize with Quasimodo's unrequited love.
Mind, I don't want Esmeralda and Quasi to get together. Even leaving aside the fact that he's hideous he's clearly beyond damaged by his childhood and lacks the self-confidence to be lovable. Esmeralda and Phoebus the soldier are much more likely to be a happy couple. I can see him leaving the army and becoming a gypsy to be with her*.
But still, I'm so sad for Quasimodo, because he sings about how he's too hideous to be loved and events prove him right.
One last thing: I kept seeing parallels between Quasimodo and the Phantom of the Opera. (I haven't read the originals of either, mind.) Both are too hideous for human contact. Both love women who can't love them back. Quasimodo fills his isolated bell tower with beautiful things (the scene where he shows Esmeralda in, and the sun is shining through his glass mobile? wonderful), while the Phantom fills his dungeon with same. Quasi who lives in the sun saves Esmeralda, while the Phantom who lives in the dark kills innocent people and abducts Christine.
Quasimodo is an angel...and the Phantom a fallen angel?
*Apparently this is actually possible. I read a book about gypsies (in Romania; I suppose it might be different among gypsies in France), and the author mentioned that he met some gypsies who had been born Romanian or Jewish. But no one seemed to care that they weren't gypsies by blood; they were Roma now, because they acted Roma, and as far as the Roma were concerned the past was very definitely past and didn't matter.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 05:11 am (UTC)This is a really great observation.
Yay! Happy Yuletide! (a little early, but what the heck?)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-15 12:58 am (UTC)Basically, I fangirl Alan Menken.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-15 01:26 am (UTC)I was six or seven when Hunchback came out. It's probably a good thing we didn't go see it, because it would have upset me terribly.