Abstract

The latest film version of the Victor Hugo classic Les Misérables (2012), should propose a journey to another time, to the encounter with another subjectivity. The novel published in 1862, which was written in the context of the socio-political context of Hugo’s own time. Even so, it still holds true with astounding actuality. To talk about its validity is to question that which is mobilized at different historical moments as a result of verbal semiotics and their different audiovisual forms.

It is known that the ethical and moral questions found in the work, converge in dilemmas that highlight the principles of liberty and the subjective capacity of discernment which, since the emergence of modern society, are constantly renewed. But the aim is to recover more than the mere order of the repetition.

Through the analysis of the filmic transposition of three adaptations of the piece, a possible re-writing will be noted, as a result of the encounter between the spectator and the film production, for each historical moment. This event overflows its own marks of enunciative production. The resulting synthesis will express the incidence of an ahistorical and social symptom that is updated in each adaptation, which is a sign of the prevalence of the Kantian response to the question: what is illustration? in this way recognizing the analytical value of subjective responsibility.

Key Words: filmic transposition | subjectivity of the epoch | romanticism | ethics