To be fair, I've seen three or four feature-film adaptations of the novel (including at least one in French), and I've yet to come across a representation of Javert that felt right to me, including Charles Laughton's representation of the part -- and he certainly had the talent to play it. I've heard people criticise the musical (which changes a lot of things very drastically) for apparently making Javert out to have some kind of religious mania, which certainly is not in the book, but I think those metaphors ("fallen from grace", "and so it is written on the doorway to paradise") actually do a pretty good job of conveying Javert's devotion to an abstract ideal above himself, even if in the book it's Duty and Authority.
The problem for an adaptation is that it requires Javert as the dogged pursuer to drive the plot, and Hugo does rely a lot on coincidence where all the characters are concerned. It's easier just to make Javert actively chase Valjean, rather than have their paths keep crossing while the police agent is in pursuit of his duty elsewhere, which requires impractical amounts of explanation.
But that is not the same thing as having Javert snarling and raving and connecting every little thing from Thenardier's escape from prison to Enjolras' insurrection back to the idea of 'getting' Valjean, with the rest of the police regarding him as off his rocker on the subject. And apparently not connecting this back to his being a black officer in command of white men (Othello-style); I can swallow a black Porthos from the Court of Miracles in the 1700s in place of Dumas' lethargic Baron du Vallon, I can swallow Constable Nightingale as a black 'peeler' on Sir Robert's newly-minted force, but both of them get decent origins stories and have to suffer being looked at askance on occasion by their contemporaries. The only character whose 'blackening' felt natural here is that of the housekeeper Toussaint, who becomes a turbaned Mammy-style figure...
Incidentally, in fairness I should also add that the confrontation between Marius and his grandfather in the most recent episode was well done, with the old man being presented as a nuanced human being for the first time and Marius getting to deliver the ringing line about how 'at our last meeting you insulted my father and now you insult my future wife'... pity he's depicted as such an incompetent idiot (insulted and despised even by Enjolras, and totally useless when the Thenardiers are torturing Valjean) elsewhere.
no subject
The problem for an adaptation is that it requires Javert as the dogged pursuer to drive the plot, and Hugo does rely a lot on coincidence where all the characters are concerned. It's easier just to make Javert actively chase Valjean, rather than have their paths keep crossing while the police agent is in pursuit of his duty elsewhere, which requires impractical amounts of explanation.
But that is not the same thing as having Javert snarling and raving and connecting every little thing from Thenardier's escape from prison to Enjolras' insurrection back to the idea of 'getting' Valjean, with the rest of the police regarding him as off his rocker on the subject.
And apparently not connecting this back to his being a black officer in command of white men (Othello-style); I can swallow a black Porthos from the Court of Miracles in the 1700s in place of Dumas' lethargic Baron du Vallon, I can swallow Constable Nightingale as a black 'peeler' on Sir Robert's newly-minted force, but both of them get decent origins stories and have to suffer being looked at askance on occasion by their contemporaries. The only character whose 'blackening' felt natural here is that of the housekeeper Toussaint, who becomes a turbaned Mammy-style figure...
Incidentally, in fairness I should also add that the confrontation between Marius and his grandfather in the most recent episode was well done, with the old man being presented as a nuanced human being for the first time and Marius getting to deliver the ringing line about how 'at our last meeting you insulted my father and now you insult my future wife'... pity he's depicted as such an incompetent idiot (insulted and despised even by Enjolras, and totally useless when the Thenardiers are torturing Valjean) elsewhere.