Phantom of the Opera (2004)

[tabuno]

Reluctant to see Phantom, the curiosity and accessibility by DVD made it impossible to resist. I'm glad to decided to watch it. The movie version of the Phantom is remarkable in terms of musical productions on film based on a stage musical. Rarely I have I experienced the ability of a film version of a stage musical to enhance and develop and evolve from the other into something rich and dazzling in its pure state of a theatrical film medium. Unlike Evita that became almost a pure musical stage version of the broadway production using non-stop MTV-like musical numbers throughout (though very fascinating and enjoyable) and unlike Moulin Rouge and Chicago and their high-tech display of popular, updated musical renditions of the musical, Phantom did something extraordinarily different.

Phantom was transformed into a dramatic, alluring movie with a host of musical numbers that brought the richness of the musical back to its earlier years yet it maintained a strong adherence to storyline and brought forth a movie version of its source material. The film enhanced and brought in more interesting details of the stage production that could not be focused on...the use of close ups and the introduction of slightly more modern music, a fusion of operatic, ballet, rock-jazz, and the traditional musical along with a fascinating dracula-like seduction between the Phantom and Christine.

Unfortunately, this movie because of its avoidance of fancy Chicago-like and Moulin Rouge trappings, made this movie more female oriented without as much zest and action for the male audience. Phantom the movie retained more of its traditional trappings as a dramatic, epic movie with music on a much higher sophisticated plain. In otherwords, by not succumbing to profit and money-motives only it sacrificed its popularity for a richness that not all audience members would be interested in. Strangely enough, then, this movie needs to be looked at not by the numbers game, popularlity, but by its movie genre and how it took what movie can be best at and how this version was able to bring out features from the stage production and make them into one of their own. By this criterion, Phantom has succeeded very well.

[hengcs]

My 1 cent worth here ...
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...&threadid=1172

[tabuno]

hengcs "-- Somehow, I recall that I used to pity the Phantom. BUT, in this movie, I did not. Is it the script (as in the way it is directed)? or the performance?"

tabuno: I'm glad you pointed out the anti-sympathetic feeling of the movie version of the Phantom. You pointed out something that until now I hadn't thought about and you are right. The movie version Phantom is not one to pity but to actually dispise and dislike, except for the exploration of the Phantom's beginnings. What happens with this Phantom is his ego-centric needs to have his art performed and only at near the end does perhaps the Phantom offer some small offering to give one some pause as to his complete selfish desires. This movie version of the Phantom, however, also offers up a much more sinister seductive relationship between the Phantom and Christine that I didn't experience as intensely in the stage production. Yet I believe the Phantom could have done well to have offered both a sympathetic charcter as well as a dangerously alluring one at the same time. The performance and direction are liekly to blame for the turn to the dark side, the Phantom menace so to speak.