Beautiful. A musical, there’s very little talking. I’ve never seen a play on the phantom, but I read the book and loved the story since that day. Of course this is rather different, there are a few changes, but not so drastic to alter its soul. I can accept that.
Personally I think it was beautiful. I didn’t watch it as a film though, but with the same heart and eyes that you could use to watch a ballet: like, the phantom is not that disfigured in here, but you just ‘know’ that he truly is.
Everything is beautiful to look at, the singing is very good, nothing negative comes to my mind. Of course, there’s the little detail that they changed the finale that I loved so much, but as I said above, they didn’t change the soul of it, so I can accept it.
I didn’t like Carlotta; sorry but the fact is, I’m Italian, I can’t like that.
Christine Daaé has lived at the Opera House since she was a child, and has taken singing lesson from a mysterious figure that never revealed himself to her: we know this because she says she doesn’t know his name; also, she thinks he’s the Angel of Music sent by her dead father to her.
One night Carlotta refuses to perform after yet another accident, so they give her part to Christine. This is what the phantom wanted, and he starts sending letters: to the new owners of the Opera claiming his old seat and privileges; to Carlotta ordering her not to sing and let the part to Christine.
Raoul, who knew Christine as a child, seeing her now falls in love with her, and is rather upset by this phantom story. Neither him or the owners want to obey his ‘orders’, instead they plan to have him captured by the police. The madame tells Raoul the phantom’s story. She met him as a child: he was in a cage, on display for paying visitors, being beaten, mocked, ill treated because disfigured. When he killed his torturer and escaped, she helped hide in the basement of the Opera (well, basement is not the right word here… down the opera there seems to be a whole world where he lives…). She tells him that he’s a genius: writer, musician, architect, and much more. He replies that the genius has gone mad.
(this is where a movie is harder to make than a book: if you make a horror movie, you lose the soul of it because this is a story about love, but if you make a musical, you lose the horror part, because Erik was scary, mad, tormented, cruel, terribly sad, but here you look at him and you see an handsome although a little disfigured genius in love, and you can’t help thinking, well I did at least, why o why can’t they just let him be? Everyone loved Christine, let her sing; he wants his seat? give it to him, he’s lived here all his life, this is his house after all, not yours!)
Erik kills a man working in the theatre - can anyone tell me why? What did he do?
During a play, he gives Carlotta something that makes her sing like a frog, than comes on the stage to sing with Christine, and then takes her away with him to his place below, causing the big chandelier to fall down burning the theatre.
Madame shows Raoul the way before going back. Erik tells Christine that he wants her to be with him and gives her a ring. Raoul manages to survive and arrives at his gate. Erik lets him in and then ties him up, telling Christine to make a choice: if she says she loves Raoul he will die, if she says she loves Erik he will leave. Raoul tells her (well, they are all singing) not to sacrifice herself for him, whatever she chooses Erik will win.
After a moment of hate, she comes closer, looks at him with her head high, puts her hand on his face and kisses him after telling him that he’s not alone. He looks at her, surprised at this human touch he has never experienced in his life, and kisses her again, then he cries. Looks at her and cries, and then he tells her to take Raoul and go away and never come back.
She frees Raoul, but a moment later she’s back in front of Erik. He looks at her with moving eyes, tells her he loves her. She comes closer and gives back the ring, before going away.
She had to, we see why at the end, when we go back 49 years later, the same year the movie started in. I loved this choice: black and white in the 1919 present, full colours in the 1870 past. We see that the old Visconte Raoul places the old monkey music box he just bought at an auction at the opera house, on Christine’s grave (she died in 1917: a countess, so she did marry him), and looking at her grave he sees some roses bound together with Erik’s ring, which means that he’s still alive, and he still remembers her.
That’s why she gave him the ring, she didn’t return it after he was dead. I don’t think it was cruel - although her expression wasn’t all that clear - he couldn’t think she had come back to stay with him, she had come back to give him the ring, showing that she’s not afraid to come near him or touch him. And, he had something of hers to remember her by.
Now, I’d like to watch it again to check: the ring - in the movie - was Erik’s or Raoul’s?? She was wearing an engagement ring from Raoul that Erik took from her in anger… is that the same ring? So basically it’s the exact opposite from the book (but same soul) so she gives him her ring and he returns it after her death?
Christine: Emmy Rossum
Phantom: Gerard Butler
Raoul: Patrick Wilson
Madame: Miranda Richardson
Carlotta: Minnie Driver
Meg:Jennifer Ellison
ITA Il fantasma dell’Opera
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