Phantom of the opera 2004 watch online

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--Spoilers follow--

I’ve had the good fortune to see _Phantom_ on Broadway many times over the years, beginning with Crawford and Brightman. While having only a little in the way of musical training, I do have more than a bit of knowledge of the Gothic as well as the Fin-de-siècle/Belle Époque eras in which Leroux’s novel is set and during which it was written (professional historian here). Additionally, for what it’s worth, I once worked for 15 years as a technician in a glorious turn-of-the-century theatre and as such attended many, many performances of everything from classical ballet to Broadway national tours to classic rock, so I have some insight into the world of the theatre and the entertainment business as a whole. (This explains, in part, my affinity for _Phantom_ and for the era in which it’s set.) Such is the background to this review.

Overall, this cinematic version of POTO is a lush, lavish, sensuous, romantic (and Romantic), well-oiled, effortless, over-the-top (in a good way) spectacle. It’s highly faithful to the stage production in most of the important ways from libretto to orchestration, while at the same time achieving an extra richness and intimacy in ways that just can’t be done in a live theatre. Regrettably, the second act is somewhat truncated, with a few scenes being deleted and a few lines consequently being moved. Nevertheless, if you’re a fan of the Lloyd Webber stage production, this is as close as you’re ever going to come to seeing the Broadway version without catching it on B’way or in a good national tour. Some of the many highlights include:

The Opera House itself, especially the interiors. The wonderful juxtaposition of the chapel (wonderful gothic touch) and the ornamentation of the auditorium are perfection. When the transition occurs, at the film’s beginning, from the old dilapidated black and white building to the lush orgiastic figures, as a wind blows away the cobwebs and the monochrome and restors the grandeur, it’s breathtaking. Before seeing this film, I would have said that the producers would have been hard-pressed to live up to the opening of the Broadway production, but they pulled it off in aces.

Christine. Emmy Rossum gives a simply scrumptious performance on all counts, especially in light of her youth; she has a poise well beyond her years. Her voice utterly epitomizes what both Leroux and Lloyd Webber (and the Phantom himself) envision and describe it to be: young, but already extraordinary and having even greater yet-to-be-tapped potential (“if pride will let her return . . .”). She possesses a Pre-Raphaelite beauty and style (down to the facial expressions), as if she had just emerged from a Rossetti painting. I’m reminded of a review I read when the stage production first came out: the story, the music, and Christine’s voice combine to give the gothic, darkly sensuous impression of “a nightingale on LSD.” It’s a shame that she decided not to go into a classical music career following this film.

Madame Giry also deserves special mention; she has the necessary severe and wonderfully imposing air. The other cast members are also, in general, great choices (with one massive exception: see below).

Then of course there’s the choreography, the production values, the lighting . . . I could go on and on. (Just go watch it yourself rather than read my drivel.) Alas, I have stop my praise in time to leave room for my three major criticisms (and they truly are major).

The first is Gerard Butler. He’s no singer, despite the fact that he did a crash singing course to prepare for the film. He’s also rather young for the Phantom: in my opinion the Phantom should be an older alpha male who puts young buck Raoul in his place until the dénouement, rather than a young competitor who’s part of a more conventional love triangle. Despite this, he does his best with the part. But the first-mentioned problem is nearly insurmountable. It’s an almost unbelievable gaffe in a musical to have a lead who cannot sing. Emmy Rossom’s vocal work is superb; Patrick Wilson’s (as Raoul) is quite good; but Butler as a singer is a disaster. His work in 2011’s _Coriolanus_ proves that his acting is up to the task, but his relative youth and his voice mean that he’s essentially miscast here. And that is a major, major flaw. I simply cannot see whatever it was that Lloyd Webber saw in him.

The second problem is at least as bad. Leroux makes clear that the Phantom is a magician, and Lloyd Webber’s stage version extends this idea with the suggestion that the Phantom’s magic isn’t merely illusion but real. (Perhaps that decision was simply making a virtue of necessity since it simplifies the props and such on stage, but it enhances the Phantom’s cachet and character.) But in the film, the Phantom isn’t even an illusionist. All indications are that the glamour is entirely in the eye of the beholder (i.e., Christine). Indeed, director Schumacher takes great pains to make this point. The secret passage through which the Phantom leads Christine from her dressing room is filled with warm, glowing magic in Christine’s eyes, but when Meg Giry explores it later, it’s dank, dirty, cobwebby, and rat-infested. Carlotta’s croaking is explained not by ventriloquism (as in the novel) but by the Phantom doping her throat spray. The eerie light that Christine sees emanating from the Daaé mausoleum (one of the film’s most disturbing moments—what does a mausoleum need with a light?) . . . simply isn’t there when Raoul is in the frame. When raising the portcullis near the film’s end, the Phantom must resort to the pedestrian method of throwing a lever rather than simply using the magical gesture he employs on Broadway. The one thing approaching illusionist magic (i.e., illusionism, not real magic) is at the Masquerade, when the Phantom doesn’t simply disappear but instead very obviously dives down a trap door. (Schumacher even pointedly makes the smoke bomb he throws ineffective at concealing the “magic.”) He then uses a hall of mirrors to escape from Raoul. And that’s it. In pursuance of what is, frankly, a very major character revision, the producers have even rewritten the libretto in places to accommodate it (e.g., “He will burn you with the heat of his eyes” becomes “Keep your hand at the level of your eyes”). They’ve even omitted the _Don Juan Triumphant_ rehearsal scene, presumably in order to eliminate the magic of a piano that plays itself at the Phantom’s behest. Aw, c’mon, producers! The film could have accommodated magic, or at least illusion, way more easily than the stage version! What were you thinking?

The problem with this is threefold. First, it takes away some of the gothic, escapist, otherworldliness of the story that allowed Lloyd Webber to make it more than the pulp fiction it essentially was as a book. As a result, the film is a more pedestrian story of a love triangle (or it would be absent the film’s great strengths). Second, it inevitably does some violence to the plot: At the Masquerade, for instance, not being possessed of magical powers that keep all in attendance in fear of him, the Phantom must resort to threatening them (all hundred of them or so) with a sword. (Really? Why not just rush him from behind and kick his derrière down the stairs in that case?) Third, and most important, it diminishes the character of the Phantom, essentially emasculating him to a degree. As I noted above, the Phantom is—or should be—an older, powerful, alpha male who cannot be either outwitted or vanquished through mere strength. He is always in complete control of the Opera, the plot, the action, and everything else except for Christine’s feelings toward Raoul, a fact that literally drives him mad(der). He maintains this control right up until the moment that Christine redeems him with a kiss, when he willingly relinquishes his whip hand for love of her (i.e., he isn’t ever beaten, except by Raoul’s and Christine’s love for each other; instead, he unilaterally gives up). Even thereafter he remains a magician, disappearing as mysteriously as he first appeared. At least that’s how it is in the theatrical version and mostly how it is in the book. By stripping the Phantom of his magic, Schumacher has greatly weakened him as a character and thus fundamentally changed the whole story, and not in any way for the better.

My third criticism derives directly from my second—indeed, it’s merely an example of the second, but it’s so egregious that it comes perilously close to ruining the whole film all by itself. Since the Phantom isn’t a magician, he can’t hurl flaming bolts at Raoul in the cemetery, thus forcing him to flee with Christine. The producers therefore decided to resort to a conventional sword fight instead. If you have a sword fight, then you have to have a winner and a loser. So the producers had the Phantom lose. Raoul stands victorious with his sword pointing down at a disarmed Phantom lying on the ground. WTF? First, this utterly destroys the concept of the Phantom as unconquerable larger-than-life alpha male and further diminishes him. (At this point, to finish the job, we should ditch the title _The Phantom of the Opera_ and just rename it _Christine and Raoul Have a Run-In With a Weirdo at the Opera_.) Second, it also means that having won, Raoul must let the Phantom go (or else we can’t tell the climactic final part of the story), which is a plot hole the size of a nuclear crater. In the very next scene Raoul is discussing with Firmin and Andre how to catch the Phantom. You dolt, if you want to catch him then why did you let him go when you had him not thirty seconds ago? Just because Christine didn’t want you to kill him doesn’t mean you couldn’t have dragged his rear end off to the police. There’s no way around it: the cemetery scene all by itself makes this a totally different story (and one, moreover, that is not only inferior but makes no dramatic sense). If Lloyd Webber was the one who made this call, it’s a screw-up on the order of George Lucas having Greedo shoot first. Both of these retellings completely rewrites/retcons a character in such a way as to deprive him of one a fundamental defining characteristic.

It’s a testament to how well done the film is in all other regards that I still think it a great production and worth four stars despite producers’ savaging of the performance and essential character of the Phantom in these three ways. Nevertheless, when I imagine how close they came to utter perfection and how much I wish I could give it that fifth star, all I feel is disappointment.