The Phantom of the Opera is a 2004 musical romantic drama film based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical of the same name, which in turn is based on the 1910 French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux. Produced and co-written by Lloyd Webber and directed by Joel Schumacher, it stars Gerard Butler in the title role, with Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver, and Jennifer Ellison in supporting roles.
The film was announced in 1989, although production did not start until 2002 due to Lloyd Webber's divorce and Schumacher's busy career. It was shot entirely at Pinewood Studios, with scenery created with miniatures and computer graphics. Rossum, Wilson and Driver had singing experience, but Butler had none and was provided with music lessons prior to filming. The Phantom of the Opera grossed $154.6 million worldwide, and received neutral reviews from critics, but was well-received by audiences. Critics praised the visuals and acting, particularly the performances of Butler and Rossum, but criticized the writing, directing and unnecessary deviations from the stage version.
Plot:
In 1919, in Paris, a public auction is held to clear a dilapidated opera house's vaults. The elderly Viscount Raoul de Chagny bids against Madame Giry, the retired ballet instructor of the theatre, for a papier-mâché music box shaped like a barrel organ with the figure of a cymbal-playing monkey attached to it. The auctioneer presents a repaired chandelier, relating it to "the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera". As it is hoisted up to the roof, the story moves back to 1870.
The theatre prepares for the performance of the grand opera, Hannibal, headed by soprano Carlotta Giudicelli. Theatre manager Monsieur Lefèvre plans to retire, leaving the theatre under the ownership of Richard Firmin and Gilles André, who introduce their patron, the young Raoul. One of the dancers, Christine Daaé, recognizes Raoul as a childhood sweetheart, and wonders if he will also recognize her, but he leaves without seeing her.
Carlotta refuses to perform after being tormented for three years by the theatre's resident "Opera Ghost", a mysterious figure said to live in the catacombs below. Facing the performance's cancellation, Madame Giry suggests that Christine stands in as the lead actress. Christine displays her singing talent and is a huge success on opening night.
Christine tells her best friend Meg, Giry's daughter, that she is being coached by a tutor she calls the "Angel of Music". Christine reunites with Raoul, in whom she confides that she has been visited by the Angel of Music her deceased father promised he would send her after his death. Raoul, however, dismisses Christine's story. That night, the masked Opera Ghost, better known as the "Phantom of the Opera", appears before Christine from her dressing room mirror, spiriting her away to his underground lair. After the Phantom shows Christine a mannequin of her dressed in a wedding dress he made for her, Christine faints and sleeps in the Phantom's lair. It is presumed by this point that Christine has been missing.
Once Christine awakes and sees the Phantom, she removes his mask out of curiosity. The Phantom reacts violently and covers his face with his hand. After the duo have a moment of understanding, Christine returns the mask to the Phantom and the latter then returns her to the theatre unharmed but orders the managers to make her the lead in Il Muto. However, the managers choose Carlotta instead.
During the performance, the Phantom switches Carlotta's throat spray, causing her to sing out of tune, and she is replaced by Christine. The Phantom encounters stagehand Joseph Buquet and hangs him above the stage. Christine and Raoul flee to the roof, where they declare their love for each other. The Phantom, now heartbroken after witnessing the whole scene, vows revenge.
Three months later, in 1871, at a New Year masquerade ball, Christine and Raoul announce their engagement. The Phantom crashes the ball and orders his own opera, Don Juan Triumphant, to be performed. Upon seeing Christine's engagement ring, the Phantom steals it and flees, pursued by Raoul, but Giry stops him. Giry explains that when she was younger, she met the Phantom, a deformed young boy, billed in a freak show and abused by the owner. When the Phantom rebelled and strangled the owner to death, Giry helped him evade the resulting mob and hid him within the opera house. The next day, Christine pays a visit to her father's tomb with the Phantom posing as his spirit to win her back, but Raoul intervenes.
Raoul and the managers formulate a plan to capture the Phantom during his opera. The Phantom murders the lead tenor, Ubaldo Piangi, and takes his place to sing with Christine. During their passionate duet, Christine unmasks the Phantom, revealing his deformity to the horrified audience. The Phantom then abducts Christine and retreats as he causes the chandelier to crash and set the opera house on fire to cover his tracks, but a mob forms to hunt him down. Giry leads Raoul down to the Phantom's lair to rescue Christine, while Meg leads the mob there as well.
The Phantom has Christine wear the wedding dress and proposes marriage. Christine tries to reason with him by admitting that she only fears his malicious acts, not his appearance. When Raoul arrives, the Phantom threatens to kill him unless Christine weds him. Pitying the Phantom, Christine kisses him. Moved by her kindness, the Phantom allows the lovers to leave. Comforted by the music box, the Phantom weeps alone and Christine lets him keep her engagement ring as a memento. He then escapes before the mob arrives with Meg finding only his discarded mask.
Back in the present, Raoul visits the recently deceased Christine's grave and places the Phantom's music box before it. Before leaving, he notices a freshly laid rose with Christine's ring attached to its stem, implying that the Phantom is still alive and will always love her.
Production:
Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to The Phantom of the Opera in early 1989, granting Andrew Lloyd Webber total artistic control. Despite interest from A-list directors, Lloyd Webber and Warner Bros. instantly hired Joel Schumacher to direct; Lloyd Webber had been impressed with Schumacher's use of music in The Lost Boys. The duo wrote the screenplay that same year, while Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman were cast to reprise their roles from the original stage production. Filming was set to begin at Pinewood Studios in England in July 1990, under a $25 million budget.
However, the start date was pushed to November 1990 at both Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, Germany and Barrandov Studios in Prague, Czech Republic. Production for The Phantom of the Opera was stalled with Lloyd Webber and Brightman's divorce. "Everything got tied up in settlements", Schumacher reflected. "Then my career took off and I was really busy." As a result, The Phantom of the Opera languished in development limbo for Warner Bros. throughout the 1990s. In February 1997, Schumacher considered returning, but eventually dropped out in favour of Batman Unchained, Runaway Jury and Dreamgirls. The studio was keen to cast John Travolta for the lead role, but also held discussions with Antonio Banderas, who undertook vocal preparation and sang the role of the Phantom in the TV special Andrew Lloyd Webber: The Royal Albert Hall Celebration.
Schumacher and Lloyd Webber restarted development for The Phantom of the Opera in December 2002. It was then announced in January 2003 that Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group had purchased the film rights from Warner Bros. in an attempt to produce The Phantom of the Opera independently. As a result, Lloyd Webber invested $6 million of his own money. The Phantom of the Opera was produced on an $80 million budget. Warner Bros. was given a first-look deal for distribution; when the principal cast was chosen in June 2003, Warner Bros. paid under $8 million to acquire the North American distribution rights.
Casting:
Hugh Jackman was originally cast for the role of Phantom, but he faced scheduling conflicts with Van Helsing. "They rang to ask about my availability", Jackman explained in an April 2003 interview, "probably about 20 other actors as well. I wasn't available, unfortunately. So, that was a bummer." "We needed somebody who has a bit of rock and roll sensibility in him", Andrew Lloyd Webber explained. "He's got to be a bit rough, a bit dangerous; not a conventional singer. Christine is attracted to the Phantom because he's the right side of danger." Director Joel Schumacher had been impressed with Gerard Butler's performance in Dracula 2000. Prior to his audition, Butler had no professional singing experience and had only taken four voice lessons before singing "The Music of the Night" for Lloyd Webber.
Katie Holmes, who began working with a vocal coach, was the front-runner for Christine Daaé in March 2003. She was later replaced by Anne Hathaway, a classically trained soprano, in 2004. However, Hathaway dropped out of the role because the production schedule of the film overlapped with The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, which she was contractually obligated to make. Hathaway was then replaced with Emmy Rossum. The actress modeled the relationship between the Phantom and Christine after Suzanne Farrell and George Balanchine. Patrick Wilson was cast as Raoul based on his previous Broadway theatre career. For the role of Carlotta, Minnie Driver devised an over-the-top, camp performance as the egotistical prima donna. Despite also lacking singing experience, Ciarán Hinds was cast by Schumacher as Richard Firmin; the two had previously worked together on Veronica Guerin. Ramin Karimloo, who later played the Phantom as well as Raoul on London's West End, briefly appears as the portrait of Gustave Daaé, Christine's father.
Filming:
Principal photography lasted from 15 September 2003 to 15 January 2004. The film was shot entirely using eight sound stages at Pinewood Studios, where, on the Pinewood backlot, the bottom half exterior of the opera was constructed. The top half was implemented using a combination of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and a scale model created by Cinesite. The surrounding Paris skyline for "All I Ask of You" was entirely composed of matte paintings. Cinesite also created a miniature falling chandelier, since a life-size model was too big for the actual set.
Production designer Anthony D. G. Pratt was influenced by French architect Charles Garnier, designer of the original Paris opera house, as well as Edgar Degas, John Singer Sargent, Gustave Caillebotte, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Schumacher was inspired by Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946), where a hallway is lined with arms holding candelabra. The cemetery was based on the Père Lachaise and Montparnasse. Costume designer Alexandra Byrne utilized a limited black, white, gold and silver colour palette for the Masquerade ball in spite of the lyrics being sung indicating that it is a multi-coloured affair in which mauve, puce, green, and black amongst others are on display.
My Review:
Honestly, before I watched the film I liked the story, my cousins are fans of the stage show so whenever we went around to see them I'd always catch them listening to the soundtrack. With their influence I've always wanted to watch it at some point. Luckily - like the mass majority of these films I'm reviewing - I managed to find it at CEX, alongside Cats (1998) and THE WIZ (1978). Upon first viewing I loved it. This is honestly one of my favourite musicals, I still have yet to watch this, like many, in the theatre though.
To be honest though, I mainly watched this movie for Gerard Butler {I like Gerard Butler ;)}. I've heard better singers like, but the fact that he only had four singing lessons before this film... it paid off. That is a really good achievement; judging he'd never really sang before. Voice aside, Butler does an amazing performance as the Phantom; from his previous role in Dracula 2000 (2000), he really caught the grasp of the Phantom's sinister yet mysterious, and pretty intimidating, demeanour. The rest of the cast did a great job too. I had no idea Patrick Wilson could sing, let alone star in terrible horror movies.
Even though the Opera genre has never really caught my attention {then again I've never really sat down and listened to it before, as well as watch it live} but this is a pretty good introduction to it. Gerard Butler aside, the rest of the cast did a good job with the songs: Emmy Rosum, Patrick Wilson, Minnie Driver {Jesus Christ Minnie Driver's voice... oof}.
The story is very dark yet carries a duende tone, which really works. {It really speaks to my gothic heart}.
The urge to see this in theatre though has really peaked my parents and I's interest, specifically with how they present the scenes. Because with movies they are in the environments that you'd supposedly imagine them in on stage and from Andrew Lloyd Webber's mind. Speaking of Mr Webber, I truly think that this is one of his best stories - especially since this is an original story in comparison to his other theatre productions (I mean Cats, Joseph and Cinderella are all inspired by stories).
All that aside, I really recommend this film if you haven't watched it already; I give it a 10/10 - best movie representation of a musical as of this day.
{Meh, here have a listen if you wish...}
Soundtrack/Score:
1) Overture - Andrew Lloyd Webber
2) Think Of Me - Emmy Rosum, Patrick Wilson
3) Angel Of Music - Emmy Rosum, Gerard Butler, Jennifer Ellison
4) The Mirror (Angel Of Music) - Emmy Rosum, Gerard Butler
5) The Phantom Of The Opera - Gerard Butler, Emmy Rosum
6) The Music Of The Night - Gerard Butler
7) Prima Donna - Patrick Wilson, Ciaran Hinds, Minnie Driver, Miranda Richardson
8) All I Ask Of You - Emmy Rosum, Patrick Wilson
9) All I Ask Of You (Reprise) - Gerard Butler
10) Masquerade/Why So Silent? - Cast
11) Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again - Emmy Rosum
12) The Point Of No Return - Gerard Butler, Emmy Rosum
13) Down Once More/Track This Murderer - Gerard Butler, Emmy Rosum, Patrick Wilson, Cast
14) Learn To Be Lonely - Minnie Driver
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