The Phantom of the Opera is a 2004 film
adaptation of
Andrew Lloyd
Webber's 1986 musical
of the same name.
Directed by
Joel Schumacher, the
film was also produced and co-written by Lloyd Webber.
The
Phantom of the Opera stars
Gerard
Butler in the title role,
Emmy
Rossum as Christine Daaé, as well as
Patrick Wilson,
Miranda Richardson,
Minnie Driver and
Jennifer Ellison.
Plot
Derived from the
musical by
Andrew Lloyd Webber, which was based on
the
novel by Gaston Leroux,
the film begins in 1919, as the effects of a dilapidated Paris
Opera House are being sold off at auction.
Raoul the Vicomte de Chagny
(
Patrick Wilson), now an old
wheelchair-bound man, purchases a coveted music box. During the
auction, Raoul spots a familiar figure:
Madame Giry (
Miranda Richardson), whom he met as a
young man. Madame Giry is now an old woman, almost 50 years later.
But he is distracted by the next piece for auction, Lot 666; a
chandelier in pieces which has been restored and newly electrically
wired. As the auctioneers display the restored chandelier, the
opening crescendo of music wipes away the years of decay from the
opera house as the black and white turns into color, and the
audience is transported back in time to 1870, the beginning of the
story, when the opera was in its prime.
A disfigured musical genius called "The Phantom," (
Gerard Butler), lives within the deepest
recess of the opera house.
Tormented by his scarred face, the Phantom
lives in the watery labyrinths beneath the Opéra Populaire in
Paris
.
After nearly ten years of quiet obsession with the delicate,
ethereal voice of
Christine Daaé
(
Emmy Rossum) and the beautiful young
soprano herself, he plots to place his protégé at center
stage.
Christine is caught between her love for Raoul, her childhood
sweetheart who has returned into her life, and her fascination and
pity for the Phantom. Jealous and possessive, the Phantom plots to
make Christine his, resorting to stalking her wherever she goes as
well as killing several people including Piangi. A swordfight later
ensues in the cemetery, where Raoul eventually disarms him and is
about to kill him when Christine pleads for him not to, "not like
this." His rage seemingly augmented, the Phantom angrily states as
Christine and Raoul walk away: "Now, let it be war upon you both."
During the night's play, he steals Christine away and avoids the
trap to be captured by Raoul and the managers. After a series of
tense, chaotic sequences, including dropping the chandelier (the
one from the beginning of the movie) and setting the opera house on
fire, the Phantom imprisons Raoul, who attempts to save Christine,
and threatens to strangle him to death if Christine does not choose
the Phantom.
Struck by the desperation of his actions as well as a revelation of
how dark his past must be, Christine kisses the phantom and
displays her pity and compassion for him. Her kindness and the love
in her eyes so deeply touches the Phantom that, ashamed of what
he's done, he allows Christine and Raoul to leave. Just before she
departs with Raoul on the boat, Christine approaches the Phantom,
who helplessly tells her that he loves her, and gives him the
diamond ring from her finger. Heartbroken, the Phantom begins to
cry. Christine and Raoul row away singing to each other and
Christine glances back at the Phantom. After they leave, the
Phantom then uses a candelabra to smash every mirror in his
underground lair and he disappears behind a velvet curtain into an
empty glass mirror portal, before the police arrive. Upon entering,
Meg, the ballet mistress's daughter, finds only the phantom's white
mask.
Later, the grainy black and white picture dominates as the elderly
Raoul rides to a cemetery where he goes to visit Christine's tomb,
which reveals that she died only two years before, in 1917, at age
63. Her tombstone says "Vicomtess of Chagny" and "beloved wife and
mother", suggesting she married Raoul, had children and died of old
age. He lays the toy monkey at her grave site, and notices that on
the left of the tombstone lies a red rose with a black ribbon tied
around it (a trademark of the Phantom) with the engagement ring
attached to it.
Cast
Hugh Jackman was offered the chance to
audition for the 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 only
undertook four whole lessons before singing in front of Lloyd Weber
with "
The Music of the
Night."
Katie Holmes, who began working with a
vocal coach, was the front-runner for Christine Daaé in March 2003,
before she was 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 having also no singing experience, Schumacher
cast Ciarán Hinds as Richard Firmin, with whom he worked with on
Veronica
Guerin.
Production
Development
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, Andrew Lloyd Weber 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 Munich, Germany and Barrandov Studios
in Prague, Czech Republic. Production for
The Phantom of the Opera was stalled with Lloyd Weber 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 hell for Warner Bros.
throughout the 1990s. In February 1997, Schumacher considered
returning, but eventually dropped out in favor of
Batman Triumphant,
Runaway Jury and
Dreamgirls.
The studio was heavily
interested in 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 re-started 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 a $55 million budget. A further $15
million was used for marketing, bringing the final budget to $70
million. Warner Bros. was given a
first
look deal for distribution; the studio did not sign on until
June 2003, when the principal cast was chosen.
Filming
Principal photography for
Phantom of the Opera lasted from September 15, 2003 to
January 15, 2004.
The film was shot entirely using eight
sound stages at Pinewood
Studios
, where, on the Pinewood backlot, the bottom half exterior of the Palais Garnier
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.
Production designer
Anthony D.
G. Pratt was influenced by French architect
Charle 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 also inspired by
Jean
Cocteau's
Beauty and the Beast
(1946).
The cemetery was based on the Père
Lachaise
and Montparnasse
. Costume designer
Alexandra Byrne utilized a limited black,
white, gold and silver color palette for the Masquerade ball.
Reception
Release
The Phantom of the Opera was released in the United States
on December 22, 2004, grossing $51,225,796 in domestic totals. A
further $107 million was earned internationally, coming to a
worldwide total of $158,225,796. Observers connected the film's
early competition mostly due to
Ocean's Twelve,
The Incredibles and
The SpongeBob SquarePants
Movie.
Anthony Pratt and Celia Bobak were nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Art
Direction, as was John Mathieson for
Cinematography,
however, both categories were awarded to
The Aviator. Andrew Lloyd Webber and
lyricist
Charles Hart were
nominated for the
Academy Award for Best
Original Song, as well as
Golden Globe. Emmy
Rossum lost the
Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination
to
Annette Bening in
Being Julia.
The Phantom of the
Opera received the
Saturn
Award for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film, as did Alexandra
Byrne for
Costume
Design. In addition, Rossum (cast at sixteen-years-old), won
Best
Performance by a Younger Actor.
Critical analysis
Based on 163 reviews collected by
Rotten Tomatoes, 33% of the critics
enjoyed
The Phantom of the Opera, with an average score of
5/10. "The music of the night has hit something of a sour note:
Critics are calling the screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s
popular musical histrionic, boring, and lacking in both romance and
danger," the consensus read. "Still, some have praised the film for
its sheer spectacle."
Phantom was more balanced with
Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics" poll, receiving a 28%
approval rating from 36 reviews, based on a 4.7/10 average score.
By comparison,
Metacritic
calculated an average score of 40/100 from its 39 reviews
collected.
"The film looks and sounds fabulous
and I think it's an extraordinarily fine document of the stage
show. While it doesn't deviate much from the stage material, the
film has given it an even deeper emotional center. It's not based
on the theatre visually or direction-wise, but it's still got
exactly the same essence. And that's all I could have ever hoped
for." |
— Andrew Lloyd Webber |
Despite having been impressed with the cast,
Jonathan Rosenbaum of the
Chicago Reader wrote that "Teen romance
and operetta-style singing replace the horror elements familiar to
moviegoers, and director Joel Schumacher obscures any remnants of
classy stage spectacle with the same disco overkill he brought to
Batman Forever." Stephanie
Zacharek of
Salon.com believed
that
Phantom of the Opera "takes everything that's wrong
with Broadway and puts it on the big screen in a gaudy
splat."
In a mixed review for
Newsweek,
David Ansen praised Emmy Rossum's
performance, but criticized the filmmakers for their focus on
visual design rather than presenting a cohesive storyline. "Its
kitschy romanticism bored me on Broadway and it bores me here-I may
not be the most reliable witness. Still, I can easily imagine a
more dashing, charismatic Phantom than Butler's. Rest assured,
however, Lloyd Webber's neo-
Puccinian songs are reprised and reprised
and reprised until you're guaranteed to go out humming."
Owen Gleiberman of
Entertainment Weekly believed
Schumacher did not add enough dimension in adapting
The Phantom
of the Opera. "Schumacher, the man who added nipples to
Batman's suit, has staged Phantom chastely, as if his job were to
adhere the audience to every note."
Roger Ebert reasoned that "Part of the
pleasure of moviegoing is pure spectacle - of just sitting there
and looking at great stuff and knowing it looks terrific. There
wasn't much Schumacher could have done with the story or the music
he was handed, but in the areas over which he held sway, he has
triumphed." In contrasting between the popularity of the Broadway
musical, Michael Dequina of
Film
Threat magazine explained that "it conjures up this
unexplainable spell that leaves audiences sad, sentimental,
swooning, smiling--in some way transported and moved. Now, in
Schumacher's film, that spell lives on.
References
- DVD production notes
- The Making of The Phantom of the Opera, [DVD, 2005],
Warner
Home Video
External links