The Phantom of the Opera: comparing the movie to the stage — Page 2

robbiej, love your Geddy lee remark. :)

I think both the stage and the movie versions are great. However, I think I have a preference for the stage show. There's just something about the live production that's more captivating than seeing it on the screen. Besides, having a Phantom with an awesome voice *hint, hint* doesn't hurt either. LOL! :)

~Rosalynn

Yeah i thats supposed to be Meg
Not Madame Giry!!

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The whole movie is underappreciated
There's not one mention of the dvd in this week or last week's entertainment weeklys.
the movie is great in my opinion; i've seen it on bway and thought it translated very well onto screen
i definitely preferred the stage version for some of the scenes, like hugh panaro's "all i ask of you" (reprise), but other scenes in the movie such as "Masquerade" "Madame Giry's Tale" and all the Raoul flashbacks were just excellent.

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Personally, I think both the movie and the show are overdone and cheesy, but i just burst out laughing about five minutes into the movie. I think that Butler really ruined it for me, because the Phantom has always been my favorite character, but honestly, was it that hard to find a real singer? There are so many talented singers in the world, and unfortunately, that man is not one of them. Although Wilson was not the best, he was the only bearable person in the movie for me, but it was also ridiculous that Raul completely outsang the Phantom, because that should never ever happen, in my opinion.

Okay, here's my take on the movie:

I just didn't think the movie worked very well on the whole. It wasn't horrible, it just didn't "come alive" for me. It was just a bunch of stuff tediously unfolding in front of some beautiful sets with a few bright spots of interest here and there. The acting wasn't necessarily that bad, but the actors didn't really make the most of the situations or show as much depth as they could've to make you involved in the relationships. Emmy Rossum is a lovely girl, but I'm sorry, I just didn't feel any layers or depth in her performance. She's an adequate singer (they could've done much worse), but her performance on the whole is pretty anemic. I'm not sure if Schumacher (who has made other movies I've enjoyed like The Client) was to blame for her poor performance or it was her own shortcomings. As for Patrick Wilson, I felt that he was rather bland on the whole as well, but decent enough I suppose. Then there's Mr. Butler. Now, he's undeniably sexy and interesting, but I'm just not sure if he was right for this role. His singing isn't horrible, but he's obviously not really a singer. What's odd is that even though he's probably the most miscast actor, he gives the most emotional performance, which doesn't help things much because it makes him look overwrought compared to the mellow performances of Rossum and Wilson.

The movie really felt like a really long music video with dialogue every once in a while. The structure of the story is so locked in that it's hard to get excited because of the way you know things are going to play out. I really don't know if making the phantom less magical was the best decision either. There were some nice visual touches, but at the same time everything sort of looked like a set. It doesn't help that the repetitive nature of the music (I know, I know, it's a cliche criticism) adds to the tediousness of it all. Schumacher should've added a little more of his own vision to it all and made it more cinematic. I wanted to feel the romance, the eroticism, the mystery, the excitement, and the tragedy, but I can't say that I did.

When you're adapting a musical to the screen it just usually isn't going to work unless you change some things (especially if it's an almost totally sung-through musical). When it's basically all songs on screen there's no build up to the emotion (like when characters become so emotional in musicals that they just have to express things through song). I'm not necessarily saying that you have to cut a lot of the songs, but something has to change through editing, story structure, etc. If you're going to have things remain mostly sung-through there has to be some way to retain emotional peaks and valleys through direction and use of the music rather than letting everything blot into a big mess. It's like adapting a book.

There also wasn't a lot of variation in shots in the film. Besides some fancy camera work it basically just alternates between shooting the people straight-on singing and overhead shots where you can't really see lip movement (maybe they were too lazy to match the singing sometimes, apparently even when the camera could see the lips). I'm also not particularly fond of having characters speak lines that were originally lyrics. If you want to have dialogue, write dialogue that actually sounds like dialogue.

On the other hand though Evita is basically all sung-through and sort of also feels like one big music video, I was never bored by it because the direction kept things moving along and the characters were fascinating even as they were singing.

Rob Marshall understood how you have to adapt things when he made Chicago. Roxie, Velma, and Billy may not have been extremely deep characters, but they felt more real than anyone in Phantom because they were allowed to breath and have room to become known to the audience. The Phantom characters spend so much time singing the upfront, not especially deep lyrics that they become cardboard.

As unoffensive as Phantom is, I'd have to say that some of the worst movie versions of musicals (like Man of La Mancha, Mame, The Wiz, & A Chorus Line) probably have more interesting moments than it does.

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"Why take someone who is so marvelously handsome and put him in a Rhoda Morgenstern wig? "


::snorts::

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I really enjoyed the film, but there's something about seeing musicals LIVE that gives them the edge. I thought the performances from the supporting roles were far superior to those in the leading roles - Minnie Driver, Miranda Richardson and Simon Callow, for example.
Emmy has a beautiful voice, in my opinion, but it wasn't the typical Christine sound i.e. it wasn't particularly operatic. Raoul, Patrick Wilson, looked bored throughout, I feel. Not even his amazing singing could cover up the fact that he didn't act that role at all.
Gerard Butler, I thought, was great. He gave the Phantom a much sexier, darker edge than any performances I've seen on stage, and I felt that his voice suited that interpretation much better than the stereo-type broadway voice.
Point of no Return was so much better in the film, apart from the awful backing dancers - they didn't add anything to the scene, and they just looked stupid!
Sets and costumes were stunning.
8/10. I really did enjoy it, much more than a lot of people on this board seemed to. I can understand why they didn't enjoy it - there are flaws.

Mary P x

It may not be perfect, but Minnie Driver is the funniest thing I've seen in ages - she really stole the show.

I never think comparing stage to film is fair. It is just two different mediums. And of course in film, you get unlimited "do-overs."

I think the greatest gift the movie version and Patrick Wilson will give to live theater will be the fact that going forward Rauol will always be age appropriate for Christine. I was always sickened to forty year old Raouls playing opposite 20ish Christine. The age difference doesn't bother me so much as the fact Rauol and Christine froliced together in childhood. Having Rauol be fifteen years older adds a definite "ick" factor.

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"On the other hand though Evita is basically all sung-through and sort of also feels like one big music video, I was never bored by it because the direction kept things moving along and the characters were fascinating even as they were singing."

I thought the EVITA film was absolutely horrendous. Madonna's acting (if you could even call it that) was consistently atrociously flat (how she won the Golden Globe for the film is bewildering) and I despised the fact that the keys to ALL of Eva's songs were lowered to accommodate Madonna's extremely limited vocal range. Just as some people can't get over Michael Crawford vis-a-vis Gerard Butler, I couldn't bear listening to Madonna after listening to Patti LuPone's piercing vocals (and at least, for almost all of Erik's songs, the PHANTOM film retained the stage score's original keys). EVITA is a fantastic stage show, and its score, in my opinion, is superior to PHANTOM. But as for the movie version, EVITA fell way below all my expectations.