![]() Which I suppose is a valid portrayal…but it wouldn’t be my preferred one. That’s about the only way I can interpret her actions. On to other characters! Christine was very scared (with justification) and very possibly literally under hypnosis. And then in the final moments, it’s gone back to being more intense. And then (maybe due to lighting?) in the next scene, it just looks like…a really bad sunburn. I mean, it’s almost a David Staller-deformity. So–is the director trying to make us sympathetic towards him or not?Īnd of course I always am sympathetic, but–this particular version of the character definitely has some… problems as a romantic lead.īefore I pass on from the Phantom (she says after 500 words) just a note on the amazing appearing and disappearing deformity! When the mask first comes off in “Point of No Return,” it’s bad. #GERARD BUTLER PHANTOM OF THE OPERA MASQU MOVIE#And this points up a strange set of contrasts–this movie gives us a handsome Phantom with a backstory showing how horribly he was treated as a child…who is more angry and more violent than the stage Phantom. ![]() It’s all a lot vaguer and shadowy in the play. Gerry’s Phantom destroys Christine’s rose at that moment.Īnd the rooftop is an especially challenging scene…because it’s ten minutes after the Phantom’s brutal, on-camera, cold-blooded murder of Buquet. I’ve seen other Phantoms cover their ears on the rooftop, when Raoul and Christine reprise their love song. You would think confidence in Christine would deepen the pain when she chooses Raoul–but again, he’s mostly angry. I’m sorry that they cut the Phantom’s extra song, “No One Would Listen” ( watch it here), because it plays so well into the Phantom’s confidence in Christine: “no one would listen, no one but her.” It’s also one of his better sung songs, features a great shirt (ahem) and also shows his pain in a way that isn’t as evident elsewhere. And, while other Phantoms are usually appealing when they tell Christine she can see past his face…this wasn’t an appeal, it was an expectation. Which leads us to the unmasking and “Stranger Than You Dreamt It.” Which certainly could have been a pained betrayal but again, it was an angry version. “Music of the Night” didn’t sound like a seduction to me here–it was more, “welcome to my world, because obviously we’re going to be together.” He seems always very sure of himself and, perhaps more significantly, very sure about Christine. ![]() This was a very angry interpretation–and one of the most confident ones too. But how does he interpret the role? After eight Webber Phantoms, I can confidently say that Butler’s is the scariest. But he’s never Crawford (or Karimloo, or Carpenter, or Cudia, or…most of the Webber Phantoms I’ve seen). And then, actually, his singing gets better for most of the movie. There are some very badly delivered lines at the beginning. Because my biggest question with this movie is: why, why did they let Gerry sing? He’s an actor, not a singer, but he was cast as a character who is THE greatest singer ever. And the green eyes…! I’ve always said my ideal Phantom looks like Gerard Butler–but sings like Michael Crawford. First, I’m just going to be honest here: he looks really good in the mask. So let’s look at the Gerard Butler Phantom. I always begin analysis of any version of Phantom ( for example) with the most important question. And because this will be long, let’s do sub-headings! My interest, as it always is with Webber’s Phantom, was the interpretation. The plot is the same as the play, the music is (basically) the same as the play, so I’m not going to get into that here. The story, of course, is about a masked man who lives under an opera house and falls in love with Christine Daae, the beautiful soprano, who is also pursued by Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagney. Although! I have a theory that addresses all the movie’s issues, so keep reading for that. And the movie was…not as bad as I feared. And ever since I saw the play, I’ve been afraid to go back to the movie… But I finally did, because I’m writing a retelling and this is research. I liked this movie when it came out–but I was seventeen and I’d never seen the play. If you’re not familiar with it, the Butler Phantom is a movie version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical–but very much not the play (for that you want the 25th anniversary/Karimloo Phantom). ![]() Since the last time I watched this movie, I’ve watched just about every version of Phantom I could find, including the stage production…eight times, actually! I know this, because I know I haven’t seen it since the first time I saw the stage production. I say “finally” because I haven’t seen it in…at least eight years. I finally watched the Gerard Butler Phantom. ![]()
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