tabuno
05-21-2005, 12:33 PM
Reluctant to see Phantom, the curiosity and accessibility by DVD made it impossible to resist. I'm glad to decided to watch it. The movie version of the Phantom is remarkable in terms of musical productions on film based on a stage musical. Rarely I have I experienced the ability of a film version of a stage musical to enhance and develop and evolve from the other into something rich and dazzling in its pure state of a theatrical film medium. Unlike Evita that became almost a pure musical stage version of the broadway production using non-stop MTV-like musical numbers throughout (though very fascinating and enjoyable) and unlike Moulin Rouge and Chicago and their high-tech display of popular, updated musical renditions of the musical, Phantom did something extraordinarily different.
Phantom was transformed into a dramatic, alluring movie with a host of musical numbers that brought the richness of the musical back to its earlier years yet it maintained a strong adherence to storyline and brought forth a movie version of its source material. The film enhanced and brought in more interesting details of the stage production that could not be focused on...the use of close ups and the introduction of slightly more modern music, a fusion of operatic, ballet, rock-jazz, and the traditional musical along with a fascinating dracula-like seduction between the Phantom and Christine.
Unfortunately, this movie because of its avoidance of fancy Chicago-like and Moulin Rouge trappings, made this movie more female oriented without as much zest and action for the male audience. Phantom the movie retained more of its traditional trappings as a dramatic, epic movie with music on a much higher sophisticated plain. In otherwords, by not succumbing to profit and money-motives only it sacrificed its popularity for a richness that not all audience members would be interested in. Strangely enough, then, this movie needs to be looked at not by the numbers game, popularlity, but by its movie genre and how it took what movie can be best at and how this version was able to bring out features from the stage production and make them into one of their own. By this criterion, Phantom has succeeded very well.
Phantom was transformed into a dramatic, alluring movie with a host of musical numbers that brought the richness of the musical back to its earlier years yet it maintained a strong adherence to storyline and brought forth a movie version of its source material. The film enhanced and brought in more interesting details of the stage production that could not be focused on...the use of close ups and the introduction of slightly more modern music, a fusion of operatic, ballet, rock-jazz, and the traditional musical along with a fascinating dracula-like seduction between the Phantom and Christine.
Unfortunately, this movie because of its avoidance of fancy Chicago-like and Moulin Rouge trappings, made this movie more female oriented without as much zest and action for the male audience. Phantom the movie retained more of its traditional trappings as a dramatic, epic movie with music on a much higher sophisticated plain. In otherwords, by not succumbing to profit and money-motives only it sacrificed its popularity for a richness that not all audience members would be interested in. Strangely enough, then, this movie needs to be looked at not by the numbers game, popularlity, but by its movie genre and how it took what movie can be best at and how this version was able to bring out features from the stage production and make them into one of their own. By this criterion, Phantom has succeeded very well.