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Nov. 27th, 2004 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cleolindaAll right--you guys may or may not have noticed this about me yet, but I'm a little obsessive-compulsive (no!) and I tend to go from ig'nant to expert, or at least obsessive, in about sixty seconds. I couldn't sleep last night (you know how it is when you're sick--you can tell you're getting well because suddenly you can't sleep around the clock anymore), so I pulled up The Phantom of the Opera on Project Gutenberg and read the whole thing, which was totally awesome. Of course, I'm big on nineteenth-century lit and I guess just about anything would seem like a page-turner after the dense poetics of Paradise Lost. Anyway. I also spent a good bit of time on the movie's official website, so I have a pretty good idea of how much of the book plot made it into the musical (and thank God Andrew Lloyd Webber ditched the torture chamber, y'all, because I was about to tear my hair out after three chapters of that shit). I'm still trying to figure out why in the world they hired Joel Schumacher to direct it, but I'm pretty much figuring at this point that the movie's going to be either fabulous or godawful, and either one will be awesome. Well, awesome from the perspective of a newcomer who isn't emotionally attached to the property, but then, I'm sure there will be riots in the streets no matter how the movie turns out (see also: Harry Potter fans who hate the movies).
There's one problem I can spot offhand, however, and that is letting a hot guy play the Phantom. I noticed in the last entry, the one with the photo captions, how the Phantom fans among y'all were disconcerted by this, and I didn't really understand why until I read the book. In the book, the Phantom's hideous. I don't quite know how this works out, but he's, like, "made of death." Like, a walking living corpse or something. Smells like death, bony hands, grody face, etc. And every time Raoul gets jealous, Christine's like, Dude, you saw the guy, are you kidding me? By the end of the book, the best she can muster is abject pity for Erik, even though she's managed to pretend that she "loves him for himself" so as to regain her freedom. But faced with the prospect of marrying him so he doesn't blow Raoul, the Paris Opera, and several hundred people sky high, she tries to kill herself, while tied up, by bashing her head against the wall over and over.
Now, without having seen the musical, I can tell you just the same that I'm pretty sure the book Phantom has fuck-all to do with the show Phantom, because millions of fans wouldn't be in love with him if he were all, you know, necrotic and stuff. Book Phantom does not have the cute little half mask; Book Phantom doesn't look spiff in formal wear. If we're talking about Musical Phantom, we've basically got a guy with an underground palace and a gorgeous voice who's willing to worship this girl and make her the greatest singer in the world. Raoul? Is cute. Okay, okay--he's also nobility, but (in the book, at least) he and his brother make all these snippy comments about "giving an opera wench his name," which is so not on. So the nobility thing is both a pro and a con and therefore sort of cancels itself out. And yeah, childhood attachment, okay, that's nice. But he also acts pretty childishly throughout the book (the book is great with this, by the way, and notes at one point that he says something so asinine to Christine that he can't think of any way out of it other than "to keep being odious"), so he's not sophisticated or worldly or mature--another point for the Phantom. So, in conclusion, Raoul: cute, and won't tie you up (woe). Do you see the problem we now have if the Phantom is also hot? Raoul is basically outclassed on every level except for the whole "actually lets you walk around freely above ground now and then" thing, and I'm willing to bet you pretty much don't care about that if you're in the thrall of this guy. I mean, the musical already undermines Raoul by letting Erik be just a little disfigured instead of the walking maw of fetid death, and if you cast a hot guy, you've just thrown the entire dynamic out of whack.
I mean, not that I won't be there with bells on, but still.
And then I went and downloaded some Whitesnake (shut up, man--Kingdom of Loathing got me all nostalgic), so now I totally associate the Phantom of the Opera book with "Is This Love." (And it fits, y'all. Shut up.) Man, I totally miss Baz Luhrmann. He needs to come back and make some more movies. He would rock a Phantom of the Opera movie (from the book, not the musical) with nothing but '80s music. Man--you know, the more I think about it, the more awesome I am convinced that would have been. Come back, Baz!
There's one problem I can spot offhand, however, and that is letting a hot guy play the Phantom. I noticed in the last entry, the one with the photo captions, how the Phantom fans among y'all were disconcerted by this, and I didn't really understand why until I read the book. In the book, the Phantom's hideous. I don't quite know how this works out, but he's, like, "made of death." Like, a walking living corpse or something. Smells like death, bony hands, grody face, etc. And every time Raoul gets jealous, Christine's like, Dude, you saw the guy, are you kidding me? By the end of the book, the best she can muster is abject pity for Erik, even though she's managed to pretend that she "loves him for himself" so as to regain her freedom. But faced with the prospect of marrying him so he doesn't blow Raoul, the Paris Opera, and several hundred people sky high, she tries to kill herself, while tied up, by bashing her head against the wall over and over.
Now, without having seen the musical, I can tell you just the same that I'm pretty sure the book Phantom has fuck-all to do with the show Phantom, because millions of fans wouldn't be in love with him if he were all, you know, necrotic and stuff. Book Phantom does not have the cute little half mask; Book Phantom doesn't look spiff in formal wear. If we're talking about Musical Phantom, we've basically got a guy with an underground palace and a gorgeous voice who's willing to worship this girl and make her the greatest singer in the world. Raoul? Is cute. Okay, okay--he's also nobility, but (in the book, at least) he and his brother make all these snippy comments about "giving an opera wench his name," which is so not on. So the nobility thing is both a pro and a con and therefore sort of cancels itself out. And yeah, childhood attachment, okay, that's nice. But he also acts pretty childishly throughout the book (the book is great with this, by the way, and notes at one point that he says something so asinine to Christine that he can't think of any way out of it other than "to keep being odious"), so he's not sophisticated or worldly or mature--another point for the Phantom. So, in conclusion, Raoul: cute, and won't tie you up (woe). Do you see the problem we now have if the Phantom is also hot? Raoul is basically outclassed on every level except for the whole "actually lets you walk around freely above ground now and then" thing, and I'm willing to bet you pretty much don't care about that if you're in the thrall of this guy. I mean, the musical already undermines Raoul by letting Erik be just a little disfigured instead of the walking maw of fetid death, and if you cast a hot guy, you've just thrown the entire dynamic out of whack.
I mean, not that I won't be there with bells on, but still.
And then I went and downloaded some Whitesnake (shut up, man--Kingdom of Loathing got me all nostalgic), so now I totally associate the Phantom of the Opera book with "Is This Love." (And it fits, y'all. Shut up.) Man, I totally miss Baz Luhrmann. He needs to come back and make some more movies. He would rock a Phantom of the Opera movie (from the book, not the musical) with nothing but '80s music. Man--you know, the more I think about it, the more awesome I am convinced that would have been. Come back, Baz!
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:15 am (UTC)Phantom/Erik= masked man old enough to be Christine's father
...
*facepalm*
But it still looks good. But there will be grevious injury inflicted on Butler groupies. *sigh*
-Omm, hardcore Phantom phan.
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:16 am (UTC)Have you read Maskerade? FUNNY.
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:17 am (UTC)I'm sorry, you were saying?
I gotta go with you on this one, though. You're absolutely right about Raoul being outclassed by HotGuy!Musical!Phantom, and that it definitely goes against the book. And thanks for the reminder about Project Gutenberg, because I'd totally forgotten about that.
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:19 am (UTC)And you've definitely noted the Big Problem. Erik shouldn't be hot. It's just not right. Now, the way my friends and I figured out the Erik vs Raoul thing, and why it's such a big deal to Christine-in-the-musical is this:
Raoul has position and his money can help further her career (he's referred to as being a patron at one point). He's known her since she was little and knew her father — her father meant the world to her, and so anything connecting her to that time is going to be precious to her. And he adores her. He can be a little out of it (ha ha) and he can be an utter moron, but he also loves her completely and is willing to do idiotic things like get tortured for three chapters to save her. And clearly, to a girl who says "He would murder for me" like it's a good thing, that's important. So Raoul's everything she wants except he doesn't understand her passion for her music. He knows she's really, really, really GOOD, but he doesn't quite understand what it means to her.
The Phantom, on the other hand, totally understands her passion. And he can make her even better than she is. Throw in some weird stuff where in she has an Electra complex and seems to think he might be her father. So Raoul is everything she could want minus an understanding of her passion — but Erik is the one who gets music, which is such a part of who she is.
Whee! I'm not obsessed! Really!
I'm totally not playing Christine in a modernized rolplay or anything like that!no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:19 am (UTC)...
So I had this whole comment written up about how a lot of the guys who have play Phantom were attractive, but the makeup worked to make them look ugly...and hen I looked at the picture you linked to. You have got to be kidding me! I'm with you, now - what happened to the whole "so ugly she screams and faints" bit?!
Anyway. Before I looked at that picture, what bothered me most about the new movie is the fact that Gerard Butler cannot sing for shit. I assume that part is also in the orginal book? The part where the Phantom has the angelic singing voice? Have you listened to the clips from the soundtrack? Christine sounds okay, not great, but okay, everyone else is fine, I've heard Minnie Driver is fantastic, but Butler just can't sing, and that totally defeats the whole premise of the story.
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:23 am (UTC)Yeah, pretty much.
because millions of fans wouldn't be in love with him if he were all, you know, necrotic and stuff
I actually read the book before I watched the show, or even listened to the music, and still went through a brief phase of Erik-crushing. I was crushing on Raoul at the same time, though.
It's the Christine worshipping, and the gorgeous voice - you just forget he's horrid. I don't know about other girls, but in literature (not IRL, god forbid) there are few things more exciting to me than a guy who's totally smitten. I'm reading Post Captain right now, which I don't know if you've read, and Stephen Maturin is completely head over heels in love with this girl, and it's really touching.
So it might be that, I don't know.
The Phantom fangirls whoo bash Christine for choosing Raoul totally baffle me, however, for the simple reason that Erik is so, so crazy.
And for once, I have an appropriate icon. Heh.
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:24 am (UTC)Well otherwise we're left with Raoul, who - in the book anyway - is a big girly man and cries every second page. I've gotta say that I was rooting for the Phantom the whole time, despite his... err... slight disfigurement. I'm all for angsty heroes, but Raoul... Let's just say I was strongly reminded of him when reading the chapters of Harry Potter 5 that involved a certain Cho Chang *cringe*
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:25 am (UTC)It really does defeat the purpose. I mean, if I were Christine, I'd have to be like "Um, thanks but no thanks. I mean, you can't even sing yourself, how are you going to make me sound good?" Of course, she already sounds better than him, but, y'know. (Emmy Rossum does a decent job, I think. In "Think of Me," she's kind of weak, but it works for the story.)
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:28 am (UTC)But last night, I listened to the clips for the first time and was simply appalled.
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:30 am (UTC)(Seriously, in the musical, she thinks he might be her father? Whoa. Or is that just while she thinks he's a spirit/angel? Because I could see that.)
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:31 am (UTC)There we go! That's how Raoul beats the Phantom: he can bloody sing. Patrick Wilson . . . *drool*
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:32 am (UTC)But before that, for the first half she definitely thinks he's the Angel of Music that her father promised to send her from heaven.
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:35 am (UTC)There we go! That's how Raoul beats the Phantom: he can bloody sing.
AHHH. It's like these people are making Opposite Phantom of the Opera.
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:37 am (UTC)Really? I heard he had no voice experience at all until a couple of months before they started filming.
Though...come to think of it...those two aren't mutually exclusive...
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:39 am (UTC)She never actually says it outloud, but . . . It's when she's in the graveyard, mostly, in Act Two — y'know, after he's killed the one guy whose name I won't mention in case people don't know. She sings "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again," which is, presumably, to her father (I mean, she says "You were once a friend and father").
And then Raoul and the Phantom both show up. And she sings to the Phantom: "Angel or father, friend or Phantom? / Who is it there, staring?"
And later in that scene, Raoul yells to her, "Christine! Christine listen to me! Whatever you may believe, this man . . . this thing . . . is not your father!"
I left my libretto at home in California, but I found a link to the screenplay and that scene is here. (Better look before ALW tells them to take it down.)
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Date: 2004-11-27 10:39 am (UTC)