"The Phantom of the Opera" has enjoyed numerous film adaptations since it was first published nearly a century ago. Claude Rains, Herbert Lom, Maximilian Schell, Charles Dance, and even Robert "Freddy Kreuger" England, have all played the tragic, disfigured protagonist of Gaston Leroux's 1910 novella. The king of the Phantoms was Lon Chaney, whose startling appearance and bravura performance in Universal's 1925 silent version is still the benchmark by which others are measured. No other actor conveyed the level of pathos and ferocity that Chaney brought to the role. Not only was Chaney a commanding actor, he was willing to abuse and physically distort his own face by means of wires, collodion, fish skin, tape, and other painful devices by which he achieved a level of realism that remains unmatched to this day, even with state-of-the-art prosthetics. Chaney's appearance as the Phantom remains iconic not only because it is so bizarre, but because it cannot be duplicated.
Chaney's Phantom is also the most authentic in appearance. Leroux describes Erik's face as resembling a skull, with almost no nose that could be seen "sideface," with parchment-yellow skin pulled tight over the bones. Leroux's Erik was not a handsome, dashing figure who wore a quarter-face mask to hide a modest blemish. He was a thing of horror, a murderous psychopath whose grotesque deformities might have put him in good company with John Merrick or Quasimodo. Among the reading public in France at the time, he was the closest thing they had to an alien horror creature.
Next to Lon Chaney, the most memorable interpretation of the Phantom was that of Michael Crawford, who originated the role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's ingenious stage production, and who elevated the character by empowering him with the gift of song. Much as I liked that production, the peril of making the character more romantic is that it renders him less sinister.
Joel Schumacher's film version pushes this conceit even further by turning Leroux's horror story into a Harlequin romance. To make the Phantom younger, studlier, and more sympathetic, as Schumacher has done, is to denude the character of his near-spectral power. Imagine if somebody decided to do a film about a younger, more sympathetic Hannibal Lecter. (Oh wait, they did that, didn't they?)
Schumacher's desire to make the characters younger and sexier should be no surprise, coming from the man who added nipples to Batman's costume. Even so, Gerard Butler is an odd piece of casting. He is a decent actor, however he doesn't come across as particularly "young," on top of which he can't sing. Johnny Depp can't sing either, however he would have made a much more interesting Phantom if looks and acting skill had been the only prerequisites.
With all of the actors that have gone before him, the only novel quality that Butler brings to the role of Erik is a kind of uncharacteristic ruggedness that one doesn't usually associate with Leroux's wraith-like villain. If it was youthful machismo Schumacher was after, one wonders why he didn't cast Colin Farrell in the role, since they've already done a few movies together. Perhaps Schumacher wanted a more testosteronal Phantom in order to dispel the "twee" factor. After all, any man who spends his time poncing around an old theater in gowns and evening-wear is automatically suspect. We can be thankful that Schumacher chose not to show the Phantom in an unguarded moment, bare-chested and wearing a black bow-tie, though I wouldn't have been entirely surprised.
After Universal's lavish 1943 musical remake, in which Claude Rains's phantom was little more than a sad subplot to a giddily witless love triangle, one reviewer observed that there was far more "opera" than "phantom" in the Technicolor extravaganza. Another critic was sufficiently underwhelmed by Rains's makeup in the climactic unmasking scene to write that the Phantom's ostensibly acid-scarred face looked less like a disfigurement than an unpleasant skin condition.
Which is one of the problems with Schumacher's version. As anyone who has seen the stage production can attest, the original makeup design, while not overly gory, was nonetheless horrific and repellent--the suggestion of congenital deformity as might be exacerbated by the leprous effects of a flesh-eating disease. Schumacher had the temerity to re-write Webber (with Webber's consent, apparently), by inventing the least unpleasant-looking Phantom in the annals of stage and screen. At the first glimpse of Butler unmasked, I was a little confused. The only thing I could tell was that his hair color had changed. Before, he looked like Antonio Banderas in a mask. Now he looked like Simon LeBon, which was an improvement.
I played the scene back, and got really close to the screen to see what Erik's disfigurement was, and why he had been wearing that mask, because I had obviously missed something. The only thing I could see was that it looked like he had a little rouge rubbed onto the side of his face. Which was baffling, because I had read about how many hours it took them to do his makeup. I thought to myself, that's it? If Claude Rains's makeup was an "unpleasant skin condition," Gerard Butler's was a birthmark. A large freckle. I've seen uglier people on prime time television! Which made the whole thing seem even more ridiculous,because we're expected to believe that this poor fellow was mentally scarred for life, and became a murderous lunatic, and felt the need to hide his face from the world, on account of--a change of hair color and a slightly ruddy complexion?
Then again, I remembered something Schumacher had said in an interview. Prior to the film's release, he had explained to a journalist that he didn't want the Phantom to be so ugly that a woman wouldn't want to kiss him.
Oh, the indignity. I suppose the Disney animated version will be next.
Chaney's Phantom is also the most authentic in appearance. Leroux describes Erik's face as resembling a skull, with almost no nose that could be seen "sideface," with parchment-yellow skin pulled tight over the bones. Leroux's Erik was not a handsome, dashing figure who wore a quarter-face mask to hide a modest blemish. He was a thing of horror, a murderous psychopath whose grotesque deformities might have put him in good company with John Merrick or Quasimodo. Among the reading public in France at the time, he was the closest thing they had to an alien horror creature.
Next to Lon Chaney, the most memorable interpretation of the Phantom was that of Michael Crawford, who originated the role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's ingenious stage production, and who elevated the character by empowering him with the gift of song. Much as I liked that production, the peril of making the character more romantic is that it renders him less sinister.
Joel Schumacher's film version pushes this conceit even further by turning Leroux's horror story into a Harlequin romance. To make the Phantom younger, studlier, and more sympathetic, as Schumacher has done, is to denude the character of his near-spectral power. Imagine if somebody decided to do a film about a younger, more sympathetic Hannibal Lecter. (Oh wait, they did that, didn't they?)
Schumacher's desire to make the characters younger and sexier should be no surprise, coming from the man who added nipples to Batman's costume. Even so, Gerard Butler is an odd piece of casting. He is a decent actor, however he doesn't come across as particularly "young," on top of which he can't sing. Johnny Depp can't sing either, however he would have made a much more interesting Phantom if looks and acting skill had been the only prerequisites.
With all of the actors that have gone before him, the only novel quality that Butler brings to the role of Erik is a kind of uncharacteristic ruggedness that one doesn't usually associate with Leroux's wraith-like villain. If it was youthful machismo Schumacher was after, one wonders why he didn't cast Colin Farrell in the role, since they've already done a few movies together. Perhaps Schumacher wanted a more testosteronal Phantom in order to dispel the "twee" factor. After all, any man who spends his time poncing around an old theater in gowns and evening-wear is automatically suspect. We can be thankful that Schumacher chose not to show the Phantom in an unguarded moment, bare-chested and wearing a black bow-tie, though I wouldn't have been entirely surprised.
After Universal's lavish 1943 musical remake, in which Claude Rains's phantom was little more than a sad subplot to a giddily witless love triangle, one reviewer observed that there was far more "opera" than "phantom" in the Technicolor extravaganza. Another critic was sufficiently underwhelmed by Rains's makeup in the climactic unmasking scene to write that the Phantom's ostensibly acid-scarred face looked less like a disfigurement than an unpleasant skin condition.
Which is one of the problems with Schumacher's version. As anyone who has seen the stage production can attest, the original makeup design, while not overly gory, was nonetheless horrific and repellent--the suggestion of congenital deformity as might be exacerbated by the leprous effects of a flesh-eating disease. Schumacher had the temerity to re-write Webber (with Webber's consent, apparently), by inventing the least unpleasant-looking Phantom in the annals of stage and screen. At the first glimpse of Butler unmasked, I was a little confused. The only thing I could tell was that his hair color had changed. Before, he looked like Antonio Banderas in a mask. Now he looked like Simon LeBon, which was an improvement.
I played the scene back, and got really close to the screen to see what Erik's disfigurement was, and why he had been wearing that mask, because I had obviously missed something. The only thing I could see was that it looked like he had a little rouge rubbed onto the side of his face. Which was baffling, because I had read about how many hours it took them to do his makeup. I thought to myself, that's it? If Claude Rains's makeup was an "unpleasant skin condition," Gerard Butler's was a birthmark. A large freckle. I've seen uglier people on prime time television! Which made the whole thing seem even more ridiculous,because we're expected to believe that this poor fellow was mentally scarred for life, and became a murderous lunatic, and felt the need to hide his face from the world, on account of--a change of hair color and a slightly ruddy complexion?
Then again, I remembered something Schumacher had said in an interview. Prior to the film's release, he had explained to a journalist that he didn't want the Phantom to be so ugly that a woman wouldn't want to kiss him.
Oh, the indignity. I suppose the Disney animated version will be next.
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