Film Review: Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera by Joel Schumacher

The musical, romantic drama describes the happy and tragic consequences in the converging personal and professional lives of:

• Gilles André (Simon Callow);
• Christine (Emmy Rossum);
• Erick (Gerard Butler);
• Richard Firmin (Ciarán Hinds);
• Madame Giry (Miranda Richardson);
• Meg Giry (Jennifer Ellison);
• Carlotta Giudicelli (Minnie Driver); and
• Raoul, vicomte de Chagny (Patrick Wilson).

Christine, Swedish violinist Pierre Daaé’s only child, emerges as Opéra Populaire’s diva through:

• Gilles and Richard buying Lefevre’s theater in 1870; and
• Giry encouraging sixteen-year-old Christine’s replacing Carlotta after backdrops fall during rehearsals of Chalumeau’s Hannibal and Joseph Buquet (Kevin McNally) is hanged during performances of Albrizzio’s Il Muto (The Mute).

She finds love with:

• Erick, masked Angel of Music; and
• Raoul, the scrap-metal industrialist-owners’ patron. 

Christine gets second thoughts over Erick as Pierre’s heaven-sent music teacher after:

• encountering his representation of her as his bride;
• finding his right face disfigured;
• having Raoul’s engagement ring ripped from her neck by Erick masquerading as Red Death;
• interceding in Erick’s and Raoul’s duel near Pierre’s tomb;
• knowing of Erick’s killing Ubaldo Piangi (Victor McGuire) to sing in Don Juan Triumphant; and
• lashing Raoul to a gate as a scaffold.

Raoul has doubts of surviving drowning and hanging until Christine kisses Erick twice. Erick is experienced in:

• abandonment from horrifying his mother;
• crime from killing his ringmaster; and
• friendship from Madame’s arranging box #5 reservations and 20,000-euro monthly salaries for ideating Populaire’s music and instructing Christine. 

Erick judges marrying Raoul Christine’s due. He keeps Christine’s ring until her death. He leaves a black ribbon-tied, ring-held rose at Christine’s (1854 – 1917) gravestone, where Raoul deposits 30-franc Populaire auction purchase #665 -- Erick’s cymbal-playing, Persian-clothed monkey music box -- in 1919.

So Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera offers viewers 143 culturally enriching, educationally entertaining minutes, thanks to:

• Alexandra Byrne, costume designer;
• Peter Darling, choreographer;
• Charles Hart, lyricist;
• Simon Lee, conductor, music supervisor;
• Gaston Leroux, Le Fantôme de l’Opéra novelist;
• John Mathieson, cinematographer;
• Nathan McGuinness, visual effects supervisor;
• Anthony Pratt, production designer;
• Terry Rawlings, editor;
• Eli Richbourg, co-producer;
• Joel Schumacher, co-screenwriter, director;
• Richard Stilgoe, co-lyricist; and
• Andrew Lloyd Webber, music composer, producer, screenwriter.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

On May 20, 1896, one of the counterweights of the over 6-ton bronze and crystal grand chandelier in Opéra Garnier’s auditorium broke loose and, falling through the ceiling, killed an attendee and later inspired a scene in Gaston Leroux’s 1910 gothic novel
Opéra Garnier's auditorium with grand chandelier: Naoya Ikeda, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palais_Garnier_auditorium_and_stage.jpg

compelling symbol of The Phantom of the Opera: white mask
detail of phantom's mask on billboard for Broadway musical The Phantom of the Opera; Saturday, June 12, 2010, 17:40:07: Ed Schipul (eschipul), CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/eschipul/4702637227/

"They sat like that for a moment of silence"
one of color illustrations painted by Jean Alexandre Michel André Castaigne (January 7, 1861 – 1929) for first edition of Gaston Leroux's gothic novel, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra
rooftop tell-all conversation between Christine and Vicomte de Chagny, witnessed by Erick: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:André_Castaigne_Fantôme_Opéra2.jpg

Director Joel Schumacher (born August 29, 1939) credits hallway scene of human arms with candalabra as inspired by La Belle et la Bête, 1946 film by Jean Cocteau (July 5, 1889 – October 11, 1963).
Belle in corridor lit by human arms with candalabra; screenshot taken Sunday, Nov. 2, 2014, at 1.23.57 PM: Udi h Bauman (dibau_naum_h), CC BY SA 2.0, ia Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/dibau_naum_h/15505000627/

Director Joel Schumacher (born August 29, 1939) credits hallway scene of human arms with candalabra as inspired by La Belle et la Bête, 1946 film by Jean Cocteau (July 5, 1889 – October 11, 1963).
Belle in corridor lit by human arms with candalabra; screenshot taken Sunday, Nov. 2, 2014, at 1.23.57 PM: Udi h Bauman (dibau_naum_h), CC BY SA 2.0, ia Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/dibau_naum_h/15505000627/

Leroux, Gaston. 2012. The Phantom of the Opera. Smk Books.