I finally got to watch this DVD last Saturday. I have to say it's a gorgeous piece of film but nowhere near the theatrical production that I saw at the LA Music Center with Robert Guillaume as the Phantom back in 91.
The orchestration of the music on the film (DVD) is awesome. The DVD audio does justice to this, certainly more detailed and fuller bodied than the west-end original with Sarah Brightman.
Unfortunately it failed to elicit the same goose bumps I had when I first watched the theatrical version. I think that's the problem, the theater version was simply too great and engendered so much expectation from the film that it turned into a dissappointment when I watched this DVD.
For sure Emily Russum is no Sarah Brightman in the looks department, though both have thin coloratura voices. No matter from what angle, she may have a great voice, but her screen persona would not even quality her as an extra during the days of Ava Gardner in Hollywood. It's a shame really, film is supposed to deliver something BIG on the screen that you won't get in theaters. None of the major charactes did that. The MUSIC of Phantom is the one that carried the film. It's just too magnificent that any competent orchestra and singer can give justice. The film does just that. It competently transcribed into film the story and the music that I heard and saw in the theater. But it failed misearbly to deliver the same awe-inspiring involvement and fantastic surrealism of the original theatrical version.
What is worst, the unique and awe-inspriing visuals of Cameron McIntosh on the theatre just wasn't there in film. Phantom created so many historical firsts in westend and broaddway musicals in terms of stunning visuals that matched the intensity of the music. None of that in film. The Masquerade Ball sequence in the theatre was an extravanganza of colors and flamboyant costumes that in the film was uninspriingly reduced to an emetic monochome of gold and yellows and down-to-earth costumes. The journey of the phantom together with Christine under the opera house was a surreal tableau that was both frightening and entrancing that in the film lost all semblance of unearthliness with its very realistic visuals. Adding a sword fight between the phantom and Raoul did nothing to enhance the characters nor establish any romantic credibility for the Phantom but actually diminished the aura of the phantom and reduced him to look like a swashbuckling Antontio Banderras as Zorro who pathetically almost got his comeuppance if not for the witless and timid "not like this" admonition from Christine. What a line.
I think Schumacker, in attempting to impart the phantom with a sexy appeal, floundered in giving the phantom a mysterious air and doomed menace that the theatrical version had. It somehow made the phantom less of....what else, a phantom.
Some of my colleauges went oohs and aahs on the film. I asked them if they ever saw the theatrical version. None of them did. SO there. I hope they get to see it someday.
The theatrical version defined what a GREAT musical play is all about. The film version defined what it's like to ape the play with none of the greatness. With so much promise dashed, I don't think the film version will ever sit on the same pedestal as the theatrical version. Just my thoughts.
