Привет всем и поздравления с западноевропейским Рождеством (ежели здесь есть таковые, кто его отмечает) :D
Пока завсегдатаи сайта ждут появления фильма на Горбушке, я, злорадно потирая ручонки, шныряю по Инету и читаю рецензии. Вот две, которые произвели пока что наибольшее впечатление. Почему-то мне кажется, что посмотрев это кино, я полностью соглашусь с их авторами.....
B]The mucus of the night[/b]
PETER HOWELL
MOVIE CRITIC (Canada)
The Phantom Of The Opera
The celebrated chandelier takes its sweet time smashing down in the
long-awaited screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The
Opera,
waiting until near the end to make a climactic clamour.
The movie itself crashes to Earth long before that.
In attempting to update the story while also remaining true to its popular
stage musical rendering, director Joel Schumacher commits the cardinal sin of
choosing sex appeal over sincerity.
He rejected original stage Phantom Michael Crawford for the role of the Paris
Opera spook of the title, reasoning that Crawford was too old to play a
convincing lover at 62 — despite Crawford's youthful looks and his undisputed
mastery of songs that sound ludicrous and too loud when not properly performed.
Crawford has been supplanted by Scottish actor Gerard Butler, an unskilled
singer and largely unheralded actor who once haunted a Tomb Raider sequel.
Butler's woeful lack of vocal chops is just one of his painful deficiencies.
He's
the eighth screen Phantom since Lon Chaney's 1925 silent-film original and he's
quite possibly the worst. (And yes, I have seen the Freddy Krueger slasher
version.)
Schumacher argues, unconvincingly, that the Phantom needs to be sexed up to
appeal to contemporary audiences and to make Butler seem a more appropriate
romantic foil for 18-year-old co-star Emmy Rossum (Mystic River), who plays
Christine DaaГ©, the rising opera diva and object of too much male attention.
Butler's Phantom still calls himself a "loathsome gargoyle," but he is really
just a pretty boy with a skin infection, as evidenced by his skimpy mask
revealing a mostly handsome face. In making him only slightly less shaggable
than
Patrick Wilson's Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, the gentleman opera patron who
jousts for Christine's affections, Schumacher reduces the love dilemma to its
most
ridiculous terms. ...
...The story has been robbed of its raison d'etre, which is to dramatize the
yearning of unrequited love, the cruel vagaries of fate and the shallowness of
human behaviour, where people pay only lip service to the notion that beauty
is only skin deep. ...
...The songs occasionally rise above the din. When Rossum sings solo, as she
does the aria "Think Of Me," she is indeed a revelation, justifying the faith
of her risky casting. And not even Butler's hollering can ruin the beauty of
"The Music Of The Night," the one great song of the entire production. ...
...Joel Schumacher's The Phantom Of The Opera is a textbook example of how
difficult it is to transfer the thrills of a powerful live stage musical, one
steeped in the showiness of 1980s event theatre, to the subtleties demanded by
the very different medium of film.
Saddest of all is the thought of how good this movie might have been, had
Lloyd Webber proceeded with his original plans to make it in 1990 with original
leads Crawford and Brightman. To quote another song murdered by Butler, waiting
this long has taken this Phantom literally past "The Point Of No Return."
[
Webber’s Phantom gets no ovation
Posted on : 2004-12-24| Author : K. Yong| News Category : Entertainment
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest production of Gaston Leroux’s immensely popular musical turned out to be a huge disappointment. It appears more like a personal showcase for Webber’s music rather than the esthetic execution of director Joel Schumacher. Schumacher’s directorial finesse is vastly drowned out by Webber’s score.
It is indeed surprising because it was Webber’s music that made the stage production such a mega hit on international stages.
This sixth film version is an ambitiously mounted production. Webber produced and co-wrote the film. The performances by the talent are mostly impressive. The best is, no doubt, Emmy Rossum, as Christine Daae. Her porcelain beauty, graceful figure and a strangely pleasant though not very expressive voice, bring a kind of freshness to the role of Christine.
Gerard Butler’s essay of the Phantom is a big letdown in the film. Comparisons, which were inevitable, only succeed in underscoring Butler’s poor performance. Michael Crawford in the stage version put in a performance that overnight turned his career around. Besides Webber’s music, it was Crawford’s performance that got the applause.
One is reminded also of the unforgettable 1925 version where Lon Chaney added an eerie touch to the role, with his scarred face after he is unmasked. In the new version, Butler’s performance and unmemorable voice do not impress. He also fails to spark any fires during performances with Rossum’s Christine.
Joel Schumacher appears to have put in a fairly restrained execution which is more welcome from his earlier works. The film does have its moments of glory. It is sometimes evocatively romantic and at others times it seems Schumacher simply went overboard.
The images in Paris’ Opera Populaire, where the film is largely set, have a wonderful baroque beauty and were executed with great detail. The choreography is far from pleasing.
Webber has also “adapted” two of Puccini’s compositions (‘Turandot’ and ‘The Girl of the Golden West’) without acknowledging. It is unfair to the original composer as future generations who see this film are likely to believe that Webber composed them.
Among the other actors are Patrick Wilson as Raoul, Minnie Driver as the opera diva Carlotta and Miranda Richardson as Blanche Yurka.
Worth seeing only if you’re a die-hard Webber fan.