Phantom Of The Opera, The (DVD)

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The whole narrative is told in an overtly sentimental manner by using flashbacks to these events, while the survivors reminisce. It's kind of a "Titanic" affair and gets rather gushy fast. In fact, everything about the production is gushy and overdone. The movie is so overblown, so much is meant to dazzle the eye, that it overwhelms the characters and the music. Add to that the fact that the love story is sappy, the horror is nonexistent, and the music, with a couple of exceptions, is largely repetitious and boring, and the result is less than hoped for. The two best scenes are the aforementioned cemetery segment and a short bit in a hall of mirrors. The Phantom's basement maze of canals seems more silly than atmospheric or haunting, and how does the guy manage to keep about two zillion candles burning down there? Does he light them all himself and keep them glowing endlessly, or did he light them all especially for Christine? Even the movie's length is overblown, 141 minutes, as it apparently tries to duplicate everything in the stage production. Enough is enough. Watching a movie is not the same thing as watching a live musical, and a least a half an hour could have been cut.

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Song, "Learn To Be Lonely." I found the art direction awfully busy. It's opulent in the extreme, but it gets so detailed with every inch of screen space filled with something new and fascinating, it's hard to concentrate on the story or the characters. The cinematography is certainly imaginative, although here, too, I found it busy, the camera continuously zooming in and around the people and sets rather than resting comfortably on any one thing for very long. And why was "Learn To Be Lonely" nominated when "All I Ask of You" and "The Music of the Night" are clearly better songs? Well, the nominated song does have to be written specifically for the movie, so that's all there is to that. In any case, the movie won no Oscars.

Ultimately, you could say the movie version of "The Phantom of the Opera" sinks or swims with Andrew Lloyd Webber. And in my opinion, he almost drowns it. Webber created the original stage show; he cowrote the movie; and he produced it. At least we know who to blame, because it couldn't have all been Schumacher's fault.

Video:
The picture actually looks wider on DVD than I remember it from the theater, presented on disc in a ratio measuring 2.40:1. The image is anamorphic, enhanced for 16x9 TVs, and the result is pretty good. With a film so spectacular in appearance as "The Phantom," you would hope for a good video transfer, and this one comes off well. The colors are beautiful, although there is a very slight glassiness noticeable in facial tones, which can also be a touch light. Object delineation is fairly sharp, with only a hint of color bleed-through. And except in the opening and intermittent black-and-white scenes, where grain is intentional, the screen is remarkably clean.

Audio:
The sound is reproduced via Dolby Digital 5.1 processing, and in terms of frequency range and dynamic impact it is quite impressive. Front channel stereo spread is wide, and vocals are well-balanced in relation to their musical accompaniment. Rear-channel effects are used mainly to reinforce musical ambiance, but there are a few good noises in the surrounds as well to remind us of the environment, particularly down in the Phantom's underground lair.

Extras:
You know you're in trouble when the bonus items are more interesting than the feature film, and that's not saying much. Disc one contains the movie itself; a widescreen theatrical trailer; thirty-six scene selections (but no chapter insert); English and French spoken languages; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles. My biggest complaint is that Warner Bros. chose to create menus that open up so slowly that by the time something finally arrives on the screen, you're out of the mood to watch it. I assume the WB disc producers were attempting to replicate the dreamy mood of the story; I dunno. The Disney people do this a lot, too, with their animated menus, trying to make them as much fun as possible, but even they irritate me. I want a menu to take me somewhere quickly, not entertain me. Just get on with it. Dang, I'm grumpy.

Disc two contains three basic items: "Behind the Mask: The Story of the Phantom of the Opera"; "The Making of the Phantom of the Opera: Preproduction, the Director, and the Production"; and a deleted scene, "No One Would Listen." The documentary "Behind the Mask" is sixty-five minutes long and contains information on the development of the original stage production, with comments from Webber, plus from the original director, producer, lyricist, and stage actors. For Andrew Lloyd Webber fans, I suppose this information is essential. Next, we have info about the making of the movie, starting with its "Preproduction," a seventeen-minute segment subtitled "Origins and Casting of the Phantom of the Opera." It's pretty much self-explanatory, again with a multitude of complimentary remarks from the participants. Then, there is "Designing the Phantom of the Opera," eleven minutes on the technical aspects of making the movie, a part I liked best because I'm intrigued by how miniatures and such are made to create a movie's illusions. The last of the three sections is subtitled "Supporting Cast and Recording the Album of the Phantom of the Opera." It's seventeen minutes long and contains a good deal more talk, this time about the music, the movie's other cast members, and a few more technical effects, like the crashing of the chandelier. Finally, there's the additional song "No One Would Listen," about two minutes, sung by the Phantom. It's typically syrupy and a welcome deletion.

Parting Shots:
I almost walked out of the theater early when I first tried to watch "The Phantom of the Opera," and I was tempted to do the same while watching the DVD; but knowing I had a responsibility to readers, I stayed the course. What a trooper I am, and what a pooper the film can be. The whole thing is mostly a tribute to the set designer's elegant if inflated creations and costar Emmy Rossum's heaving bosom. And, remember, I like musicals (and I have nothing against bosoms).

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