Music of the night
Music of the night
Posted 11:01pm (Mla time) Mar 14, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 15, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I SAW the movie version of "The Phantom of the Opera" determined to find much good in it. It is one of my favorite musicals, a work of genius from conception to execution. Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of those composers who straddle classical and pop with equal ease, and his works have as much claim to "opera" as Puccini's. In but two decades, he has produced three towering "rock operas," though only the first really has much to do with rock. Those are "Jesus Christ, Superstar," "Evita" and "Phantom." Tim Rice wrote the libretto for "JCS" and "Evita" and Charles Hart for "Phantom."
All have been turned into movies. The first two are not bad, but I still prefer the original stage versions. Certainly, Ian Gillian of Deep Purple is worlds better than Ted Neely. Gillian turned screaming into an art; Neely, well, let us be charitable and say he truly gave an impression of Christ wracked with pain. Madonna gave Patti Lupone a run for her money (an apt metaphor for Evita), but the stage version of the rally at Casa Rosada leading up to "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" is by far the more thrilling and moving. And makes a huge case for why myth often overwhelms deeds in politics.
The critics did not particularly like the movie version of "Phantom," and laid the blame on the lack of charisma of the actors. Alas, there is truth to it. To their credit, the movie actors all have mellifluous voices. Michael Crawford, the original Phantom, has power, but he tends to be throaty in the higher registers, which is a little annoying at the particularly dramatic moments. Gerald Butler has a more fluid voice, but he can't seem to register the same degree of angst. Not consistently anyway: he does so toward the ending, singing his Phantom version of "That's All I Ask of You" with heart-rending ache.
Patrick Wilson, as Christine's young lover Raoul, has a limpid voice, but as a friend of mine texted me, the whole deal seems stacked in favor of the Phantom: What woman would prefer him to the other guy, however disfigured? I was reminded of what a critic said about "First Knight," which had Sean Connery as Arthur and Richard Gere as Lancelot. The movie, he said, strained credulity. What woman in her right mind would prefer Richard Gere to Sean Connery even at Connery's age? Good point: It's not the looks, or the age.
But my own disappointment with the movie has to do not with its acting but with its conception. At the very least, it dispels the sinister aspect of the Phantom, the sense of menace he radiates, alongside his romantic and creative qualities. That is not helped by makeup, which makes the Phantom look like he had just been roughed up by goons after a night of carousing, nothing more. Which are not beyond the curative ministrations of Vicki Bello et al. The original Phantom, essayed by Lon Chaney, which set new standards in Gothic horror in films, had him sporting only a fleshless skull.
It is even less helped by the relative cheerfulness of the Phantom's surroundings. The part where the Phantom leads Christine to his subterranean lodgings, which starts with the menacing strains of the "Phantom" theme and ends with the soaring "Music of the Night" is marred by opulence. If the Phantom had delivered Christine in a gondola to a kingdom by the river, he could not have produced a more "MGM" feel. When the Phantom sings, "Turn your face away/ From the garish light of day," you are hard put to understand what he's talking about. This is garish light of day.
This brings me to the most essential point. Webber's and Hart's "Phantom" is not just a love story, it is a grand love story. What sets "Phantom" apart from Dracula, the other love-starved monster (Butler does a good deal of cape-swirling), and "Beauty and the Beast," which is also about a heroine seeing past ghastly appearance with the eyes of true love, is its exploration of the creative and destructive power of genius, the fascinating and repelling visage of art, the tension between moral convention and artistic license. The Phantom is more than a love-struck fool, he is the epitome of beauty and beastliness. Anyone who has had the creative urge knows the thin line between brilliance and madness. From the start my sympathies have been with the Phantom, not Raoul.
Charles Baudelaire postulated once, not unlike the Phantom, that normality, convention and ordinary life were illusory and that the real, essential, creative world was to be found not in the day but in the night. I don't know if Hart is a fan of the French Symbolists, but compare the lines about the garish light of day with these from Baudelaire's "Meditation": "The sun sinks moribund beneath an arch/ And like a long shroud rustling from the East/ Hark, Love, the gentle Night is on the march." The phrase, "music of the night," is a rich one, reverberating with all sorts of meaning. It suggests that music may truly be found in the night, in the unconscious, in the unfettered self, which is also the wellspring of murder and mayhem.
Christine's dilemma, loudly echoed in the stage version, is also a magnificent one, something that has bedeviled artists since time began. Which is: How much of yourself do you surrender to art? I still remember something a friend of mine told me a long time ago. To succeed in art, he said, you must be ruthless. That was the word he used: "ruthless." You have to turn your back on "normality," or pass "the point of no return," as the Phantom puts it. That is never an easy decision. All of which gave the original "Phantom" such incredible power, emotionally and intellectually, which just isn't there in the movie.
Still, go watch it, if only for the music. If not courtesy of SM, courtesy of Edu Manzano's favorite scourge.
Posted 11:01pm (Mla time) Mar 14, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 15, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I SAW the movie version of "The Phantom of the Opera" determined to find much good in it. It is one of my favorite musicals, a work of genius from conception to execution. Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of those composers who straddle classical and pop with equal ease, and his works have as much claim to "opera" as Puccini's. In but two decades, he has produced three towering "rock operas," though only the first really has much to do with rock. Those are "Jesus Christ, Superstar," "Evita" and "Phantom." Tim Rice wrote the libretto for "JCS" and "Evita" and Charles Hart for "Phantom."
All have been turned into movies. The first two are not bad, but I still prefer the original stage versions. Certainly, Ian Gillian of Deep Purple is worlds better than Ted Neely. Gillian turned screaming into an art; Neely, well, let us be charitable and say he truly gave an impression of Christ wracked with pain. Madonna gave Patti Lupone a run for her money (an apt metaphor for Evita), but the stage version of the rally at Casa Rosada leading up to "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" is by far the more thrilling and moving. And makes a huge case for why myth often overwhelms deeds in politics.
The critics did not particularly like the movie version of "Phantom," and laid the blame on the lack of charisma of the actors. Alas, there is truth to it. To their credit, the movie actors all have mellifluous voices. Michael Crawford, the original Phantom, has power, but he tends to be throaty in the higher registers, which is a little annoying at the particularly dramatic moments. Gerald Butler has a more fluid voice, but he can't seem to register the same degree of angst. Not consistently anyway: he does so toward the ending, singing his Phantom version of "That's All I Ask of You" with heart-rending ache.
Patrick Wilson, as Christine's young lover Raoul, has a limpid voice, but as a friend of mine texted me, the whole deal seems stacked in favor of the Phantom: What woman would prefer him to the other guy, however disfigured? I was reminded of what a critic said about "First Knight," which had Sean Connery as Arthur and Richard Gere as Lancelot. The movie, he said, strained credulity. What woman in her right mind would prefer Richard Gere to Sean Connery even at Connery's age? Good point: It's not the looks, or the age.
But my own disappointment with the movie has to do not with its acting but with its conception. At the very least, it dispels the sinister aspect of the Phantom, the sense of menace he radiates, alongside his romantic and creative qualities. That is not helped by makeup, which makes the Phantom look like he had just been roughed up by goons after a night of carousing, nothing more. Which are not beyond the curative ministrations of Vicki Bello et al. The original Phantom, essayed by Lon Chaney, which set new standards in Gothic horror in films, had him sporting only a fleshless skull.
It is even less helped by the relative cheerfulness of the Phantom's surroundings. The part where the Phantom leads Christine to his subterranean lodgings, which starts with the menacing strains of the "Phantom" theme and ends with the soaring "Music of the Night" is marred by opulence. If the Phantom had delivered Christine in a gondola to a kingdom by the river, he could not have produced a more "MGM" feel. When the Phantom sings, "Turn your face away/ From the garish light of day," you are hard put to understand what he's talking about. This is garish light of day.
This brings me to the most essential point. Webber's and Hart's "Phantom" is not just a love story, it is a grand love story. What sets "Phantom" apart from Dracula, the other love-starved monster (Butler does a good deal of cape-swirling), and "Beauty and the Beast," which is also about a heroine seeing past ghastly appearance with the eyes of true love, is its exploration of the creative and destructive power of genius, the fascinating and repelling visage of art, the tension between moral convention and artistic license. The Phantom is more than a love-struck fool, he is the epitome of beauty and beastliness. Anyone who has had the creative urge knows the thin line between brilliance and madness. From the start my sympathies have been with the Phantom, not Raoul.
Charles Baudelaire postulated once, not unlike the Phantom, that normality, convention and ordinary life were illusory and that the real, essential, creative world was to be found not in the day but in the night. I don't know if Hart is a fan of the French Symbolists, but compare the lines about the garish light of day with these from Baudelaire's "Meditation": "The sun sinks moribund beneath an arch/ And like a long shroud rustling from the East/ Hark, Love, the gentle Night is on the march." The phrase, "music of the night," is a rich one, reverberating with all sorts of meaning. It suggests that music may truly be found in the night, in the unconscious, in the unfettered self, which is also the wellspring of murder and mayhem.
Christine's dilemma, loudly echoed in the stage version, is also a magnificent one, something that has bedeviled artists since time began. Which is: How much of yourself do you surrender to art? I still remember something a friend of mine told me a long time ago. To succeed in art, he said, you must be ruthless. That was the word he used: "ruthless." You have to turn your back on "normality," or pass "the point of no return," as the Phantom puts it. That is never an easy decision. All of which gave the original "Phantom" such incredible power, emotionally and intellectually, which just isn't there in the movie.
Still, go watch it, if only for the music. If not courtesy of SM, courtesy of Edu Manzano's favorite scourge.
posted by Dante at 12:00 AM
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