069 The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

“LET THE DREAM BEGIN, LET YOUR DARKER SIDE GIVE IN“

On this Valentine’s Day, we decided to cover a romantic film for Retro Grade Podcast. Upon a listener’s birthday request, we are going back to 2004’s critically panned, audience adored, movie adaptation of the longest running show in Broadway history.. The Phantom of the Opera, starring Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, and Patrick Wilson, directed by the late Joel Schumacher.

We talk about Joel Schumacher’s reputation as a film director, and how he’s made some nostalgic, cult classics, but also a lot of movies people LOVE to hate. Perhaps one of the first directors to feel the unenviable vitriol of comic book fans after 1997’s Batman and Robin. We talk about how from the right perspective, we can find immense entertainment value in his gaudy, camp style. What does he bring to the table in adapting Webber’s widely successful show?

Listeners of the pod know about Jorge’s confession of not being into musicals. However, listeners also know this is probably one of the biggest lies in our show’s now 69 episode run. Like we said, this was by no means a critic’s darling film, but will the faults of the film be too much for Jorge to find Schumacher’s Phantom entertaining?

The casting of the film was also controversial. The vocals for Phantom’s music typically demands exceptional Broadway voices, particularly for the part of the titular Phantom.. and they cast a young, then-unknown Gerard Butler, with no singing background at all. We talk about how his singing (and age) differ from typical stage portrayals of the Phantom. Can Butler hit all those notes? Maybe not like a Broadway singer could, but we can’t help but appreciate the raw, unrefined emotive performance and exceptional cape twirls.

We also get into a bit of things that don’t hold up as well. Somethings that don’t really matter, like leaps in logic that require industrial grade suspension of disbelief. And then there’s somethings we can’t overlook, particularly one scene that unfortunately perpetuates a very harmful stereotype of Romani people. In revisiting older films, these kinds of things are very common, but part of the show is acknowledging those uncomfortable moments rather than glossing over them.

We do a bit of research on how this movie’s budget compared to other musical films of the era, why there was such a huge gap in time between the 1986 show and the 2004 film, some of the various adaptations of Gaston Leroux’s novel, and how one of our favorite scenes in the film was created.

We hope you enjoy this episode, and stay tuned for our upcoming PATREON!

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