I love silent movies:
The boiling down of storytelling to mere visuals that must make one *think*
sound: Conversation, screams, the crash of a chandelier. Brilliance under
pressure. “The Phantom of the Opera” -– from the 1908 book and featuring Lon
Chaney in the title role –- is near perfect. Either born with grisly
disfigurements or badly burned after birth, the Phantom is a once-famous
composer now forgotten, living below the Paris Opera House obsessing over bit
signer Christine (Mary Philbin). He worships her. He sneaks into her room. He
sends a chandelier crashing on the audience after the house runners refuse to
punt their star for his goddess. This Phantom is no romantic, but a sick perv
with a hideous face -– dig that makeup, a flayed skull with no lips -– hidden
behind a mask that looks like that of a kindly friar. The best scenes have the
Phantom crashing a costume ball dressed in a red, promising death to all, then
standing on a roof like a demon, lurking, planning. The black/white
cinematography goes green/red with inserts of blue and the unnerving color
shock is like a blood shot from hell. A century old, this still terrorizes. A
Friday, October 3, 2014
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Labels:
1925,
black and white,
classic,
green,
horror,
Lon Chaney,
makeup,
Mary Philbin,
mask,
Paris,
Phantom of the Opera,
red,
silent
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