My setiments exactly! You see I don't really care if they don't really like the Phantom movie or the play, but if you read my post, I did say that hopefully one can rise above behaviour such as this! I am not only speaking about this flim, but in a broader context, about all films!

The bloody metaphors don't work here because they are poorly misplaced. Webber tries and fails to connect one concept, love, with others, whatever the hell that might be, whether it's night (going against the conventional metaphor of night being death and light being life) or something else. I just gave one interpretation of what The Phantom might be saying, and clearly, it is about anything but love. If the subcurrents of the lyrics and music suggest something that the writer clearly did not intend (Webber could not have intended for that to be read the way I read it) and which is so out of line with the surface meaning, clearly he does not have proper command over his own music and writing.

Why are there so many critics lambasting this? Why would they care for some conspiracy surrounding something that is hardly worth anyone's time? If they did wish to be of influence, they'd probably pick on James Joyce or T.S. Eliot, not on Webber. Obviously, something is seriously off.


One critic once said that if you want to know whether something is bad, compare it to something which is good. Fair enough, since we're on the issue of metaphors, let's go to Shakespeare, and compare Webber to him. I hate Romeo and Juliet; of the 37 Shakespeare plays I've read, it ranks among the worst down there with Timon of Athens and Titus Andronicus. But even there, the language is wondrous, and Shakespeare succeeds wonderfully. Concentrating on one specific metaphor:


Rom. [To JULIET.] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this;
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. 96
Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss. 100
Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Rom. O! then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. 104
Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
Rom. Then move not, while my prayers’ effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg’d. [Kissing her.
Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took. 108
Rom. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d!
Give me my sin again.
Jul. You kiss by the book.


Juliet's body is the shrine, and the language of the sacred is used to describe an act of physical love, or rather, a physical expression of love in a non-religious sense. The metaphor works beautifully because there is a fundamental connection between love between two human beings, and love between a human being and God. Both religious love and romantic love imply a great degree of devotion and in the long tradition of courtly love, an idealization of the beloved. Shakespeae is tapping into a long tradition of trespasses between that which is religious and that which is profane.

And then you have Webber...

No, it's not always fair to compare someone to Shakespeare, but not everyone compared to Shakespeare loses ground.


Anyways, I'm giving this more importance than it deserves. The film, like the musical, is entertainment made for the masses (which Shakespeare's plays were too, heh). Kudos to anyone who liked it, fine for those who didn't. I think we should consider the case closed now.

Ohhhhhhhh


A Big Sidenote:

The metaphor of the superheroes being outsiders in The Incredibles is absolutely brilliant, one of the best in any recent film I've seen. The whole idea completely turns the notion of the underdog upside down, since the underdog in this case is actually stronger than the supposed top dog. Spider-Man 2 played with a similar theme, and both films did it very well. That's one of the reasons why both are very good films.

A closed case.

Most judgements are not absolute, but rather more individually opinionated and/or influenced! Never beyond the reach of contestation as such.

Best of luck! No more shall I say of the matter.

how can you possibly compare a cartoon to a classic play, which you havent even seen boxie? :?

Now I am used to regular clashing of LOTR and SW fanboys as well as to some defenders of a certain movie named The Hulk (or was it just Hulk? ) But what I did not expect that we'd get fights here over The Phantom of the Opera. C'mon, you all should cool down. That goes for all of you, haters as wel as fanboys.


On another note, looking at these numbers reminds me why I love the dailies around Christmas so much! SAfter my calculations, though, Meet the Fockers will pretty much definitely fall under $35 million this weekend. On a positive not, though, it'll still most likely have over $145 million after the weekend.