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I finally got to finish the 4 hour Phantom of the Opera Miniseries that I ordered on Amazon. This came out on TV in the 90s and I remember watching it when I was young, I remember bits and pieces of it-- except I remember them like how a ten year old remembers things, because I was 10 when I watched it. Yes, I was very young but I still remember feeling sadness at the end, sadness and perhaps a bit of wonderment.
The Phantom of the Opera miniseries doesn't follow the musical, it follows the book by Gaston LeRoux. There are some changes here and there, instead of the Persian in the book, we get Erik's mentor/father, Carriere. To be honest, I am not a fan of the play-- I am more of a fan of the book-- and perhaps I am a fan of the book because of my exposure to the TV miniseries which played very true to it. There are differences however I think that the book/miniseries plays up Erik's/Phantom's humanity a little better whereas the musical Erik is way more stalker then I am really confortable with.
Being a ten year old and watching this show, I had a ten year olds limited experience. I knew that things were happy, and I knew that they were sad. Erik's death at the end was sad, there was nothing in terms of happiness. I was probably a puddle because of that. But being a 38 year old, I am better equipped to sense out the nuances of emotions, to figure out that there -was- happiness in the end. There are things that I didn't understand back then that I was better served to understand now; that Christina gazing upon the face of the Phantom at the very end was happiness, it was the thing that saved Erik's soul and it was perhaps better then any romantic love that he could of asked for. 10 year old me wouldn't of been able to comprehend that at all, to a ten year old-- things are black and white; there are no shades of grey.
This is where everyone goes on about how much of a stalker the Phantom of the Opera was; and I think that he wasn't a stalker so much as he was very ill equipped to deal with his emotions. Think of it this way, you grow from interacting with people-- the first things that we as people learn in life is socialization. But due to the fact that Erik had such a deformity and thus was hidden away, he did not learn those lessons-- he had a father figure yes and he had the cherished memory of his mother but he didn't know how to deal with people, with girls, with anything really and so he acted in a manner that was childish-- without adequate social experience, I'm a afraid THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET.
With the advent of Christine, he was dipping his toes into the realm of socialization, so he was a child in that sense, he didn’t know the proper way to handle his emotions—he idealized her much like a child idealizes their parents, and when she showed her humanity, he couldn’t handle it and he raged against it. I think that made them both realize exactly where he was in life, it made Christine feel shitty and it made him feel gauche and childish, in fact after that outburst and the subsequent ‘how to deal with it’ he fell into a vast depression that pretty much threatened to take his life away, I mean—when not given the proper tools to cope, I can imagine it all seems overwhelming to the point of debilitating.
I am sure that you are all thinking “Way to explain away stalker toxic behavior”-- but seriously, how can you know that it was toxic behavior and recognize it if YOU WERE NEVER TAUGHT OTHERWISE. Even I understand that he did not respond in a healthy way to Christine’s reaction to his face but I’m not going to expect him to react any other way. You can be the most well-read and brilliant person, but without the proper training, you can be a shit socializer.
These are things that my 10 year old self wouldn’t of understood, but the 38 year old in me realizes that this is a brilliant movie and perhaps very worthy of my sobbing at the end of it.
I also do need a Charles Dance as Phantom icon. His performance was quite simply beautiful.
The Phantom of the Opera miniseries doesn't follow the musical, it follows the book by Gaston LeRoux. There are some changes here and there, instead of the Persian in the book, we get Erik's mentor/father, Carriere. To be honest, I am not a fan of the play-- I am more of a fan of the book-- and perhaps I am a fan of the book because of my exposure to the TV miniseries which played very true to it. There are differences however I think that the book/miniseries plays up Erik's/Phantom's humanity a little better whereas the musical Erik is way more stalker then I am really confortable with.
Being a ten year old and watching this show, I had a ten year olds limited experience. I knew that things were happy, and I knew that they were sad. Erik's death at the end was sad, there was nothing in terms of happiness. I was probably a puddle because of that. But being a 38 year old, I am better equipped to sense out the nuances of emotions, to figure out that there -was- happiness in the end. There are things that I didn't understand back then that I was better served to understand now; that Christina gazing upon the face of the Phantom at the very end was happiness, it was the thing that saved Erik's soul and it was perhaps better then any romantic love that he could of asked for. 10 year old me wouldn't of been able to comprehend that at all, to a ten year old-- things are black and white; there are no shades of grey.
This is where everyone goes on about how much of a stalker the Phantom of the Opera was; and I think that he wasn't a stalker so much as he was very ill equipped to deal with his emotions. Think of it this way, you grow from interacting with people-- the first things that we as people learn in life is socialization. But due to the fact that Erik had such a deformity and thus was hidden away, he did not learn those lessons-- he had a father figure yes and he had the cherished memory of his mother but he didn't know how to deal with people, with girls, with anything really and so he acted in a manner that was childish-- without adequate social experience, I'm a afraid THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET.
With the advent of Christine, he was dipping his toes into the realm of socialization, so he was a child in that sense, he didn’t know the proper way to handle his emotions—he idealized her much like a child idealizes their parents, and when she showed her humanity, he couldn’t handle it and he raged against it. I think that made them both realize exactly where he was in life, it made Christine feel shitty and it made him feel gauche and childish, in fact after that outburst and the subsequent ‘how to deal with it’ he fell into a vast depression that pretty much threatened to take his life away, I mean—when not given the proper tools to cope, I can imagine it all seems overwhelming to the point of debilitating.
I am sure that you are all thinking “Way to explain away stalker toxic behavior”-- but seriously, how can you know that it was toxic behavior and recognize it if YOU WERE NEVER TAUGHT OTHERWISE. Even I understand that he did not respond in a healthy way to Christine’s reaction to his face but I’m not going to expect him to react any other way. You can be the most well-read and brilliant person, but without the proper training, you can be a shit socializer.
These are things that my 10 year old self wouldn’t of understood, but the 38 year old in me realizes that this is a brilliant movie and perhaps very worthy of my sobbing at the end of it.
I also do need a Charles Dance as Phantom icon. His performance was quite simply beautiful.