Another installment in the Coolidge Corner Theatre’s “Sounds of Silents” series that brought us Flesh and the Devil last summer, this screening of The Phantom of the Opera featured live accompaniment provided by pianist Marty Marks, with appropriately operatic vocals by Elisabeth Hon Hunt. Marks introduced the film by noting its twisted romantic qualities and explaining that his own scoring was meant to highlight this aspect of the film.
It worked a treat; gorgeous scenes of the Phantom carrying his beloved Christine off on a black horse resonated with both horror and gothic romance. Lon Chaney’s unforgettably bizarre visage, and his character’s violent impulses, make him a grotesque parody of a leading man, but the film has stuck with us over eighty years not simply because it chills us, but because so many of us detect just as much wounded humanity in the film’s purported monster as we do in its supposed heroes. The Phantom is chased by a horde and finally swallowed up by black waters at the film’s conclusion, but the truth is that he can’t be spirited away so easily.
by Victoria Large | Source: Projected DVD
28 Oct 2008 8:38 AM | Submit Comment
