Today I Learned of A Little Known Error in The Phantom of The Opera Movie
I am a huge Phantom of The Opera fan, as you can tell, and I recently discovered this error in the movie.
Anyone familiar with the story knows one side of the Phantom's face is badly scarred, so he wears a mask to hide it. Well, I recently I discovered that at different points in the movie, the Phantom's mask is on different sides of his face.
Viewer's Left
[Image Source: http://decider.com/2014/11/13/gerard-butler-phantom-of-the-opera/]
Viewer's Right
[Image Source: youtube Just search the theme song, it puts the video here with the link]
As you can probably guess, this would mean that neither side of the Phantom's face is scarred, ruining the whole story. Luckily we have suspension of disbelief and great music to make this movie enjoyable.
Nice catch! I wonder if anybody lost a job over this. It's a pretty big mistake. I still like this one from star wars.
Is one of those a still from the music video?
Yes
I think I'v e shown my naiveté with that question. Though I'm familiar with the story, I am not familiar with that rendition, so I'm just catching up a little bit.
I find continuity errors in films interesting, and I had to do a little research on my own for this because it was tough to view the switching of the mask from one side of the character's face to the other as an error. I wanted to find out how it might have been used as an intentional storytelling device, or how it might have been a creative expression for a particular plot point.
During my initial search, I read something about a music video, which seemed separate from the 2004 film. So I thought maybe there was no need for continuity between two different presentations of parts of the story. Now, I've looked into it a little more and both scenes seem to be from the same movie.
I remember having a sense of ambiguity about the true nature of the phantom when I first experienced the Phantom of the Opera.
Is this in Christine's imagination?
Is the phantom an actual ghost?
Is there something about the opera house itself, and the phantom is a manifestation from a distorted reality caused by the place?
So, keeping in mind how the change in the mask's orientation could be an intentional representation for something in the story, rather than an error in making the movie, I read various synopses to jog my memory of the plot details, and was reminded that the scene in question occurs after the phantom entices Christine to a mirror where she sees his image.
Ah ha! Christine follows the phantom into his underground lair.
Or does she?
Either way, the scene is taking place as a mirror image.
So there you have it. The mask is on the same side of the phantom's face, but the viewer is seeing a reflection.
As an aside, there were other plot points I've been oblivious to until just now. Poor Raoul.
As for the mirror reflection, the Phantom is known to be a good magician as well as musician, and the film makers actually show Raoul find the mirror slid open, and try to go down the same path Christine had taken, but he is stopped by Madame Giry. Though I will note the arms holding torches which were on the wall when Christine and the Phantom walked to his layer, were not there when Raoul walked in. This shows the mask switch could have been imagined, however the whole story is based on a book which is based on a real event. If the book is based on an actual maniac who lived in the Paris Opera house and killed people, I'd imagine the Phantom would be real in the movie and play as well. The book created a plot by adding romance, however I don't think Gaston Leroux wrote it as a dream, I think he wrote it as a fictional base on a real event.
This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the first half of Nov 16. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $8.90 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Nov 16 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.