Question: Perhaps an opera aficionado could help me with this one. During Il Muto, we see the story of a count and countess. But when we are taken to the ballet from act three, the ballet doesn't seem to go along with the opera. Is this common in opera and why, or was it a director's decision?
Question: If Minnie Driver sang "Learn to be Lovely" and came out with an album this year, why don't they use her singing voice in the movie?
Answer: Because her voice is ill-equipped for the vocal demands of Carlotta's role.
Question: I am curious what that round thing is during the Think of Me sequence. When the camera goes down through the grate to get to the phantom below the stage, It is on the floor right next to the grate. It looks like an ash tray but I am not sure.
Answer: The large gold round object is definately an ashtray, as you can see the cigarettes in it. The smaller black round object looks to me like an inkwell.
Question: When Christine rips off the Phantom's mask in "The Point of No Return" why does his hair become blonde? It was still black when she took his mask off the first time.
Answer: He wears a black wig along with his mask, to cover the missing hair on the side of his head. The first time she only removed the mask, while in the performance she removed both.
Question: How old is Raoul? In the film, they mention that he and Christine were childhood friends, but at the auction in the beginning he looks the same age as Madame Giry who is old enough to be Christine's mother.
Answer: He is roughly the same age as Christine, who is 17 in the movie. Raoul appears to be in his early twenties. The woman called "Madame Giry" in the opening scene is Meg Giry, who was a few years younger than the others.
Question: What is the point of Raoul keeping his "hand at the level of his eyes" as he descends the stairwell to face the phantom?
Chosen answer: It keeps him from being caught and strangled by the phantom's 'magical lasso'. See Buquet's explanation in the scene with the ballet chorus girls to see him show how it works.
Question: When Christine wakes up from her faint/sleep and starts singing "I Remember", she walks over to where the Phantom is sitting and is gently touching his face as he enjoys the feeling of intimacy. Soon after that though, she suddenly takes off his mask (to his horror). Did she walk over to him planning to do that all along, pretending to be interested in getting closer to him just so she could see what was under the mask? She doesn't seem to me like such a premeditated type, but it also doesn't seem credible that she was interested in getting closer to him and decided that suddenly unmasking him was a way to get even closer to him.
Answer: She was planning to. She sang "who was that shape in the shadows, whose is the face in the mask"
Question: When Christine is taken into the Phantom's lair for the second time - after the chandelier crash - and Raoul comes to save her, they all sing an overlapping reprise of The Point of No Return. The Phantom sings The Point of No Return, Christine sings Angel of Music, but what does Raoul sing? Is it a new tune or a particular song from the movie?
Answer: He sings the tune from All I Ask of You.
Question: A thought occurred to me and my mum after we had seen the film at the cinema. Mme. Giry and the Phantom are friends, and probably grew up seeing a lot of each other, and there is never any mention of Meg's father of Mme. Giry's husband. Is it possible the Phantom could be Meg's father?
Answer: This is very common to think among the questions I have heard. In the 2004 film during "Down once more/Track down this murderer" the Phantom says: "That fate which condemns me to wallow in blood, has also declined me the joys of the flesh." He is a virgin. Also, in the original story, the two were not friends at all. Giry did his bidding because he led her to believe, through a note given to her, that he could make Meg some form of royalty or the next big thing. Madame Giry and Meg were both actually very intolerable beings, Meg constantly treating Christine like dirt and being her biggest bully (even more than Carlotta) It is likely the phantom never even lifted a finger to try and assist Meg because of that.
Question: I've got a question about "The Point of no Return" scene. Is Christine just cleverly acting her role or does she mean what she is singing - "these shameless words"? Raoul is suspecting the second and the Phantom is, to some extent deceived, but what about Christine? The question is presumably open to interpretations, but it would be nice to know your opinion.
Chosen answer: I believe that to some extent, Christine truly believes what she is saying to the Phantom. After all, in the sequel "Love Never Dies," it is revealed that she did have an affair and a child with the Phantom. However, I think she also realizes what her life would be like with the Phantom, and that isn't necessarily what she wants, so she chooses to be with Raoul.
Question: When Christine is in the graveyard, why does the Phantom try to lure her into what I think is her father's grave? What would he have done to her?
Answer: The Phantom tries to lure Christine to the grave because it is the first time in three months that she has been away from Raoul long enough. It's basically his only opportunity to lure her back to his lair in order to seduce her once more.
Question: I know the story about how Andrew Lloyd Webber had planned to adapt his original musical to film with Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford in their original roles, but then Webber and Brightman divorced and things never panned out. But now after all these years, why didn't Joel Shumacher contact Sarah Brightman and/or Michael Crawford to do the film? It seems they were meant to play the leads. If I do recall, Michael Crawford had been contacted but declined. Can somebody shed some light?
Question: Madame Giry has history with the Phantom but she still seems to be frightened by him and wont let Meg go to his lair. Would the Phantom actually harm either of them?
Chosen answer: Mme Giry is afraid of him because while she is his friend and his willing means of communication with the outside world, she knows full well of what he's capable. But unless she betrayed him, it's unlikely he'd harm her as she's the only friend he's ever known. And he would have no more reason to hurt Meg than he would anyone else: if she doesn't get in the way of his plans, she's safe. If her mother prevents her from going to the lair, it only because of the violence that will take place there momentarily.
Answer: I have always thought it was because he has set many automatic traps along the passageway, which only he knows fully how to avoid. The "hand at the level of your eyes" warning was to prevent automated nooses from capturing you.
Question: When the phantom disappears at the end why does he leave his mask behind? I mean does he get a new one or does he now live without it?
Answer: The abandoned mask is a symbol of the Phantom's continuing presence, despite his apparent physical absence. He has already been publicly unmasked, both physically and, to an extent, psychologically. He has conceded that he has lost Christine to Raoul whom he has freed. He has abandoned his lair. All that was his facade, he has either given up or has been taken from him. The mask is the final symbolic gesture of that facade being relinquished, leaving behind further mystery regarding his whereabouts. Does he now live without it? I guess that's left unclear. However, I don't think it's beyond reason to assume he has, or has created more than one copy of the mask - if for no other reason than anything in pure white must be difficult to keep clean, what with the dust all over the opera house, the dirt of the streets, the humidity of his cavern, and the occasional splatter of blood to contend with.
Question: What does the Phantom mean when he refers to Raoul as a "slave of fashion" (in the scene before the "Phantom of the Opera" song)?
Answer: What we see of Il Muto is the very beginning of Act 1. The ballet they switch to is somewhere in Act 3, so a lot of stuff happened in between that we don't know about, so the story might have taken us to a forest at some point, similar to "A Midsummer Night's Dream."