The Phantom of the Opera

This review is my third review for Old-Fashioned Charm's Period Drama Challenge! Straight away before reviewing, I'll mention this film's rating: PG-13 for brief violent images. The reason I've shown this first for once is because as a child I did find this film very scary, and I'd imagine others would too. There are also some questionable scenes, but only suggestive, nothing further.

This film was released in 2004 and is, of course, a film of the famous Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. It is set in 1870s Paris at the fictional 'Opera Populaire'. A lot of what the story is about is almost obvious from the title, although if you have no idea what it's about, don't worry, this isn't a ghost story. This film stars Gerard Butler as Erik (the Phantom), Emily Rossum as Christine Daaé, and Patrick Wilson as Raoul. It was directed by Joel Schumacher.

The Opera house, to me, had a very 'set'ish feel - some films use sets and you don't notice; this one didn't do that for me. However, this still helped me get the feeling of the Opera house, as it's about performance - which includes a set along with other things! The underground caverns and subterranean lake had good atmosphere.

The costumes in this film were designed by Alexandra Byrne. I can't really talk much about the costumes as it isn't a time period I'm particularly familiar with. It has made me want to look more at 1870s fashion, as I thought the costumes were lovely to look at, although some things didn't look quite right compared to others (not including the 'Masquerade' scene, I know that's meant to have a variety of styles). The Opera costumes were wonderful - Christine's white gown for the song 'Think of Me' was very pretty and simple, and was a huge contrast from the previous scene where La Carlotta was wearing a fairly extravagant gown, and Christine was among the ballet girls, wearing a costume which showed a lot of skin. A lot of costumes conveyed emotions well: when she is on the roof with Raoul during 'All I Ask Of You' she wears a red cape that matches the colour of the rose she is holding and then drops; when she visits her father's grave she wears black; and when she is in the opera 'Don Juan Triumphant' her costume is still simple but she wears a dark corset, and a red flower in her hair. Erik (the Phantom) wears his signature mask throughout (except when Christine takes the mask off of his face) and his clothes are quite dark, which I think matches his mysterious character. His 'Masquerade' costume is quite different from the musical.
The ballet dancer's clothes reminded me strongly of Degas' paintings of dancers. As someone who studies ballet, this was very interesting for me! The rest of the Opera costumes were beautiful, although some didn't have a very 1870s feel - like I said, I don't know much about the time period, but I'm certain they didn't wear clothes that revealed the midriff to such an extent, such as in the 'Hannibal' scene near the beginning of the film.

I did enjoy this film, however, if you know the musical you will probably find that this is not up to standard - Emily Rossum is not a popular Christine. Also as I mentioned, some of the content seems questionable, although it matches its rating perfectly well.

One final note - if anyone could recommend to me good blogs, websites or books about 1870s fashion, that would be extremely helpful - I've realised a lot of period dramas I've watched recently are set around then, and I have been told that some have inaccurate costume... however I can't tell for myself!

I hope you enjoyed this review, and I promise not to review another film adaptation of a musical with period costume!

Other Reviews: Les Misérables (2012); The Young Victoria (2009); Marie Antoinette (2006)

Les Misérables in the West End

After buying tickets months ago, Wednesday night was the night when I got to see Les Misérables at Queen's Theatre in London! For anyone unknowing (which cannot be a large number anymore), the London production of Les Misérables follows the original designs for costume, staging, orchestrations and set.
Queen's Theatre is a much smaller than I expected. Even though it has a lot of seats, in width and length the auditorium feels smaller than in my local theatre. However, the size of the stage and the grandeur of the theatre was overwhelming after such a long time of only ever seeing shows at the O2 Arena and my local theatre. The show was wonderful, as expected, yet all my specific expectations were well exceeded.

Seeing the costumes live was so exciting for me as someone interested in costume! This is of course the bit that is most relevant to my blog - I felt the need to add the rest to make the review feel more complete and to tell more of my experience! The designs and colour schemes worked together perfectly, as all costumers aim to achieve in their designs. Andreane Neofitou's original designs, obviously still being used, are complemented well by the lighting and match the scenery as needed. I don't know what comments to give on most costumes other than: they work! Fantine's first costume, an empire line dress, matched the blue factory apron and cap. Cosette's black dress does not match her book clothing, but works well in the musical, and I always think how well the line 'So dark, so dark and deep, the secrets that you keep' in 'In My Life' goes with the dress, almost making me think the costume may represent her life sheltered from her and Valjean's pasts. Valjean's costumes show his change from convict to respectable man. Javert's costumes may show the change in his status as a police officer.

Jean Valjean was played by Gerónimo Rauch. His voice reflected the acting, and like many members of the cast, he had such a stage presence that is one of the things I knew I would see in the West End, and makes the performance so much more enjoyable to watch.
Tam Mutu was in the role of Javert, and like Gerónimo Rauch, he had a fantastic singing voice and his acting was wonderful.
Celinde Schoenmaker has had the part of Fantine for a little over a month, and if her performance last night was anything like her other performances then I hope people will think of her as one of the best Fantines! Her singing was filled with emotion whilst still sounding great technically, and her acting did bring me to tears - she performed her death scene very well, showing Fantine's declined health perfectly.
Thénardier played by Cameron Blakely along with Vicky Entwistle as Madame Thénardier gave the comical touch we expect to see in the Thénardiers, keeping in character even when Madame Thénardier's dress at the wedding accidentally swished a fork into the orchestra pit. Cameron Blakely sung well, and Vicky Entwistle seemed to embrace the character of Madame Thénardier very well, and although at times it felt a little too much as her voice was slightly raspy and it she didn't quite reach a few notes, the performance was still hilarious and thoroughly enjoyable.
Samantha Dorsey played Cosette beautifully: her voice was sweet and she gave the character an energy I didn't expect to see, and she made Cosette sparkle.
Marius was played by Jamie Ward who played the character very well - like Celine Schoenmaker's Fantine, I hope fans notice Jamie Ward's Marius and add it to their list of favourites. In my opinion, somehow during 'A Heart Full of Love', he showed the nervousness I think Marius feels at the beginning of that point whilst maintaining a stage presence (I'm sure many actors and actresses can do this perfectly well but I will always wonder how someone can act nervous and still have their acting carry so largely).
Danielle Hope's Éponine was a nice surprise for me. I remember seeing her on the BBC show 'Over the Rainbow' and disliking her. However she removed the Disney-princess feel I think some people expect of Éponine, and added in the slightly crazy and obsessive side of Éponine usually only seen when reading the book. Her singing was fantastic and I obviously enjoyed her acting very much!
Christopher Jacobsen sung and acted well as Enjolras, giving the charisma needed in the role. The students all showed an admiration for his Enjolras, and they also performed wonderfully. The rest of the ensemble worked well, and all looked and sounded perfect. I got to see Isabelle Allen, the recent film's Young Cosette, as Young Cosette live! It was amazing to see how well she has adapted from stage, to screen, to stage. My 9 year old self was massively jealous of how talented she is. I regret to say I did not catch who was playing Gavroche in the performance I saw, however whoever it was, they were brilliant!

After the show finished, my friends and I decided we'd like to go to the stage door to get photos with our favourites from the cast - some must have slipped away before we managed to get there, but we did get photos with Gerónimo Rauch and Jamie Ward, however, which I was really pleased about! They were so pleasant about it - they seemed quite flattered! I was worried they'd think it a bit odd as not as many people go to the stage door afterwards as I previously thought (bleurgh, misconceptions!). I was thrilled that I got to do that and it certainly added to the theatre experience!

I feel very lucky in the next part of my Les Misérables obsession. Many of the current cast have their final performances on Saturday 15th June - two days after my birthday! So my mother and sister have agreed that we can make that my birthday 'celebration' this year (other than me meeting up with a few friends) and we booked tickets for it! Ah, now I'll get overexcited about that, bother.

Hopefully in my next blog post I'll be doing a continuation of Old-Fashioned Charm's Period Drama Challenge, which I have been unable to do any more reviews for due to GCSE Textiles coursework. My first deadline is in one week....

The Young Victoria

I'm going to keep my second review (already?!) short and snappy this time. "The Young Victoria" is my Costume Drama of the Month (January 2013) so it makes sense to review it for the Period Drama Challenge at some point this month.
For anyone who hasn't seen 'The Young Victoria", it isn't difficult to know what it's about: Queen Victoria when she was a young woman. Emily Blunt gives a lovely portrayal of Victoria, and Rupert Friend is a wonderful Prince Albert (may I be a fangirl here and say I think he makes Prince Albert adorable? And I'm not even a Rupert Friend fan at all). The music used matches very well. I don't know much about this time period or history involving Queen Victoria, but I have read that there are some historical inaccuracies, although a lot of people are quite pleased with the film.
In terms of costuming it isn't a time period I'm particularly familiar with however they looked beautiful. I have read that the clothes Victoria wears before she is queen make her look more childlike and when she becomes queen they look more sophisticated, as matches part of the storyline of the film - being told what to do like a child, then being able to do things herself as queen. The costumes for this film were designed by Sandy Powell.
Overall I enjoyed this film very much, and would recommend it to most people as it has something for everybody: a sweet romance, politics, history, and overall a wonderful film. On IMDb it is rated as PG "for some mild sensuality, a scene of violence, and brief incidental language and smoking".

Other Reviews: Les Misérables (2012); The Phantom of the Opera (2004); Marie Antoinette (2006)

Trip to the V&A Museum

I usually go to the V&A quite a few times a year, however I had not been for over 6 months until today! Last time I was there, they were re-doing the Fashion section, so when I visited today I went to see that - but not before I had looked around the Hollywood exhibition.

We had tickets pre-booked for the Hollywood exhibition and our allocated slot was 10.30am, and we didn't leave the exhibition until 12.30pm. My favourite section was, of course, the part with all the historical costumes - dresses from different interpretations of Elizabeth I, costumes from 'Shakespeare in Love', and dresses from 'Marie Antoinette' (2006), 'Marie Antoinette' (1938), 'Barry Lyndon', and 'Dangerous Liaisons', plus a couple more. There were 3 rooms, all with a load of wonderful costumes. My favourite to see were the iconic dresses of Marylin Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, and the dress Judy Garland wore in 'The Wizard of Oz'. The most interesting for me was the tutu from 'Black Swan' worn by Natalie Portman, as I do ballet, and to see the tutu construction and to think how it differed from a tutu used in professional ballet was very interesting.

There's so much I could say about this exhibition, however I am very tired and I need to do homework, so to save time I shall instead direct you to the V&A Hollywood Exhibition page. 

So, after looking around the exhibition, we visited the Fashion section of the museum, which had changed a lot since I had last visited! There were a lot more clothes which I liked and which were useful for me for research. Here are the photos:

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the poor photo quality on my side - as I have said before, all I have is a compact camera.... plus all the clothes were behind glass for obvious reasons! I hope you enjoyed this brief post, I'll hopefully be back to proper blogging soon..... I've just suddenly collapse from being overtired from exams last week. I have a week of school and then another week with exams in - plergh! 

Les Misérables: Beautiful.

I guess this counts as a period film so here goes my first review in the Period Reviews Challenge! Warning: may contain spoilers.

Les Misérables well exceeded my expectations. I knew it was going to be a gorgeous film, but the locations, sets, costumes, acting... everything was just amazing.
Anne Hathaway as Fantine was one of my favourite things in the film. I remember when everyone heard she was playing Fantine, there were some people who grumbled. Even I was a bit skeptical. However, she played it wonderfully, and I was sobbing as soon as she began to sing 'There was a time when men were kind...'. Fantine's death scene was so emotional. In the stage version, she says she can see Cosette, but in the film, she actually did. 
Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean was well cast, and well performed. He sang brilliantly, and his acting was believable. Russell Crowe's Javert was in tune but possibly a bit blandly acted, however I heard that one of the parts that made me cry the most was a moment suggested by Crowe himself to be added. If you've seen it, you know the moment I mean! Amanda Seyfried's Cosette was sweet and prettily sung, and her acting at the end was probably what made me start to cry rather loudly (it didn't matter, I wasn't the only one by then). Marius, played by Eddie Redmayne, was acted VERY well by Eddie Redmayne, who portrayed Marius as a faithful rebel, whilst also being completely love-struck by Cosette, and he showed his obliviousness to Éponine's feelings very realistically. Aaron Tveit was a fantastic Enjolras. In my opinion, he captured Enjolras' revolutionary, rebellious spirit near to perfectly, and his singing was very, very good. Samantha Bark's feature film debut was perfection. She has always been my favourite Éponine (25th Anniversary Concert) however she adapted to film acting smoothly and her singing was full of raw emotion. Colm Wilkinson, the Original London Cast Jean Valjean, played the Bishop of Digne, and of course his singing was top-notch. Isabelle Allen was an adorable Young Cosette, her acting was wonderful and her singing was a delight to listen to. She has of course also been in the part on the West End, but like Sam Barks, made the transition to film smoothly. Daniel Huttlestone's Gavroche was funny at the right parts, and his death was well done. His singing was brilliant.
The set was lovely to look at. Having seen the behind-the-scenes featurettes on Youtube, I knew that a lot of it was just a set, but I completely forgot whilst watching the film. The streets of Paris came alive on screen, at least for me they did. The locations chosen for the rest of the filming were beautiful and fitting. The docks at the beginning were dramatic and added to he music's effect. 
The film was put together brilliantly. The dates were shown every time there was a time skip. The editing really added to it - a lot of solos were filmed for most of the song looking at the actor's/actress' face. The barricade shots were wonderful - the barricade scenes in general were moving, and the end of the barricade section of the film in general was heartbreaking.

Now onto the costumes! Oh man, the costumes. There was a featurette on the costumes but I'm going to give my opinions anyway. 
Fantine's pink dress stood out from the rest of the factory workers once they'd taken their blue aprons and caps off. The prostitutes scenes showed her stripped down to her undergarments, and she looked vulnerable. The change from white undergarments to red showed, for me, her transition from someone who has life problems but had been getting by, into someone who was ruined. This transition happened after 'Dreamed a Dream' - no coincidence there, then! When in the hospital she was back in a plain white dress, showing that she would be at peace soon, and when her spirit returned at the end, when Valjean was dying, she was still in this plain white dress, but looked happy, as if she had been at peace for a long time.

Valjean's convict clothes at the beginning were rough and harsh looking, and changing into the smart early 19th century clothing was such a transition that my friend didn't realise who he was until the same time Javert thought he was like Valjean... what can I say? Then in the end scene, his blanket looked cosy, but he looked very uncomfortable at the same time, making it even sadder to watch.


Javert's police uniform changed with his rank and time period, keeping to a colour palette of blues and black. What he wore when spying looked a tad modern to me, however I know very little about fashions of those times - all I can say is that he also looked like a very suspicious character in those clothes and I certainly wouldn't have trusted him to 'spy' for my side of the Barricade! I was unsure of what his red medal was for as I am a tad unacquainted with that sort of thing, however his placing it on Gavroche's lifeless body sent me into a crying frenzy - was that him honouring the little urchin with his own medal of what I assume is honour, and the first sign of his breaking down? I am unsure but it struck me nonetheless.

Éponine's costumes showed her harsh life very well. Her first costume showed her as being rough but her thin shawl was soaked threw as it rained during "On My Own", emphasising her fragile emotions. You then saw her binding herself up to wear boy's clothes and join the barricade, which I think was very effective, as in the musical she wears the same blouse under her coat with trousers and her hair stuffed into a hat - the blouse always ruins it for me! She was wearing full male clothing and I think that showed how far she was willing to go to join Marius at the barricade.



The costumes designed for Cosette were wonderful. The large 1830s dress and bonnet at the beginning showed her social status - quite well off, showing the change in positions between Éponine and Cosette even more clearly. Her white nightgown and dressing gown were pure and pretty, and made the romanticism of "In my Life/A Heart Full of Love" into the innocent and sweet love that the scene displays. The rest of her dresses were very pretty, and I loved the wedding gown.
Marius and Enjolras had lovely looking costumes. The costume featurette says that the blue of Eddie Redmayne's trousers matches his eyes. The red jacket worn by Enjolras matched the red flag and emphasised that he was the main rebel in the uprising. The students' cockades added to the revolutionary sense (I actually made one and pinned it onto my jacket to wear to cinema!).


The Thénardier's costumes were extravagant and added to the comedy. They were always changing what they were wearing to match the situations, but never blended with the crowds. I thought this worked VERY well. 
The poor and Gavroche's clothes looked just right to me. They seemed to fit in with the time period and the situations. The extras blended into the scenes well with their costumes, and their costumes added to the grimey looking streets of Paris really made the sense of how poor these people were more realistic to me.

I'm sure there are plenty more things I could talk about - other actors, different settings, situations, costumes - but I simply cannot form my thoughts into written words, there are so many whirling around my head! But I can say that Les Misérables was the best film I have seen for a long time, and even though I had to wait until today to see it (damn being British!) it was well worth the wait. The amount I cried expressed just how happy I was to watch it, I think!

Other Reviews: The Young Victoria (2009); The Phantom of the Opera (2004); Marie Antoinette (2006)