Phantom of the Opera Opening Scene Analysis

'The Phantom of the Opera' was one of the first great silent movies at the beginning of the 20th Century, and so, needless to say, it relies more on images than dialogue. It is also in black and white, so colour could not be changed either, and even the cameras weren't high-quality so image quality couldn't be a factor. The standard fps was lower, resulting in the images moving slightly faster then normal, and lighting and editing were not nearly as advanced as today. With this in mind 'Phantom of the Opera' must be analysed according to the limitations of the time, and what it did with what it had.

The opening two minutes (starting at 00:01:00) is a long shot of the inside of an underground crypt, with arches and old architecture. A man with a lantern walks in and stands around for a bit, before ducking behind a pillar as athe shadow of a man walks past. Then the man walks back into shot and stands around for a bit with horror chords blasting before exiting. The shadow of the man follows him.

Despite being a gothic romance film, it follows no romance conventions whatsoever, instead it seems to follow the conventions of a horror film, with gothic architecture and mysterious shadows. Perhaps it does not want to set up romance as a happy, wonderful thing, but rather as a dark mysterious venture into the unknown. The lead male is shown as a man who is hiding underneath an opera house in torture chamber, hiding from people coming downstairs - hardly the popular, sporty jock that is shown in 'High School Musical'. The opening also gives the idea of forbidden love, as the man is hiding and secretive, and is perhaps unsuitable for the lead woman who we have not met yet

The key to this opening is in the enigmas that it brings up. It drags the audience in through asking them questions about who the man is, why he is hiding, and why there are horror chords whenever he walks into the centre of the shot. This encourages the audience to carry on watching as they don't know how this is going to link to the romance genre, and they want to know all about this man and his past.

The lighting is very unlike any film lighting that would be used nowadays. Nowadays the lighting would be intricately set up, with three point lighting and many filters, although in this opening, the lighting is very minimalistic, and is only lit from the lights that are availible to the character, in this case - a lantern. Although this would have been the standard thing to do at the time, it doesn't work at all. We can't see the character clearly, or anything else on screen, and this is not a stylistic choice, but it's just bad lighting...sometimes you can just tell the difference. Admittedly this would have been because the cinematographer would not have been able to play back the footage afterwards and check it, nor would he have been able to see properly what was going to come out of it.