It was a movie. I don’t hold it to anywhere near the same standards as a play. And I thought the Phantom was quite attractive. I also agreed that it was just a few scars in the movie, really not disgusting at all.
The Phantom’s scars got progressively less repulsive as the last scenes went on. They’re pretty ugly when she first takes off his mask (I watched it it slow motion)–bright red, blistery, and pocked. In the next cut, it’s about half as bad. By the time that he’s in his dungeon with Raoul and Christine, it’s nearly disappeared. Had they kept the original scarring, his life-story would have been more understandable.
Out of curiousity, does the book ever explain the originis of his disformity?
Erik (the Phantom) was born disfigured. in the book it’s horribly extensive – pretty much a hole for a nose, IIRC, and since it’s been a while since i read the book, i can’t recall the rest of the particulars. i think the Lon Chaney version did a closer take on his supposed looks. “corpse-like” might be a good summation.
that was part of his whole schtick. the line “My mother’s first gift to me was a mask.” is pretty much a direct lift from the book.
It’s been a while since I’ve read the book, but wasn’t he deformed in a fire or something?
Don’t think so. Born that way, then he joins a travelling circus and all that, as a freak.
In the book, then, his mask covers his entire face?
Yep, full-face mask. A black mask, not white.
In the 1943 movie, he gets acid splashed on his face. But in the book he was born that way.