‘Phantom of the Paradise’ at 50: Brian De Palma’s rock musical is ready for an encore
Brian De Palma is known for excess. In films like Carrie, Body Double, and Scarface, he boldly pushed boundaries on gore and sex, carving out a unique, hyper-stylised niche. Of all De Palma’s works, though, none rival the surreal, visually striking spectacle of his 1974 effort Phantom of the Paradise. Imagine if Spinal Tap had ventured into horror and adapted Goethe’s Faust—that’s Phantom of the Paradise in a nutshell. With its 50th anniversary upon us, it’s high time this cult classic returns to the spotlight.
De Palma has always prided himself in being on the fringes of the film industry. He was part of the New Hollywood movement in the 1970s that saw budding filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas employing techniques of previous auteurs to create their own styles of cinema, but he has always made sure to make movies that are just a little bit too intense for everyone to get behind. Some criticise his work for being lurid, exploitative, and lacking in substance. Others, like Quentin Tarantino, hail him as one of the great visionary auteurs of his generation.
It’s hard to figure out where Phantom of the Paradise would sit in this debate. It wasn’t a success when it was released and remains one of his lesser-known films. It’s so unhinged and over-the-top that it’s hard to be offended by it, and although it’s bursting with colour, cultural references, and scenery-chewing performances, it’s hard to call it a masterpiece. In short, it is exactly the sort of film that becomes a cult classic.
The plot is straightforward, at least from a distance. A young singer-songwriter, played by William Finley, agrees to let a famous record producer named Swan (Paul Williams) produce his magnum opus, only to have the mogul steal his work and almost kill him with a record press. To exact revenge, the musician dons a cape and mask to hide his disfigurement and begins haunting the theatre where the musical is being rehearsed. In the process, he takes a shine to one of its young stars (Jessica Williams).
The references to Faust selling his soul to the devil and the Phantom of the Opera are clear in the plot, but the film is so psychedelic in its rendering and so focused on the musical set-pieces that it’s easy to lose the thread of these literary references and only notice the allusions to Alice Cooper, the on-stage electrocution of Les Harvey, and the callback to Alfred Hitchcock’s shower scene that involves a toilet plunger instead of a knife.
From a purely visual standpoint, Phantom of the Paradise may be De Palma’s greatest accomplishment. He mixes his usual split screens with blood-red walls, chaotic rehearsals, moving stage sets, and sheet music superimposed over the brooding Phantom as he composes for his life in his backstage dungeon, his lips black, his mask silver.
This may have been a production with a budget barely over $1 million, but its credits feature cinema royalty. Jack Fisk, who would go on to be the production designer for Mulholland Drive, There Will Be Blood, The Revenant, and Killers of the Flower Moon (to name a few), was doing his best work, while Sissy Spacek, who went on to marry Fisk and star in De Palma’s Carrie, was credited as the movie’s set dresser. Then, there’s Jessica Williams. In her first screen role, she makes it clear with her doe-eyed innocence and unexpectedly thunderous singing voice why Dario Argento should cast her as the lead in his 1977 horror classic Suspiria.
When the film was released, critics were lukewarm, praising its music and visuals but lambasting its overindulgences. Gene Siskel even called it “childish”. The music was its saving grace, however, netting Williams, who had written songs for Three Dog Night and The Carpenters, an Oscar nomination.
There is no denying that Phantom of the Paradise is a bit of a mess. It’s like a floor strewn with Christmas decorations – tangled, sparkly, and completely overwhelming if you’re going to try to sort through it all. But if you sit there in the chaos and let yourself be dazzled by it all, you will probably want to watch it again. And again. And again.
In its afterlife, Phantom of the Paradise has become not only a cult classic but also an influential slice of culture. It’s impossible to see The Phantom’s costume without thinking of the music duo Daft Punk. Its combination of cyberpunk technology (an electronically-enhanced contraption to allow his damaged voice to be audible) and birdlike mask directly influenced the French electronic duo, who reportedly watched the film more than 20 times as teenagers. And I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that De Palma’s fellow New Hollywood auteur George Lucas straight up stole The Phantom’s entire costume when he created Darth Vader three years later. The heavy mask covering the disfigured face. The black cape. The voice is so damaged it needs electronic amplification. It’s all there, your honour, and we are all witnesses.
50 years after its release, Phantom of the Paradise is still an underground cult classic. There probably aren’t many people begging for a crossover between This is Spinal Tap, Darth Vader, and Goethe, but sometimes, the best movies are the ones that give you something you never knew you needed. For anyone who loves cinematic swings and pure stylistic decadence, this is a gem that should not be missed.
