FILM / Special To Me: Phantom of the Paradise Fan Essay / Hannah Cohen
Image © 20th Century Fox
It’s no secret that I absolutely adore rock operas. My love for this often underappreciated genre originates from my nauseatingly angsty teenagehood; me stealing away my dad’s copies of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and The Who’s Quadrophenia and Tommy and obsessively listening to it on my gray portable Sony CD player. I’ve even written about my relationship with rock operas, about perpetually identifying with that overwhelming loneliness and outsider persona. However, one cult classic film managed to escape my hormonal grasp for years, until I found it on YouTube of all places.
I had never heard of Phantom of the Paradise until a few years ago, when I watched a Lindsay Ellis video essay about the many movie adaptations of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel Phantom of the Opera, in which she listed Brian De Palma’s 1974 film Phantom of the Paradise as a rock opera adaptation of the original Phantom novel. Out of curiosity, I decided to watch the film. And, well, it basically became my whole personality for weeks on end and the entire soundtrack topped my 2019 Spotify Wrapped. Phantom of the Paradise rewired me. Electrified me. This movie is, in the words of Jessica Harper’s character Phoenix, “special to me.”
Phantom of the Paradise has all the De Palma hallmarks that define his directorial oeuvre: timed split-screens, long tracking shots, and uneasy thousand-yard stares that linger on the actor's faces. Filmed before his breakout movie Carrie, Paradise isn’t solely an adaptation of the Phantom of the Opera story, but also combines elements from Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray and Christopher Marlowe’s Faust. All three texts, in some ways, deal with trading one’s soul or physicality for their earthly desires. And man, does this movie deliver on all three source materials and more, with additional pop culture references ranging from Swan Lake to Psycho.
Phantom of the Paradise essentially follows most of the story beats from Phantom of the Opera. The movie opens with a song from a 1950s-style boy group singing about…well, a singer who kills himself to pay for his sister’s surgery. Symbolism off the bat. Anyway, we get to Winslow Leach, played by a very earnest and wonderful William Finley, a lanky guy with glasses who reminds me of at least one guy from my grad school MFA workshop. He’s determined to play his life’s work, a cantata centered around Faust, in front of the mysterious music producer Swan. You see, Swan is trying to open his new concert hall, The Paradise, and he needs a new sound. Swan, aka the brilliant Paul Williams, deceives Winslow and steals his music. Through some unfortunate shenanigans, Swan gets Winslow thrown in jail. However, the metal-toothed Winslow breaks out and tries to steal back his record from Swan’s music record building. But in a cruel twist of accidental fate, Winslow’s face and vocal cords get smashed by the record press machine and he narrowly escapes police capture. Thus, we see the origin of this version’s Phantom.
Oh right, before Winslow gets yeeted into jail, he briefly meets and immediately falls for Phoenix, played by Jessica Harper of the iconic horror film Suspiria. Phoenix is the Christine Daaé/Sibyl Vane/Margarete of the movie. While her character is not incredibly deep, her powerhouse vocals and cool attitude set her apart from the other girlies and groupies auditioning for this new song that Swan is producing for The Paradise. While it’s debatable if Winslow truly loved Phoenix outside of her singing voice and physical beauty, I do think he was capable of pure affection compared to Swan manipulating her. If the movie had dedicated at least ten more minutes worth of interaction between the two prior to Winslow’s transformation as the Phantom, I would have considered this a better love story than say, Twilight.
Back to the movie. The Phantom sneaks into The Paradise, steals a black costume and bird-like helmet (side note: the movie’s use of bird symbolism is through the roof here: Leach, Swan, Phoenix), and causes some general fuckery for everyone involved just like the OG Phantom would. This leads up to my all-time favorite movie scene, which is the bomb/Beach Bums timing scene. The metronome beat of the bomb ticking away in the trunk of the car while industry plants Juicy Fruits from the beginning of the movie (now the Beach Boys rip off Beach Bums) sing a literally “upholstered” Faust cantata that is equally tense and satisfying to watch. The bomb detonates, nearly killing everyone on the music set. Phantom then confronts Swan, and Swan recognizes him as that milquetoast songwriter whose music he stole. Being the Mephistopheles/Dorian Gray character he is, Swan strikes up a signed-in-blood contract with Phantom to produce Faust his way. Phantom gets an upgraded studio and regains some singing talent through an electronic voice box a la Daft Punk. Remembering Phoenix and how beautifully she sang his work, Phantom rewrites his composition for her.
But Swan, being the conniving little guy he is, switches out Phoenix for Beef, a lisping glam rock prima donna who is the blenderized result of Slade, David Bowie, and Carlotta from the original Phantom of the Opera novel. He gets one song but dies on stage due to Phantom’s hijinks. Phoenix finishes his set and wow, she’s a sensation! Everybody loves her! Phantom tries to warn her away from Swan and attempts to reveal his true identity to her, but she doesn’t believe him. Swan seduces Phoenix much to Phantom’s dismay, with the camera awkwardly lingering on Swan and Phoenix making out while Phantom creepily watches. Phantom tries to kill himself but can’t since he and Swan are bloodbound to the same devilish contract. We then watch as Phoenix is immediately catapulted into sudden stardom, her intense fandom rivaling K-pop stans and Swifties.
In what wouldn’t be out of place in our 21st century social media or reality tv, Swan comes up with the devious plan to simultaneously marry and assassinate Phoenix on live television (take that, Scandoval!) Phantom finds out, undoes Swan’s own contract with the Devil, and saves the day by stopping Phoenix’s assassin. He then stabs the now-decaying Swan with the mask he was wearing. This means the Phantom also dies due to his old self-inflicted wound reopening. The movie then ends with a shocked Phoenix realizing that the Phantom was indeed Winslow Leach, that shy singer-songwriter she met all that time ago. Credits roll to another Paul Williams song, no notes, 11/10 would recommend.
I cannot stress this enough: I fucking love this movie. I love the soundtrack. I watch it several times a year now. I need to physically own this movie ASAP (which will probably happen by the time this essay is published). This film truly changed how I consume art.
It’s difficult to say which character I relate to the most. Each viewing gives me a new interpretation of my own self and how I understand the main players. Winslow Leach, pre-Phantom, resonates with me as someone who once pursued a more “elite” career in the arts. The Swan in me wants to sell out to the base denominator for financial security and sweet, sweet clout. The Phantom in me is a cynical beast working with and against the very established institutions benefiting from my (and others) harm. There are days where I’m fussy and dramatic like the sparkle-drenched, masculinity-bending diva Beef. And sometimes I find myself identifying with Phoenix, especially at the end of the movie when she’s left standing in the fan-crazed calamity of media mayhem. Every character is a different facet of our creative lives, inhabiting a different era or mood.
Phantom of the Paradise may be a flawed zany horror-comedy-musical, but I see it as a story about my personal relationship to art. Every time I watch this film, I ask myself how far will I go to sell out for commercial success and fame? Industry predators like Swan are very much real (minus the signed-in-blood Devil contract), and it’s the Swans of the art world who control which ingénue or tortured genius gets capital while the rest chase for fleeting scraps of clout.
In the almost fifty years since the film’s initial release, there are still monsters and sellouts in the creative sphere. Every day another press, another writer, another art institution is revealed to be problematic or shitty. Do we want personal acceptance from these establishments and individuals or fight against it for art’s sake? To quote the song Paul Williams sings at the end of the movie, “[n]othing matters anyway, and that’s the hell of it.”
Hannah Cohen received her MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Hannah is the author of two poetry chapbooks: YEAR OF THE SCAPEGOAT (2022) and BAD ANATOMY (2018). Hannah is one of the founding editors of the online literary journal Cotton Xenomorph. Publications include Michigan Quarterly Review, Booth, Hey Alma, Pidgeonholes, Qu Lit Mag, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cherry Tree, Drunk Monkeys, and others. She was a Best of the Net 2018 finalist and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She is working on a novel and an essay collection. Hannah lives in Virginia with her partner and their three cats.