I suggested in the last blog entry that watching the original "Phantom of the Opera" was worth a blog unto itself. I've decided to make good on that suggestion.
First off, allow me to introduce you to Lon Chaney, aka "The Phantom of the Opera," aka the man of a 1,000 faces. He's the creepy-as-a-dark-staircase-in-an-abandoned-house guy who probably gave you a jolt upon returning to "subtle musings." But, more than that, he is also one of the chief characters in the early history of Hollywood and American movies. As the world (and especially America) discovered the magic of moving pictures, Lon Chaney gave them visions of horror and tragedy like they could never imagine. He presented a vast array of emotional depth, psychological torture and physical brutality. He brought the great threads of any good story to life: conflict, love, pain, desire, resolution, triumph and defeat. And, most importantly, he did all of this without once speaking an audible word.
The power Lon Chaney had in eliciting strong internal reactions from me was undeniably. The opening credits of the movie included a ghostly shadow that moved from side to side – eerily foreshadowing the Phantom’s presence in and over the whole movie. And as the movie continued, I began to sense and feel how truly revolutionary and impressive this new media would have been in the early 20th Century.
It’s easy to forget how powerful images are, especially considering how entirely saturated we are by them in the 21st Century. From my youngest years, I’ve been bombarded by images on television, at the movies, on billboards. My goodness, I just think of the number and the pace of imagery my mind sees as I flip through channels at work or at home.
Images today are so prevalent that they begin to lose their poignancy or clarity. They also become fragmentary. You can see what I’m talking about in the way movies and television are shot these days. Take the episode of LOST tonight, which included a number of “sliced” flashbacks from a character’s mind. These images were all powerful and richly packed full of detail, but the viewer never had long to focus on a single one. It’s as though the goal is to give you a very basic thing, which should be entirely self-explanatory (an image), and distort it, fragment it, and take it out of sequence so that it loses all of its clarity or self-disclosure. This allows for a great deal of mystery, drama and speculation. However, it also, I feel, does something potentially very hazardous: it degrades or misinforms us about the power of images. Images can confuse or even inhibit our understanding of reality.
Not the early films! No way, Jose! The impression I got as I watched “The Phantom of the Opera,” was the exact opposite. It was as if the producers and cinematographers understood entirely and deeply how significant an image was. Great attention and detail was given to making sure you felt and understood the gravity of each scene and each character. Such also was the case with Lon Chaney as the Phantom. His presence and disfigurement were never meant to confuse the audience. Rather, his posture seemed to constantly confront and challenge me. He made the whole movie visceral. In fact, the most striking line in the whole movie (written, not said, of course) comes shortly after the Phantom’s face is revealed to the heroine, and he howls, “Feast your eyes; glut your soul on my accursed ugliness.”
It is a line clearly addressed to the audience, unmasking the voyeurism that lies especially behind film and television. There is something entertaining, even thrilling, about watching the Phantom’s monstrosity get revealed. But, there’s more to it than entertainment, which is the important thing to remember. Images carry an incredible ability to communicate and even manipulate us. And, I think (or at least I hope), there was a time when Hollywood tried to remind the viewer of that fact. Hitchcock certainly explored the dangers of entertainment through voyeurism in “Rear Window.” But, it takes a brave soul to critique your own media or industry, so it doesn’t surprise me that directors and movie studios don’t spend a lot of time or money telling us about the ills or downside of images.
Anyhow, this is bringing up a whole host of questions and issues I’m not prepared to deal with here and now (Is this what these modern string of horror movies such as “Saw” and “Hostel” are trying to do? How has the birth of pseudo-reality television such as “24” and crime dramas such as “CSI” inhibited our ability to truly see reality?).
What I really wanted to get to was how “The Phantom of the Opera” ended, which was perhaps the most disturbing part …
In the end, the Phantom is unable to keep the heroine to himself and restore his fallen nature via her love. Thus rejected he must flee an angry mob of men who seek to end his ghastly terror over the opera house. The final moments of the film are very intense and very abrupt. The Phantom knocks a carriage driver unconscious and takes off into the Paris night. He crashes the carriage and then tries to flee on foot. It is to no avail. The angry mob overtakes him on the bank of the Seine.
Then it happens. With pitchforks, torches and clubs in hand, the mob beats the Phantom to death and then throws him into the river.
And then the end credits roll.
That’s it.
Which brings me back to my earlier point about the power of images. For better or worse, the director of this movie obviously thought it was important that the audience experience the brutality of an angry mob. Furthermore, the goal early on was clearly to use the Phantom’s disfiguration to elicit emotions – including the natural emotion of revulsion and fear. The two images – the mob and the Phantom - are meant to ultimately reveal our own fallacies and ugliness. We are forced to watch a terrible conclusion to our first gut reaction: get rid of the Phantom. Hide him, do whatever is necessary to block him from our minds.
We are forced to realize our own aversion to ugliness, our own sinfulness. We are forced to realize our natural tendency to cast our fears onto others and see our fallacies within them.
Thus, “The Phantom of the Opera” is able to use shocking images to undermine and expose the potency of images. It shows images tend to stand in the way of a deeper perception of reality. Strange that the things that we can most easily “see” aren’t necessarily the things we should always look to or believe.
Seems like I’ve heard that advice before … hmm … St. Paul anyone.
Wes
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