Despite a
certain critical consensus, Candyman’s
lack of genuine recognition amongst the general public has deprived it of any true cult status. Still, it remains one of the key
films in postmodern horror and a major contributor in the ongoing (and rather
arduous) process of intellectualizing horror cinema. As such, it possesses two
major assets: a surprisingly relevant discourse on the dissemination of urban
mythologies and a unique social conscience, which manifests in a candid
celebration of both the ongoing struggle for race/gender equality, and more
specifically, the necessary contribution of women in the realm of cultural
studies. Above all, Candyman is a
truly collective effort, with everyone in the project carrying out his/her job
with the most stellar of professionalism and the most passionate of creative
input. The result is a film that should imperatively leave the confines of the
slasher sub-genre and enter the respectable arena of upscale, thinking women’s
horror cinema.
According
to legend(s), Candyman was originally a child born to a rich black
industrialist at the turn of the 19th century. After receiving an
education fit for a wealthy white youth, he showed promise in the art of
painting portraits depicting the decadent aristocracy and their numerous
earthly possessions. Notwithstanding the obvious reference to still life
painting contained in this description, Candyman would soon prove to be a true
prophet of erosion for the people around him. There would be need for a
traumatic event to unearth that potential however, and that traumatic event
came from a romantic tragedy that occurred soon after the young man was
commissioned to capture the virginal beauty of a rich man’s daughter.
Monster or victim? Tony Todd's soft features
make for a sympathetic boogeyman.
As every such
story would have it, the painter was so smitten by his subject, that he fell
madly in love with her, hence drawing the father’s murderous anger, which would
take the shape of a nasty assassination plot. Hired by the old man, a group of
thugs then proceeded to corner the young painter and saw off his hand with a
rusty blade, much to the indifference of the locals. After depriving him of the
initial source of his transgression, his painterly hand, the thugs then
stripped Candyman and attacked the second source of his transgression, his
youthful body, on which they smeared honey combs stolen from nearby hives.
After being consumed by myriads of bee stings, the young man became a local
boogeyman, whose legacy is comprised of an untold number of corpses popping up
in the projects near the execution site. To this day, his legend has persisted
and has struck fear into the hearts of the locals, with little interest
invested in his lover, who is about to emerge and claim her due through the
body of a gorgeous young scholar, Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen). And so the
battle for gender representation rages on…
As with any
film with such intellectual breadth, the opening sequence is key to
understanding the narrative. Being a series of overhead shots featuring the
busy highways surrounding Chicago accompanied by the monumental music of
neo-classic composer Philip Glass, this sequence immediately compels us to
think about the nature of urban mythologies. The interlocking roads taken by
the vehicles and their drivers, the constant intersection of thoughts that they
suggest, this amounts to a blueprint of urban existence. Life in the city is thus shown as a series of close
encounters giving us a desperately partial understanding of all others,
living their lives only through stories and hear-say, but sharing the same
reality nonetheless.
A simple and effective opening scene is key to
unleashing the symbolic power of the film.
This idea
of hear-say and the broken chain of knowledge becomes even more obvious as the
following sequence opens, and we hear Tony Todd’s mesmerizing voice suggesting
an apocalyptical truth to a very receptive Virginia Madsen (thus foreshadowing
the second half of the film). The young woman herself, despite being cut off
from Candyman’s actual voice is totally engulfed in his legend, which comes to
her through layers and layers of half-truths, which intersects like the cars on
the highway. “Everybody knows the story”, a young woman says to Madsen’s tape
recorder before she proceeds to deliver a tale originating from her “roommate’s
boyfriend”. Apparently, there was a girl and a baby that were killed by
Candyman, who was drawn to the scene when the girl uttered his name five times in front of the bathroom mirror. Now, this story belongs solely to the
realm of urban legends, but its relevance lies elsewhere than in its potential
veracity, namely in the many layers surrounding
the legend: the four degrees of separation between victim and storyteller, the
tape recorder that crystallizes the story, and most importantly, Madsen’s
character itself, which will later become a physical vessel for the story. All
these layers are important because they contribute to keep the myth alive, to
enlarge and disseminate it, and allow it to be kept alive at the intersection
of several minds (the very same minds that kept brushing each other during the
opening sequence).
Interestingly
enough, these layers soon start to dispel once Helen starts delving lower and
lower in the social strata, and closer to the source of the legend, that is the
crass poor neighborhood of Cabrini Green, where the execution site is located,
and where the story of the mirror originated from the real-life murder of one
Ruthie Jean. The fear-gripped poor are apparently more sensible to the idea of
a boogeyman than the well-thinking rich. But this proves to be another false
lead in the pursuit of Candyman, as we begin to understand that the poor and
the rich share more than what first appeared. Rich and poor, despite their
contrasting lifestyles, which are amply polarized within the narrative, all
share a common humanity and with it two major tenets that allow the stories
surrounding boogeymen to take roots: fear and spirituality.
It is no
coincidence that the film is set in Chicago, the birthplace of American
sociology, and the stomping ground of the US’ only black president. After all,
it is primordially interested in the effects of segregation between the black
poor and the rich white. By reuniting them in fear, director/writer Rose
manages to break boundaries and enlighten the narrow mindset of the common
horror film spectator. By using the depth of field to highlight the social
cleavage between the people living in the projects (shown in the foreground)
and the people living in the downtown skyscrapers (shown in the far
background), he greatly emphasizes the distance between people of different economical
backgrounds, the poorer of which are all black and the richer of which are
almost all white. By further framing the squalid interiors of the projects to a
large extent, almost all of which are textbook examples of urban deliquescence,
director Rose creates a very grim portrait of life in the slums, especially
when compared with life downtown. On the other hand, by likening the
architecture of the protagonists’ apartment complex and the Cabrini Green
projects, it becomes clear that the cleavage between the rich and poor is
merely plaster-thin (or skin-deep) in some regards. This fact is reiterated by
Helen’s visit into the cute, middle-class apartment of Anne-Marie McCoy,
protruding from the dirty projects like a healthy thumb amidst a series of sore
fingers.
Only through the world of myths are
the rich and poor united.
And while
the question of class cleavage is eventually resolved through the universality
of fear and the human condition, Helen’s initial contention to the effect that
the Candyman legend is a way for the disenfranchised poor to cope with the
horror permeating their daily lives (while it is simultaneously dismissed by
well-thinking white scholars) is even more interesting. Obviously, myths are
universal and quite deeply ingrained in the human psyche, but historically,
they’ve been more closely associated with the ignorant poor, who struggle to
find a reason for their situation while the knowledgeable rich manufacture
those myths so as to keep the poor at their mercy. I don’t mean to sound like a
bigot, but I’m certain that if one were to make a survey, they would surely
realize that faith is greater amongst the disenfranchised, uneducated poor than
in the rich, educated communities. Obviously, this would seem to provide a
fertile soil from which myths could sprout. But the truth of the matter is, as
we are led to understand, that no matter what attitude one might entertain
toward any myth, both rich and poor are equally determined in the dissemination
thereof. If the rich man (or woman) would rather learn of myths through essays
and lectures, then the poor could still liven them orally, through street art,
etc. In that sense, we realize that the lecture given by an eminent professor
during a dinner party at an upscale restaurant is of equal relevance than the
many graffiti featuring the foreboding warning “Sweets for the sweet” or the
shit-covered arrow that points to a toilet bowl for of buzzing bees. They all
contribute in their own way to the livelihood of the Candyman legend. They all
express a common reality that we come to share through the simple, and
universally human act of believing.
More
important than the racial/social question here is the question of gender, its
reality within academia and its importance within the world of myths. In our
discussion thereof, we shan’t overlook the importance of Virgina Madsen’s body
and classical beauty within the narrative, as opposed to the plain, ethereal
look of her professor hubby and the hulking, yet disembodied presence of the
specter himself (Tony Todd in a star-making performance that focuses on his
soft, mesmerizing voice and imposing stature rather than any real acting
chops). From the very beginning of the film, it is obvious that protagonist
Helen and co-worker Bernadette Walsh (Kasi Lemmons) are stuck in academic
limbo, struggling to remove scraps of information from horny undergrads in
deserted classrooms, while constantly remaining in the shadow of influential
male professors, such as Helen’s husband Trevor (Xander Berkeley, Todd Voight
from Terminator 2). It makes for a
shocking contrast to see Helen exit a quiet pint-sized classroom to enter a
large auditorium full of avid students laughing at the witty remarks made by
her husband. It is especially shocking to see that both husband and wife share
the same field of interest, namely the study of urban myths. But it is even more
shocking to realize that Trevor is actually feeding off Helen’s research,
proving once more that behind every great man is a great woman. But that woman
will eventually take to the foreground by achieving some truly hands-on
research and engaging the myth in a truly self-sacrificing way. The result is a
true rise to grace, a revolutionary liberation from the shackles of flesh and
the ultimate induction of the protagonist in the disembodied world of ideas.
Helen stuck in "academic limbo".
As embodied
by the gorgeous Virginia Madsen, Helen proves to be quite a woman, both in her
fearlessly inquisitive mind and her voluptuous body. Because while the male
scholars in her immediate surroundings have all managed to trade their ingrate
corporeal selves for purely intellectual selves, Helen is very much the
prisoner of her own flesh as both the object of the male gaze and of male
violence. Her nude or bloodied body is constant proof of her finite existence,
especially when confronted with the dire perspective of falling into “academic
limbo” (hence having her intellectual self truly vanish along with her physical
self). By toiling to achieve some legitimate hands-on research in the slums,
she eventually puts her physical self at risk, trading the reality of her
corporeal existence for a lasting place in academia. Unfortunately, her bruised
sculptural body trumps her intellectual worth in many regards, making her an
object of desire for Candyman, and an object of curiosity for the press (with
her essay gaining popularity right after she is attacked by Cabrini Green thugs). In
the end, Helen literally sacrifices her physical shell for a place in urban
mythology, reaching the world of ideas through a necessary roundabout. Such a
conclusion necessarily prompts many questions as to the actual sexual politics
of the film, but these are all necessary questions, engaged in creating a truly
open ending that will luckily refresh the crucial debate concerning gender
representation in horror cinema.
It would be
hard to review the film without mentioning some technical points, starting
with the nearly necessary contribution of Philip Glass’ memorable score to the
haunting atmosphere cultivated by director Rose. By drawing from liturgical
litanies, it gives the film a truly epic quality, allowing our contemporary
myths to gain an everlasting quality while simultaneously highlighting the
tragedy inherent to life in the slums. It’s also rare to see a “vulgar” horror
film befitted with the work of such a renowned composer as Glass. As I
mentioned in my opening statement, it’s rare for a film of this ilk to include
such a high amount of stellar craftsmanship. Aside from the sheer depth of the
screenplay and its earnest concern for social symbolism, Candyman also benefits from the inspired work of its many different
artisans, starting with the actors, who all contribute their fair share to the
creation of complex, true-to-life characters. With wondrous locales, which
perfectly capture the decay inherent to the slums, the film is also a marvel to
look at, and a testament to both efficient photography and art direction. The
creation of an impressionistic mindscape for Helen, achieved through symbolic
editing, further transforms the film into a reflection of her own interiority,
thus highlighting her crucial presence as both a vessel and disseminator of
ideas. All of these elements vie to create a rich landscape on which to
inscribe the rich symbolism inherent to the screenplay.
Helen eventually escapes the shackles of corporeality,
but what does that say about the film's gender politics?
All in all, Candyman is a truly superior entry in the canon of
postmodern horror and one of the key films of the 1990s. Its refreshingly
complex and socially conscious screenplay adapted from Clive Barker’s The Forbidden gives unforeseen depth to
the narrative and the obvious dedication of the crew gives it the appropriate
framework in which to expand. With both Virginia Madsen and Tony Todd
contributing memorable figures to the ever-growing roster of film specters, Candyman will forever hold some staying power. Its further contribution to the
academic discourse surrounding gender representation is also highly
commendable, and far removed from the normal concerns of slasher films. A great
success by any stretch of the imagination.
4/5 A haunting film with a real social
conscience that encompasses both race and gender issues, Candyman proves to be a major entry in the canon of postmodern
horror.
