The Movie Candy Man 1992 - Essay Example

?A Film Analysis of Candyman (1992) Introduction Horror films invoke threat, creating fear with its effort to shock cinematic spectators. Horror films create a terrifying environment that promises no escape. Candyman (1992) does all of these. The opening scene and the scene wherein the female protagonist, Helen Lyle, listens to the story of Candyman in a restaurant have much to reveal about how the film creates meaning for the cinematic spectator. These two scenes can also be analysed in terms of sound, colour, style and narrative, and mise-en-scene. Candyman is Bernard Rose’s creation. Based on the opening scene it may be interpreted as a film about the city. The opening scene shows an aerial image of traffic on public roads and skyscrapers. However, when the scene changed into an image of swarming bees with a terrifying, hollow voice in the background the meditative mood of the city changed into something threatening. Similarly, the scene where Helen Lyle is listening to the actual story of Candyman creates the same threat-- a threat that something very dreadful is approaching. The muffled screaming in the background, alongside menacing sound effects, adds to the terror of Candyman’s tragic story. Other film genres try to emotionally rouse viewers, but it is only the horror genre that rouses a certain and powerful emotional impact on the viewers. And although other film genres portray terrifying events, only horror films showcase the terrible, making terror its rationale. Horror never fails to discover a new frightening facade to reflect existing issues, unearthing the sinister facet to every desire, whether in a suburb or in deep space. A General Overview of the Symbols and Meanings in Candyman Candyman shows traditional horror and macabre premises: accompanied by a hounded female protagonist, the antagonist is a supernatural monster always hungry for a kill. Helen Lyle is an abused and emotionally tortured woman inflicting defensible vengeance, a demented murderer with a delusive second self. Thus the film establishes itself strongly and casually in a macabre ritual of horror. Common difficulties make the analysis of the film quite challenging. The finale, even though depicting brutal death for the enjoyment of the viewers, rejects the totally explicit moral pleasure of blameless ceremonial killing. Real and widely recognised scenery magnifies racial and social realities, interrupting the geographical dislocation normally obliged by the genre (Botting, 2001). Emphasising the combination of shock and inescapability, several film scholars sum up Candyman’s classic components: “knee-jerk shocks, stalking bogeyman, and touches of dark humour” (Botting, 2001, p. 140). They also noted that the film “locates the horrors in an identifiable and credible landscape of urban decay” (Botting, 2001, p. 140). Such juxtaposition upsets long-established beliefs and obscures analytic interpretation. As McCabe argues, “while it may be plausible to read Candyman as a complicated utopian fantasy of multicultural reproduction, it is also possible to read it as vicarious male desire for a black man who will finally give an uppity white girl what she’s been asking for” (Botting, 2008, pp. 66). Although the movie somewhat depicts social criticisms, especially as regards racial relations, the horror settles in the grisly entity of the black man and hence verifies racially prejudiced views of victimisation of white females and black sexual sadism. Where, traditionally, the issue of race embraces conflict, in Candyman the concept of race turns into a major manifestation of evil and when summoned, it erases all other options of gruesome character. Although the movie presents only a handful of constructive depictions of evil and appears to verify the most horrible fears of the white race in the black character that comes out, with vicious and brutal purpose, in the personal spaces of the home, the obstacles could be exaggerated (Botting, 2001). Candyman is not merely summoned by the white people; he also draws out, as a dreadful, tormented entity, sympathy. Nevertheless, more important is the manner that characters of horror are dislocated throughout the movie. The movie does not settle on only one character: the brutalised victim becomes its villain; the ghost of Candyman is brought to an end and Helen Lyle takes his place as a murderous entity, to transmit the communicable disease of brutality to the new lover of her husband. The movie’s depictions of sex and race, although generally traditional, disturb apparently acceptable themes of moral or obsessed loathing. There is something inconsistent and unsettling in the movie, something requiring and misleading opinion and critical analysis. In the conventions of theoretical macabre, Candyman falls within the criteria of the indecipherable, as a defiance to analysis. A collage of meanings, the movie also shows a horror narrative of the deterioration of meaning. Aside from Candyman himself, a very talented artist, the four major characters in the movie are intellectuals. Three of them are killed. Perhaps this is one of the ingredients of pleasure: intellectuals brutally murdered. Nevertheless, sentiments against intellectuals are deeply embedded into the analysis of foundations of modernity: concepts of standardisation, justification, and reason have their weaknesses revealed; mechanisms of social solidarity and policy like the home, psychiatric hospitals, and universities become interwoven in their rationales (Botting, 2008). From the start actual, purposeful types of contemporary structural design and well-designed transportation systems are related to a horde of bees. In the scene where the husband of Helen Lyle gives a lecture to a large crowd of students, urban legends are regarded as ‘fears of urban society’ (Botting, 2001, p. 42). Logically demystified as nothing more than false idea, these irrational fears are confirmed and made factual, thus denigrating the dominance held by rational analysis. The movie proposes that fears and delusions may have a stronger influence in the dynamics of daily living, suggesting that a single approach to existence is now absent. Face the mirror and utter the name Candyman five times. A black man with a gory, blood-spattered hook will come out. Summoned into private homes from the dormant recesses of sinister alter-ego, racial prejudice and sexual violence, Candyman will wipe out households, disembowel victims, and persecute consciousness. However, Candyman is not only the reversed figure providing unreal stability to the decent individual. Coming through the mirror, from an otherworldly dimension, Candyman is more than the brutal and undesirable image of a particular psyche: he represents a mass anxiety menacing black slums, white inner-city dwellings, and white downtowns. The reflection of individual totality, the focal point of personal and shared identity, and bits and pieces, which are exposed to the sinister domain, makes up the prospect of reflection and imagination. Film Analysis Candyman is obviously a cinematic achievement, especially with regard to how it used the major film aspects, namely, sound, colour, style and narrative to editing, and mise-en-scene. This section analyses each of these film aspects, respectively. Sound is a very useful component of cinematic art. Soundtrack and sound effects are part of the narrative and one of the mechanisms used by filmmakers to communicate meanings. For instance, in Candyman the sound effects are used to emphasise the dread of looming threats, the horror of an arriving murderer. In the opening scene, the filmmaker’s use of ominous sounds provokes viewers to internalise the fragments of the setting of the narrative—the city of Chicago. The filmmaker’s choice of sound effects for the opening scene reveals his main intent: to engage the viewers in the narrative through the depiction of the physical or geographical aspects of the city. He tells the viewers that the ominous sounds are a warning sign that the entire narrative would not be pleasant, but tragic. In the other scene, where Helen Lyle is listening to the life story of Candyman, sound becomes a powerful instrument for building the tension or the phantasm that the world of the narrative goes beyond the limitations of the screen. The screaming sounds in the background tell the viewer that the horrors that are about to happen have a historical root. The sounds in this scene portray the actions that take place off-screen, or aspects that are hidden, but which are crucial aspects building the plot. The off-screen action in this scene is the actual torturing and killing of Candyman. The screaming sounds in the background eerily and powerfully gave a terrifying mood. Likewise, the colours or lighting used in the movie embodied meanings that are hidden to the naked eye. The colours are faded and modest. Even the colour of blood is dull. But these colours and lightings added to the eeriness of the entire narrative. In the opening scene, the swarm of bees and the horror it symbolises was illuminated by a blunt lighting. The lighting and the colours used in the opening scene keep the viewers’ attention to the central theme of the story: a vengeful bogeyman. The colours keep away unnecessary distractions. The filmmaker did not use any bright lightning or too vivid colours in the opening scene in an attempt to portray the psychologically, emotionally, and intellectually profound themes of the story. The colours try to encourage the audiences to look beyond what their eyes can see. In the other scene lighting and colours were used creatively. The colours shadowing Helen Lyle’s face while she was listening to the life story of Candyman communicate disbelief, awe, fear, and realisation. The lighting reveals that Helen Lyle has suddenly realised that there is a connection between her and Candyman. The colours and lighting in this scene changed from dull to bright. The dullness expressed Helen Lyle’s passive emotions (e.g. disbelief) whilst the bright lighting, especially in the scene where a white strip of light was projected on her upper face, expresses strong emotions (e.g. fear and realization). These irregularities between off and onscreen colours and lighting are at times employed to create a disturbing mood. According to Caldwell (2011), a fill-light moderates the impact of the scene by contrasting several of the shadows created by the primary light. On the other hand, in terms of cinematic narrative, Candyman does not belong to mainstream cinema. Although the movie is obviously produced to gain profits or to entertain, the film’s narrative is different from mainstream movies. It does not follow a shallow plot. Its narrative is in fact very complicated, filled with symbolisms and metaphors. The narrative encourages audiences to identify the hidden meanings and challenges them to look at cinema in a more critical or intellectual manner. It is not possible to take the narrative literally, because it is not literal, it is entirely figurative. The complexity of the narrative was revealed early in the movie, when the image of a bustling city was juxtaposed with a swarm of bee and a rising black smoke, alongside the eerie voice of a resentful man. On the surface, the opening scene seems incongruent. But examined closely, the opening scene laid out the central theme of the narrative: the urban legend of Candyman. The opening scene reveals its cinematic art: a perplexing and confusing narrative. In the other scene, contradictions were also used. The life story of Candyman narrated by Helen’s colleague conflicted with what is said in the urban legends. Candyman belongs to a decent, honourable family. Candyman himself is a talented artist who was loved by many because of his kindness. But he was brutally killed because he fell in love with an aristocratic woman. But this narrative is not a simple contradiction. This narrative is all about the connection between decency and violence. This connection was not only expressed in the character of Candyman but also in Helen Lyle’s. Just like Candyman, Helen Lyle is a decent, morally upright individual who eventually became violent because of the harsh realities she faced. Basically, the structure of the movie is quite disjointed, with individual scenes frequently disrupted by other scenes, in a disconcerting manner. The editing of the film evidently reflects its disjointed, complicated narrative. The actual editing process includes the merging of independent fragments of film. These film fragments were not edited in conformity to mainstream cinema, where in strips of film are organised in a definite manner. According to Pramaggiore and Wallis (2005), the value of editing rests on its capacity to build combinations, which consequently transform the meaning and impact of each scene. Lastly, the mise-en-scene of the movie, just like its narrative style, is filled with perplexing juxtapositions. As already mentioned about the opening scene and the scene where in Helen Lyle listens to life story of Candyman, the shift from one image to the next is disorderly and unsettling because it is one way or another temporally and spatially incompatible. The sudden transition from an image of the city and thoroughfare to a swarm of bees is evidently disorienting. One may ask, what is the connection between these two images? But the film’s mise-en-scene was cleverly established to depict the contradictions and harmony inherent in the film. The consistency of special effects and sound effects somehow give stability to the film, whilst the narrative endows it with cinematic artistry. Conclusions Candyman reveals a conflicting focal point where the literal and the symbolic emerge in chorus. Within and outside symbolism and metaphor, the inconsistently allows the creation of meaning, the area where symbol can be embedded, and rejects the control of a single symbolism in order to encourage critical analysis and interpretations. Therefore, the movie is not entirely about sexual violence or racial relations. What are agonising in the meanings communicated by the movie are not traditional sexist or racial metaphors or excruciating realities of life, but the presence of contradiction that is horrifying and painful, the narrative of an evil that is inherent in all individuals, an inconsistency in meaning, reason, and imagery. The movie generally depicts violent attacks that are heard but unseen, challenging the spectators’ imagination to deal with the absence of visual components. The movie rejects moral pleasure by cutting down visual surpluses. Rather, it tries to imply, in connecting entertainment, pleasure, and illusion that the dilemma is within the narrative styles and propagated in their terrifying stories. Basically, repetitive scenes are created not just to bring about strong cinematic impacts, but to highlight their weaknesses as cinematography that rely on something unseen, on a theme that cannot be represented. There are scenes in the movie disrupted by a complete absence of an image. These scenes started to appear when Helen Lyle takes picture of doodles in the black ghetto. The flashes of the camera fill the screen with its brightness, momentarily erasing all visible images. Repeated in the course of the film, the camera flashes are reinforced by scenes of psychological uncertainty and narrative conflict. They work as disconcerting elements where the emotion and logic are perturbed by something unseen and mysterious, absences in vision and interpretation defying imagery and symbolism. References Botting, F., 2001. The Gothic. UK: Boydell & Brewer. Botting, F., 2008. Limits of Horror: Technology, Bodies, Gothic. UK: Manchester University Press. Caldwell, T., 2011. Film Analysis Handbook: Essential Guide to Understanding, Analysing and Writing on Film. Australia: Insight Publications. Pramaggiore, M. & Wallis, T., 2005. Film: A Critical Introduction. London: Laurence King Publishing. Read More