My sweet Papa, Will Shephard, passed this morning. It was a long process and he is finally at peace. My Dad lived life to the fullest. He loved good food, good music, and time spent laughing merrily with those he loved best. So much of who he is inspired the actor and performer I am today. He also inspired my love of Film. He played King Kong in the 1970s version and he played the rock freak in my favorite cult movie of all time, Phantom of the Paradise. He play Pentheus in Richard Schechner's Dionysus in 69 and through that play was arrested for indecent exposure in Ann Arbor Michigan (which he always recalled with such amusement). I will love him always and will miss him. But I know he is with me, he lives through me and I intend to honor his legacy by following the advice he always gave me, "look for the light." Rest well papa, may your next adventure be as glorious as you were.

The Archivist mentions (in a December 2, 2019 post about Shephard's passing) that Shephard had published a memoir about working on King Kong, titled Inside King Kong: A Journal. Shephard had also published a book called The Dionysus Group. Google Books carries the following description of the latter:

The Dionysus Group is a story from tumultuous times in American history (1967-1970) told through the eyes of a young actor in New York's Off-Off Broadway production of Dionysus in 69 by The Performance Group, directed by Richard Schechner. William Shephard, a founding member of the Group, played a leading role as "Pentheus," the young King of Thebes, in the Group's adaptation of Euripides', The Bacchae, and he chronicles the extraordinary formation, development, and realization of the Group's ethos in Dionysus in 69. Shephard describes the formation of a Group Mind in which the interpersonal forces within the Group became mirrored in the production; where the casting and performance of roles in Dionysus in 69 reflected conflicts within the Group, itself, and conflicts in American society at large. Themes of passion, intoxication, violence, and bloodshed in Dionysus in 69, were indicative of the times, and The Performance Group's unique use of "audience participation" captured the attention of American and International theater audiences in startling ways.

The 16th Annual Another Hole in the Head Film Fest, in San Francisco, will be presenting Phantom of Winnipeg (at 7pm) and what we can tell you will be a very special screening of Phantom of the Paradise (at 9pm) on December 7. Our Principal Archivist will be participating in some fashion in both screenings, introducing, or Q/A'ing, or somesuch thing. The venue is the New Peoples Cinema in San Francisco's Japantown, which accommodates about 140 people, so we expect it to sell out, or come very close. A separate ticket is required for each of Paradise and Winnipeg,, and tickets are available here.

Turman interviewed Williams for the article. Here's an excerpt:

Was Jessica Harper cast when you were writing the songs? Did you know you'd be writing for her specifically?

No, I was writing the songs in advance of her being cast. But there is a moment in the film that is kind of a recreation of how she was cast in the film, because we were casting, listening to girl singers in New York. Brian had already read Jessica, I guess. The song that I had everybody sing for the audition was "Superstar" [the Bonnie & Delaney song that was a hit for the Carpenters]. I thought it was a beautiful song, and it was probably close to the mood of what I was hoping "Old Souls" would be when it was sung.

I'm walking by Jessica, and she's singing to herself, 'Long ago and oh so far away…' And then she came in to audition for Brian and I, and she sang, 'Long ago and oh so far' in a Broadway voice. At least that's the way I'm remembering it. I think I said to her, 'Sing it to yourself.' And when she did, it was indicative of how brilliant the performance would be when she actually did it on film.

Was it true that she beat out Linda Ronstadt for the part?

I think that Linda Ronstadt was someone that Brian looked at. I think that his concern was probably because Linda was so brilliant, probably the fame would get in the way. None of us in the film were really, really famous at that point.

When you first started working on this, did you have the whole script in front of you?

Yes, and it's interesting, because I didn't have a copy of that script, and I just got an email from a former manager who's still a really good friend. He said, 'I just found a bunch of stuff of yours that I wanna give back to you, including the Phantom of the Fillmore,' which was the original script. So that'll be interesting to look at that.

But the story changed, and I think it became more and more reflective of the kind of news as entertainment. I've said this many times, but my favorite line and I think the heart of the picture is 'an assassination live on coast-to-coast television -- that's entertainment.' I think the turning point was in the original script, Beef was killed in the shower. The idea of having the Phantom just threaten Beef and then actually having him killed onstage [happened]. The kids are seeing so much theatrical violence, and Brian made a point of making that theatrical violence look obviously theatrical. You see the foamy head, you see all the strings and all. But it's wonderful. That leap in the story where the kids see a real murder and they think it's part of the show, I think, is maybe the most powerful message in the film.

How did you decide what scenes needed music? Was that between you and Brian?

It evolved. I was wonderfully comfortable and confident with my road band. And they got it. So the first big change was that I said, "Brian, instead of using, for example, Sha Na Na, I'd like to see the same band evolve through all these characters from the Beach Boys to the '50s Sha Na Na kind of thing to the music of the spheres" or whatever. But I think that the content of the songs, I was always pretty much given that task.

Are there any songs that didn't make it into the movie?

I think the only one really was "The Hell of It," which we used it for the intro. "The Hell of It" originally was a graveyard scene when Beef is being buried. You see the open grave and the casket above the grave, and you notice, you see a microphone, so you follow the cables back to a hearse that has a recording board inside, and Swan is in there recording the funeral live on Death Records. And I actually did a little thing at the end of the song that I wanted to have. Brian said, "Let's have the people kinda doing a little circular dance around the coffin, and then as the coffin is lowered into the ground, have a little girl run forward and start tapping on it, auditioning for Swan." That's what inspired the kind of [Godfather composer] Nino Rota, "da da da da…" Very Nino Rota, I hope.

And the best part of the job, too, [was] to be able to satirize the kinds of music that I loved. I was writing all these codependent anthems and 'ouch, Mommy' songs, but I was loving the music that was coming out of Laurel Canyon, you know. I loved the Beach Boys; there were so many different kinds of music that I loved and was able to satirize them.

I'm really, really pleased with the movie, and I'm overwhelmed at the way it's grown through the years. The big philosophical/spiritual lesson, I suppose, is don't write something off as a failure too quickly.

The lyrics to "The Hell of It" have always killed me, because they're so brutal: "Though your music lingers on, all of us are glad you're gone." It's so mean!

Thank you. I'm thrilled to hear you say so. It seems to me I should've written songs for Despicable Me, just based on that. I'm sure you'll let them know. [laughs]

You mentioned that maybe Phil Spector was an influence for your character. Did you base Swan on anyone in particular?

It was on the page. For the songs, probably one of the biggest mistakes I think that hit songwriters try to do is when they sit down and work on a musical, they try to write hit songs. I don't think that was ever anything -- if it was in my mind, it got shoved to the side. To me, the task is to advance the plot and tell the audience who the characters are and lead them to the emotions you want them to feel.

Do you have a favorite song on the soundtrack?

It just shocks me that it hasn't been recorded -- I think "Old Souls" will always be my favorite. I think that Jessica's performance is so brilliant, and I would love to someday see that song… If the things we dwell on are the things that we create, co-creators are our future. I'm gonna have to add that one to the mix, just go, "You know what? Wouldn't it be lovely to see Jessica Harper have a huge hit record right now with 'Old Souls'?" I don't know if it would get any better than that. But yeah, I think that the elements of high romance and the concept of past lives is powerfully presented in that song, and especially in her performance.

It struck me when I re-watched POTP in the era of #MeToo, there were the casting couch scenes and references to a "f-g." Would that be in if the film was made now?

Well, I think if you wanted an example of somebody disgusting, somebody that is reflective of the character of the boss -- it's a classic example of trickle-down obscenities and all. I don't know if it would be made right now. I think that the fact that the casting couch, essentially rape, scene that is in the film and is quote/unquote "funny" is not funny at all. And it's a character element and who Philbin is and what the operation of Swanage and everything that goes on. Like that moment in the back of the limousine is as equally unsettling as that "We'll go to Swanage and celebrate." And of course, the only thing Swan enjoys more than taking somebody else's woman is having that person watch. For a [cuddly] little guy, we did take it to a really awful place.

I saw the film first when I was 12 or so, and I thought the scene Jessica and Swan in bed was the height of romance, which shows where I was then!

Well, oddly enough, I think part of the success with young girls that age is Swan is incredibly androgynous and he's scary and powerful and all those things, but I don't know if physically I was ever threatening at all. I'm shocked when somebody says that my character scared them, and I was like, really? Really?

Someone told me Donovan Leitch was trying to get a live stage version of Phantom of the Paradise going some years ago. Is anything like that happening now?

You know, what we do is we talk about it regularly, so there can be one thing that I can respond like a hamster when you drop a carrot in the cage! It runs over and starts chewing on the carrot; I run over and start chewing on the idea. It would be lovely to see this happen before I'm room temperature. I actually wrote some additional songs, and it's one of those things that may happen someday. There have been some challenges, and I think we're getting… I'm very Jiminy Cricket about my world and all, so magical thinking totally works for me. So I will say that it's something that I think will probably happen within the next few years.

Did you write those additional songs just because you were inspired in the moment, or—

No, we were actually working on it at the time, and I'm not sure what happened, because somebody else was using my body at that time [i.e., under the influence]. In other words, I'm talking about writing a few additional songs 30 years ago. So I would have to examine all of that again. But in the meantime, the phone keeps ringing. I don't chase any of it. I get up in the morning, and I say, "Lead me where you need me." Which sounds very idyllic, but that's how I live my life. It's endless surprises, and I couldn't be more grateful.

Pressman describes the feeling prior to release as one of excitement before it opened to disappointing reviews, feeling a lot of that stemmed from “people [confusing] it with Rocky Horror Picture Show,” with the mix of genres of comedy, horror, musical and a love story.

“It was a lot of things combined in an original way,” Pressman said. “I never thought it would last. We did make a serious attempt to revive the film in the last five or six years after it opened and we re-released the film ourselves and created our own posters. We went to Little Rock, Arkansas and it worked and we went to Memphis and it worked again, and then we went to Dallas, and we re-established the film so that Fox was willing to re-release it. At that time, that was a major accomplishment.”

Despite the film’s lackluster reviews from critics and box office failure early upon release, the film found a major following in both Winnipeg and Paris, with the soundtrack selling over 20,000 copies in Canada alone and becoming certified gold. Williams recalled visiting Paris “maybe four or five years ago” and finding it at a theater, where he learned Phantom disappears for a while before returning for screenings 45 years after its release.

While Williams and Pressman love the impact the film has made over the years, writer/director de Palma has kept quiet on the film since its release, even being absent from the documentary surrounding its cult following, but Pressman assures he is not distancing himself from it.

“I talked to Brian as late as last week, he’s a fan of the film,” Pressman said. “He was very happy to hear that the film is going to be brought back with the original cut, and he wrote a letter to try to help make that happen. I think he definitely has a warm feeling to the movie.”

Though the film mostly holds a positive legacy, with critics warming up to the project over the years, one hitch it has seen over the years has to do with the name of Swan’s media conglomerate “Swan Song Enterprises,” as Led Zeppelin had a label of the same name at the time and all references had to be deleted from the film, aside from background visual references, but now a movement is underway to get the rights from the classic rock band to correct this and add it all back in.

“The remaster is done and we just need to get Led Zeppelin to sign off on it,” Pressman said. “So that’s what Brian de Palma wrote a letter along with Edgar Wright and Brett Easton Ellis and a number of other luminaries, Paul Williams, obviously, to try to get them to end this 40 year standoff.”

In exploring the possibility or doing an updated version of the rock opera for modern audiences, both Pressman and Williams believe it would be great to see and have cited the Baby Driver director as the perfect person to helm the project.

“If anybody was going to do Phantom and bring it up to date and all, I love Edgar,” Williams said. “I think that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 30 years from now will have the same kind of fans that Phantom does right now. I saw Shawn of the Dead and I loved it. I mean, Baby Driver, the fact that he shot the film to the songs, that he cuts on it and it’s also that it’s imperceptible. You don’t realize it. I never got lost in that. Then I met him and turned out he had done Bugsy Malone, it’s like Grease here in London.

Phantom of the Paradise is unlike any other film. Sprawling and strange, the epic musical masterpiece is uncannily prescient, predicting the nostalgia craze, glam rock, and multiple other musical trends. The project came about after Phantom of the Opera became one of two options that Pressman and De Palma picked up after the lauded director became disillusioned with big studio movies. “I first met Brian De Palma in New York. He’d done a film called Greetings, a low budget independent film with some political undertones, and we became friends and he went on to start directing for the studios. He did a film for Warner’s called Get to Know Your Rabbit and he was very unhappy with the experience and called me from Toronto, I think. There was a producer taking options on Phantom and Sisters, and Brian said, ‘Get me out of here. You can get the rights so we can make it the way I want to.’ So we did that,” Pressman told us.

Though the producer preferred the strange vision De Palma had for the unexpected mashup of classic literary tales Phantom of the Opera, Faust, and Dorian Gray, the pair settled on adapting Sisters first, with a cast made up of De Palma’s housemates. “We had a decision to make about which film we wanted to do first. From the beginning, Phantom was the most exciting out of the two projects in my mind but Sisters was more practical. At the time, Brian was living in a house in Malibu that was owned by Waldo Salt who wrote Midnight Cowboy. He’d left it to his daughter Jennifer and she invited Brian and Margot Kidder and Paul Schrader, a whole bunch of people. So the easiest thing was to keep it close to this group. So Margot Kidder would play one role and Jennifer the other lead, and it was a simpler form to make. It turned out that Sisters did really well, especially in the drive-ins.”

After the success of their first collaboration, Pressman and De Palma began their passion project, Phantom of the Filmore. The reimagining centers on a young singer-songwriter, Winslow Leach, who’s overheard by a maniacal music producer known as Swan who steals the young man’s music. De Palma brought in composer Paul Williams to write the many songs in the film. “I was a staff writer at A&M Records, writing for The Carpenters, Three Dog Night, and a lot of great but kind of middle of the road music, you know, certainly not the Music of the Spheres,” Williams explained. “They opened a film department to try and get more of the music coming out of A&M Records into movies, and a guy there knew that Brian was doing Phantom of the Paradise, which at the time was called Phantom of the Filmore. I don’t know why Brian responded to my music because it was so different. I was known for writing what I call co-dependent anthems but for some reason, he really responded. So I came to it first as a composer and lyricist.”

That might surprise fans of the film who know Williams best as the evil, Faustian producer who steals Winslow’s songs and later tries to trap him into becoming the voice and mind behind his new music venue, the titular Paradise. “The first song, Brian wanted Sha Na Na to perform and I said, ‘You know what, I’ve got this band I’ve been working with, these guys have been with me for years, they’re my road band. I’d like these guys to be the band.’ I think this may have been the beginning of when he started going, ‘Ah, there’s Swan.’ They eventually became the Juicy Fruits in the film and the bands that they evolve into throughout.”

De Palma originally suggested that Williams play the Phantom and hero of the story himself, Winslow Leech, but the songwriter wasn’t sold on the idea. “I told him, ‘I could not, are you kidding??? I’m too little.’ And he said, ‘But you could be this creepy guy up in the rafters throwing things at people,'” Williams laughed. “For me, the idea of trying to perform with one eye through a mask…Bill Finley did things with that, there was just this essence to the character, something in the reading of Winslow that was so beautifully innocent, so touching. He was an amazing actor and it worked out because I got to play Swan!”

Filming Phantom was off the cuff and collaborative, a process that saw input from those around cast and crew, as Williams recalls. “The first thing we shot was the contract scene. Yeah, my manager actually came up with a line that’s in the contract that I love. The concept for where the line came from is: if God signed a contract to create the universe, what would the contract say? ‘All articles which are excluded shall be deemed included.’ You know, it’s perfect. So that wound up in there.”

Like most low budget films, the making of Phantom of the Paradise was incredibly intense. For the songwriter, there was no time to congratulate himself on his first acting gig. “There wasn’t a lot of time to really celebrate. I remember shooting all day and there was one scene that we had to reshoot the scene when I pull the knife from Winslow’s chest on the roof. We shot all day, and then I went directly from the set to the studio, recorded vocals until almost dawn, and then went right back to the set. They took my makeup off, put new makeup on, and then I shot the scene. I was so tired, I couldn’t understand me. And we were all like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s terrible.’ So we ended up reshooting it in New York.”

For Pressman, Phantom was the kind of film he had always dreamed of making. “It was unique and original, closer to a kind of Cocteau fantasy that I’m drawn too. Sisters was more of a conventional thriller; I mean, Brian turned it into more than that, but on the page, Phantom was just far more expansive. The idea of Paul Williams doing the score was just this far more ambitious and exciting project.” Though the creative team was passionate, they were unsure of how the film would be received once they’d finished making it. “I don’t think we had an idea of the impact it would have. I think we were really happy with the film and we were happy that Fox picked it up when it finished, which was unusual in those days. They were doing less independent films and studios were not in the business of picking up other movies. They paid–today it would sound like peanuts–but I think they paid $2 million for the rights, and that was a big deal then.”

Though the ambitious and audacious film was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Song Score and Adaptation, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score: Motion Picture, it was a financial flop that failed to make money in almost every market except for Winnipeg, Manitoba. It’s not totally surprising as the film was ahead of its time in almost every sense. From showcasing an overtly queer character in the form of Paradise star Beef to a story centered on male toxicity and the abusive nature of the record industry the film pushed boundaries and didn’t seem to be playing to any kind of mainstream audience.

TWO MORE RECENT 'PHANTOM' INTERVIEWS:

ComicBook.com Interview with Paul Williams
ComicBook.com Interview with Jessica Harper

Wood goes on to look at Phantom Of The Paradise as a film that "brilliantly functions in two ways: as an exploration of the form (in this case, the form of the musical) and a satire of the setting"...

De Palma knows musical theatre and understands the internal logic (or lack thereof) in its narrative mechanisms. The film’s obsession with songs-as-expression and reductive treatment of certain plot points highlight this knowledge.

For example, when Jessica Harper’s character faces the notorious casting couch, De Palma turns this into a choreographed dance in the background. Starlet after starlet jumps on the couch, gets ravished by a jean-jacketed oaf, then rolls away for replacement. Like a stage musical, Phantom of the Paradise gives its audience all it needs to know in a few key visuals, more interested in symbolism than outright depiction. A similar treatment exists in Winslow’s persecution, harassment by police and escape from prison. These are necessary to the plot but irrelevant to De Palma’s emotional arc. Thus, he cooks them down into opulent signifiers.

When it’s time for music, however, De Palma grants loving attention to each note and gesture. He uses the music of the film to give insight into the inner monologue of the characters. De Palma’s musical numbers become exposition, not of the plot, but of feeling. He obliterates the subtleties of the human heart amidst blasts of synth and guitar.

When the wounded Winslow returns to The Paradise to confront Swan, he simply finds the mask and becomes the phantom. However, it doesn’t turn into a generic Vincent Price-esque slasher revenge film. Swan traps the scarred and vulnerable Winslow into another devil’s bargain for musical perfection, fame, and the chance to turn his beloved Phoenix into a star. De Palma is not content with a horror film, a musical, a comedy, or a biting satire. He wants all of it on stage, parroting the excesses of the story’s setting.

Satire of Setting

Above any genre convention or label, Phantom of the Paradise exists as a testament to its time. Paul Williams not only stars but also contributes his musical talent and “been-there” candor to the proceedings. This blesses the film’s portrayal of music with the kiss of one of its Popes. Every character glistens, baptized in the sleaze of an early, ballsy De Palma.

Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s love letter to the seedy porn of Los Angeles’ Golden Age in Boogie Nights (1997), Phantom is interested in the people, places, and things that made up a world De Palma longed for. Swan’s crisp suits, greased smile, and mirrored full of writhing women act as garish dreams of an outsider looking in. This is De Palma fogging the window to rock n’ roll’s hedonistic delights.

There’s also a dark side, as De Palma exposes the sadism of the business behind the music. Jessica Harper’s Phoenix is cruelly buffeted from humiliation to humiliation before her big break, her wide-eyed wonder at every abuse and opportunity acting as a first verse to the song she would later dance to in Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1978). Swan’s appetites don’t just limit themselves to sex, money, and fame. He craves eternal youth and the domination of others, the way artists can become predators when corrupted by the business.

Fade Out

Brian De Palma lends his usual idiosyncratic style to Phantom of the Paradise while also bowing to both the musical and the rock music scene as style elders. It’s a dark, violent mood symphony as funny as it is emotionally harrowing. We decide an auteur’s success by his riskiest endeavors and this is Brian De Palma’s masterpiece.

Our Principal Archivist just got back home from the Fantasia Festival in Montreal, where Phantom of Winnipeg had its world premiere on Friday, July 11, and Phantom of the Paradise was screened the next night. (Winnipeg also enjoyed an encore screening on Sunday afternoon.) Somewhere around 130 people packed the Salle J.A. DeSeve on Friday, including a number of the Winnipeg fans who are profiled in the documentary. Also in attendance were directors Malcolm Ingram and Sean Stanley, as well as Paul Williams (who is interviewed briefly in the film, as is our Principal Archivist, who somehow ended up with a co-producer credit.) The film, without actually making an attempt to answer the question, "Why Winnipeg," and without taking a position on whether Paradise is actually a good movie or not, is a gentle and loving tribute to the power of fandom to change lives and create community. The plan for the screening of Paradise the following night was that Paul Williams and (Phantom producer) Ed Pressman would "host" the proceedings, with Ed receiving a lifetime achievement award from the festival for the somewhere-around-100 films he has produced, and his role in nurturing promising up and coming directors. Sadly, Ed had injured himself in a fall the day before, and was not able to attend, so, shortly before things got underway, Paul asked our Principal Archivist to moderate a Q&A with Paul, which he nervously did. We hope people enjoyed it, and maybe even heard some anecdotes they hadn't previously encountered. Ed was, fortunately, sufficiently recovered by Monday to appear at the festival remotely, via Skype, to present his scheduled master class. MEANWHILE - a dilemma is brewing in New York, as the Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival will be screening Winnipeg and Paradise and doing a tribute to Ed Pressman, all in mid-October - which is exactly when the Hamptons International Film Festival, two hours away, will be presenting Brian De Palma with a lifetime achievement award, on the occasion of which Alec Baldwin will be doing a Q&A with Mr. De Palma onstage. Why must we suffer so?

It didn’t seem to matter that Sadako was a disappointment, however. The biggest draw of the weekend, and the one that inspired the most childlike excitement in the festival-goers I talked to, was the double dip of redemption for Brian De Palma’s 1974 horror rock opera Phantom Of The Paradise. De Palma rarely talks about the film [De Palma a la Mod note: not exactly a correct statement, as De Palma seems happy to discuss Phantom whenever the subject comes up], and certainly never shows up for retrospective screenings. Star William Finley died in 2012, and Jessica Harper’s busy on the Suspiria circuit, leaving 78-year-old co-star and songwriter Paul Williams to carry the torch of the film’s small but intense—and heavily Canadian—“phandom.” I confess I spent much of the weekend trying to understand the question of why Canada, and specifically Winnipeg, loves this obscure ’70s artifact so damn much, never realizing that I was humming the answer to myself the whole time. It’s stuck in my head right now, in fact.

No one sang along at the 45th anniversary screening of the film on Saturday night, which was held in an appropriately baroque movie palace in downtown Montréal outfitted with marble statues and red velvet seats. Although it shares certain aesthetic qualities with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Phantom Of The Paradise inspires much less audience participation: The self-proclaimed “‘Peggers” in the crowd clapped along with Williams’ Swan when he slaps his gloved hands together three times in the opening scene. But that was it. The rest of the film, whose offbeat glam-rock theatricality I appreciate more every time I see it, unfolded in hushed silence, before the eruption of standing ovation as Williams took the stage for a post-film Q&A. Williams was audibly moved as he thanked the crowd for their undying support, telling them that it was because of them the movie lives on. They loved that.

It was heartwarming to recognize a few Winnipeggers on screen the following morning at a screening of Phantom Of Winnipeg (Grade: B), a crowdfunded documentary that sets out to answer my exact question of why Winnipeg, Manitoba is one of only two places in the world where Phantom Of The Paradise was a hit. (The other was Paris, where the future members of Daft Punk met at a screening.) And the film comes close to providing real insight into the question, going beyond the usual “isn’t this fun” platitudes of a fan documentary to explore how growing up in a cold, isolated area like Winnipeg shapes a person’s sensibilities, as well as how the internet has changed the nature of fandom. That being said, the inclusion of Kevin Smith, whose obsession with Canada is funny but more than a little patronizing, draws attention away from the fans, all of whom are great characters in their own right. One man, who plays in a Phantom cover band and offers to trade his buddy a black Gibson Flying V for a signed copy of the soundtrack, says he saw it 50 times in its initial run. Another woman shows off her handmade Phantom purse, with the Death Records logo on one side and “Trust Me. -Swan” cross-stitched onto the other.

In preparation for this year’s Fantasia Film Festival, I looked over my coverage from last year and was utterly shocked that I forgot to mention the presence of Joe Dante, director of many pop-film masterpieces like Gremlins, Small Soldiers, and Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Joe Dante is a master filmmaker, no doubt, but in the face of emerging genre stars (like the minds behind Cam, Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei, whom I can genuinely claim to being into Before They Were Cool) it can be easy to ignore the celebrities of Fantasia. But this year, that celebrity is the impossible-to-ignore Paul Williams, star of the 1974 rock opera Phantom of the Paradise. This bonkers, terrifying, hilarious film, one of the first from certified maniac Brian De Palma, was, of course, a massive bomb in North America. Well, everywhere except one place: Winnipeg, where the film made even more than Star Wars and Jaws, and endures till this day.

That seems like one of the made-up Winnipeg factoids that one would find in Guy Maddin’s seminal half-documentary My Winnipeg, but it’s completely true. Phantom of Winnipeg is a documentary about the Winnipeg fans of Phantom (Peggers, as they’re called numerous times by Paul Williams himself, amusingly), more concerned with documenting the purity and joy of their fandom than investigating why it sprung up. It’s a brilliant punchline to watching the film for the first time: you’re drowned in colour and rock and fear and that glorious Phantom getup, and then you learn that the place which wholeheartedly embraced the film was a cold, orderly Canadian city with a dark underbelly; perhaps the most secretive city in all of North America. In my experience, Montreal prefers to wear its weirdness on its sleeve, which is what Fantasia is all about.

"So," Williams tells the audience as he and Kahan stand on the stage together, "one of the things that Ari did, is, he managed to find the footage that was replaced. We thought it was lost forever, but he found it. I think that was your doing, right? [applause] And he found the footage. He has reconstructed Phantom Of The Paradise with all the original [footage]. So there is this absolutely pristine version of the film, exactly the way that Brian De Palma wanted you to see it. And, we're trying to get permission to now, once again, display all of it. That's the kind of archivist that Ari is, and it's terrific." [applause]

A couple of days ago, just before the start of Fantasia Fest, where the documentary Phantom Of Winnipeg was about to have its world premiere, Williams wrote the following on his Instagram page:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The enthusiastic fans of Winnipeg are partly responsible for the life and career I have today. Where do you go to find a PR firm or press agent that will remain enthusiastic about a film for 45 years ... singing its praises to anyone who will listen. You go to Winnipeg. With Peggers on your side ..all things are possible! 😝 See you in Montreal! Grateful…❤️🙏🏻🌈i

On it's Facebook page, Fantasia Fest has posted the entire intro and post-screening Q&A from Friday night's world premiere screening of Phantom Of Winnipeg. In the video, shot by Eric St-Cyr, Paul Williams asks the filmmakers how they came to know Phantom Of The Paradise. Malcolm Ingram talks about catching it as a kid in 1979 and the impact of seeing Winslow's face traumatically burned in the record press, feeling like he shouldn't be seeing this. And then, even though he feels he was probably still too young to be watching these movies, he started following De Palma's work, seeing Dressed To Kill and Blow Out when he was still a kid. Sean Stanley, meanwhile, says he was working at a video store, and fell in love with De Palma's films, watching all of them, "and then when 'Goodbye, Eddie' came on, I stopped. And then for the next six months, every single person that came over to my house, I was like, 'You gotta see this. You gotta see this.'"

EBERT.COM REVIEW - PHANTOM OF WINNIPEG "CONSISTENTLY DELIGHTFUL" LOOK AT BIRTH OF A COMMUNITY

Rogerebert.com's Nick Allen was at the Fantasia Fest world premiere of Phantom Of Winnipeg Friday night, and writes about the doc, as well as a bit about the event:

Brian De Palma’s “Phantom of the Paradise” was not a hit when it came out in 1974, released to mild reviews and an even more unforgiving box office. At least, that was the case seemingly everywhere in the world except for the Canadian hub of Winnipeg, where “Phantom of the Paradise” became a fixation for seemingly any ‘Pegger (as they’re called) that had a feel for the crazy rock ’n roll in De Palma’s film. As other movies came through the city, “Phantom of the Paradise” would linger, and play shows week after week after week.

A whole batch of impressionable, outsider kids were never the same, and the movie inspired them to become musicians, or to see a part of themselves they hadn’t. Canadian filmmaker Kevin Smith speaks in this movie about how these “phans” are such a select, intense bunch that they might as well have been part of an alien experiment. Watching these men and women talk with giddy smiles about “Phantom of the Paradise,” like cult members dedicated to a bonafide oddity, he’s onto something.

So goes the story of Malcolm Ingram and Sean Stanley’s documentary “Phantom of Winnipeg,” a consistently delightful collection of life stories where loving “Phantom of the Paradise” is at the center. We get to hear from many different individuals (not given title cards, making them memorable faces in a pool of a shared love), and they share not just stories of watching the film dozens of times, or of meeting their heroes. They also show off their signed vinyl records, merchandise, and even replicas of the Phantom's helmet, which had to be homemade when "Phantom" fever had first taken over Winnipeg.

Fear not if you haven’t seen “Phantom of the Paradise,” or if you do not share even a tenth of the admiration for it that these people do. The power in this documentary—right from the start—is that Ingram and Stanley celebrate the very specific chapters of their fandom, and immerse us in their geekiness while showing the sense of community. Like the most genuinely touching of films about anyone’s life, this focus then makes it universal. The passion that all of the subjects have for this movie becomes any viewer’s joy, especially as the directors seem to have an indispensable amount of stories about the power that “Phantom of the Paradise” has.

"Phantom of Winnipeg" isn’t so much about a fan community as the birth of a family, one that includes stars Paul Williams, Gerrit Graham, and Peter Elbling—they speak extensively in the film, about what this love for “Phantom” means to them, and how it lead to a gorgeous, symbiotic relationship. To see Elbling perform on stage alongside fans with the same zeal as anyone else in the room is a powerful sight, and one of many ways the documentary surpasses hagiography with its genuine touch.

Perhaps the biggest name involved with the original movie that does not speak in the film is Brian De Palma, but as crazy as this may sound, you won’t miss him—this is a story about the life “Phantom of the Paradise” had after, the meaning a text took on after its followers have passed it around; “Phantom of Winnipeg” is not so much about the ideas that birthed it, or the process of creating it, but the meaning it has to people for decades ongoing. This documentary's strong focus helps catapult the filmmaking through some shoddier-looking passages—even the collection of talking heads feel like a strong directorial choice, as you just want to listen to these people geek out. With its constantly delightful nature, it’s a universally appealing testament to how loving a piece of art—and in this case, both a soundtrack and a movie—is one of the most special connections any human being can have.

Attendees at Friday night’s world premiere of the documentary at Fantasia got to witness this love firsthand. Not only were the subjects in attendance, sitting in the front row, but Paul Williams was there as well, speaking about how the documentary came together, but more importantly about the legacy of the movie. He also stated that he hopes the story of "Phantom of the Paradise" lives on in new versions, and already had a director in mind: Edgar Wright.

Saturday night at Fantasia featured a special retrospective screening of "Phantom of the Paradise," with Williams, the 'Peggers, and producer Ed Pressman in attendance. Pair that with "Phantom of Winnipeg," and the legacy of "Paradise" comes full circle. As one of the highlighted “Phantom” fans stated regarding the decades they loved the movie: “We all saw Paul. Now he’s watching us.”