As I approach my 40th Halloween, the trees have been making their annual change—from the shades of greens and sunny yellows to a mélange of fiery reds, oranges and golds. The air, so bright and fresh, now is veiled in the delicate moisture heralding the arrival of the first chill of oncoming winter. The ubiquitous bright orange gourds dot the neighborhood doorsteps. And as always, I experience a deepening sense of nostalgia and longing for an innocence lost.
I choose to write about Halloween as my first article not because I love candy and feel a need to dress up, but because it is symbolic to me of a wider issue of how our current culture of conservatism runs the risk of undermining what I feel to be a fundamental element of growing up and experiencing the wonder and magic of the mysterious and unknown world of spooks and goblins.
But where does the origin of Halloween come from?
Over 2000 years ago, the Celts celebrated the arrival of the Autumnal equinox and the beginning of the New Year through a festival known as Samhain. The Romans, celebrated the fall harvest worshipping the goddess Pomona identified with the apple, harvest and trees. They also held a festival known as Feralia held in late October that was associated to the passing of the dead. Even later, the Christians began to assimilate the pagan rituals and festivals throughout the year. In the 7th century A.D. Pope Boniface IV designated November 1st as All Saint’s Day. This later moved to November 2. The day before All Saint’s Day or Eve was October 31. All Hallows Eve or All Hallowmas over time became All Hallow E’en and finally contracted to Halloween. All Saints Day was a day in European folklore where the spirits of the past ancestors would come back to posess the bodies of the living. To prevent this from happening, the common folk would dress up and enter the streets on October 31 to cause a ruckus to discourage the spirits from entering their bodies. Later, in the 9th century the custom of “souling” would be the basis of our modern trick-or-treating. Early Christian beggars would walk door to door begging for soul cakes that were square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes collected, the more prayers offered to honor the giver. The singing trio Peter, Paul and Mary had a very popular folk-song based on just this entitled “Soalin’.”
The book in question is a small collection of vintage Halloween images. It immediately caught my eye because of the image on the cover. Edited by Jim Heimann, this collection runs the gamut from photographic images, cards, masks to various ephemera celebrating this spooky and festive holiday.
I remember vividly the old worn yellowing decorations that my Grandmother would eagerly bring out each year. The bowls of Star-mints, Butterscotch and chewy caramel treats that would soon follow and the dish of candy-corn that would always be present on her oval Early-American sofa table. Not the weather, but these clues would alert my sister and me about the impending arrival of our special day. I say “our,” because it really did seem to be ours. We would begin scouring the stores for costumes and the conversations on the playground would turn to witches, ghosts, vampires and of course space-men and aliens. We were living of course in the hey-day of the space race and the cold war. Knowing what I know now about history and having recently seen George Clooney’s engaging film about Edward R. Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck; it is no wonder that McCarthy’s efforts were labeled witch-hunts and Arthur Miller chose to write one of the greatest plays of the last century when he penned The Crucible.
It was in this little book of these same yellowing images of witches and black cats and leering carved pumpkins that started me thinking about a recent work for young audiences that seem to recapture the innocent wonderment of the scary unknown. Tim Burton’s latest film, Corpse Bride, for me was a delightful diversion from the recent spate of natural disaster, reality television and a summer of rather otherwise mediocre films.
I have always loved Tim Burton’s work since I saw his early film Edward Scissorhands. His style and imagination are infused with the creepy and cooky and “draw (and think)-outside-the-lines” quality that led him away from the Disney Animation studios where he worked in his younger years as a visual artist. This visual aesthetic is what has made Burton’s film career so unique. Burton has never shied away from the macabre and has made it a signature trademark. He has also not shied away from crafted films that embrace the dark and scary images that hearken to the days of autumn and Halloween mentioned earlier.
Burton started with Edward Scissorhands and continued this tradition with Nightmare Before Christmas that was inspired by early work by Burton that was rejected by the Disney Studio. Nightmare is a dizzyingly crazy adventure, following Jack Skelington’s desire to experience something new and along the way discovering the meaning of Christmas. It occurs to me how the story and images crafted in this film seems influenced by the old Irish folk tale of how a drunkard named Jack tricks the Devil into climbing a tree. Once in the tree, Jack carves an image of the cross on the trunk affectively trapping old Scratch. Jack bargains with the Devil that if he vows never to tempt him again, he will set him free. In later life, Jack dies, and for his deeds is neither allowed to enter Heaven or Hell, but is given a single flame or ember to light his way through the darkness of eternity. This light was placed inside a carved out turnip—the origin of our lighted Jack’o lantern.
In Nightmare Before Christmas we have a main character named Jack; a tree as pathway to the underworld; and a dark demon, in this case Oogey Boogey. All sounding vaguely familiar? Whether it is intentional or not, there is no doubt in my mind how this holiday, and its beliefs and images still influence our consciousness. If we hearken back to early folk tales such as Snow White, we have a young heroine faced with a journey, a choice, and an enemy, guised as an Old Crone. And what does she offer the young lady? An apple. I don’t believe its coincidence. Remember the Roman Goddess Pomona and the apple mentioned earlier? All linked.
And in his latest film, Corpse Bride, Burton offers another dark allegorical tale using the same stylistic flare as Nightmare with stop-motion animation and the binary of living and dead. Light and dark; good and evil. Universal themes; and ones that Burton embraces with an earnestness that must not be denied.
The young nebbish protagonist is about to marry into an arranged marriage between his landed-gentry family and the upper-class bourgeoisie family of his fiancée. But, out of fear and uncertainty, he flees the ceremony’s rehearsal and runs into the forest. Here again, Burton uses to great effect the primordial presence of the dark, towering leafless trees. And as luck would have it, the young man mistakenly proposes to the boney hand of another young woman “done-in” by another of the villains of the film. She rises from her unfortunate resting place and accepts this young man’s offer. This sets in motion the resulting adventure of the young man’s journey to the underworld, and his ultimate realization that he does indeed love his young, living, fiancée and finds within himself the courage to become a man and face his adult responsibilities. His decision is also the redemption that the corpse bride requires to journey beyond the in-between world to, what we assume is heaven.
With images of singing, skeleton chorus lines, creepy-crawly ghouls, bifurcated talking cadavers and a skeletal canine, the underworld might seem garish; and for the youngest children a bit too frightening. The plot line of the power-hungry second suitor vying for the hand of the living heroine to gain her dowry and his ultimate plan to “do her in,” was even a bit surprising to me. But on second thought, I realized that it was no different than many of the traditional fairy tales that continue as staples in the children’s literary canon with scheming adults or suitors, themes of jealousy, loyalty and true love. The skill through which Burton links these themes into a cohesive narrative is a testament to his creative genious and to his unflinching belief that these stories, however dark and macabre, are valid vis à vis his personal convictions in the power and truth in this genre—sophisticated, universal, and ultimately redemptive.
As this Halloween holiday comes and goes, I am concerned that the historical significance of this holiday, and the iconography, themes and traditions are being subverted by a very vocal minority. In future posts, I will continue this thread with a look at Harry Potter and the latest film installment of the popular literary and filmic franchise along with observations regarding The Intiman Theatre’s Outreach program; and two productions from Seattle Children’s Theatre.
