Directed by William Friedken
Written by William Peter Blatty
Starring Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Max Von Sydow,
Lee J. Cobb, Jack MacGowran, and Kitty Winn
Mark Kermode, who wrote a thorough, short book on The Exorcist,
delivers an overview of my thoughts best:
"The Exorcist presented a credible portrait of the modern
urban world ripped apart by an obscene, ancient evil. For the
first time in a mainstream movie, audiences witnessed the graphic
desecration of everything that was considered wholesome and good
about the fading American Dream -- the home, the family, the
church and, most shockingly, the child. Here were images of a
young white American girl urinating on the floor of her suburban
home, vomiting on the neighbourhood clergy, battering and
humiliating her mother, lewdly abusing religious artifacts, and
spewing forth obscenities that would shame Lenny Bruce -- all
delivered in a high-glass, high-voltage cinematic package which
used avant-garde sound and vision editing to further penetrate
the viewer's hyperstimulated psyche.
"But below the gaudy surface, something far more complex and
contradictory was at work in The Exorcist. For all the outrage
the film provoked among the "moral majority" and the
religious right, the tensions that it portrayed were recognisable
and credible, even to those who despised the movie. Rebellious
children, the breakdown of the family, the lack of respect for
religious traditions, the destruction of the home -- these were
all issues that deeply troubled the conservative elements of
America. More importantly, the solutions The Exorcist appeared to
offer were oddly reassuring for those who longed for a return to
an absolute moral order. For here on screen was a clear-cut
struggle between good and evil in which priests, policemen, good
mothers and devoted sons fought a righteous battle to release
rebellious, parent-hating children rom the grip of a lustful, all-consuming
devil."
In the end, the film is a clear triumph of good over evil in an
uncertain world where the lines are blurred and the corners
fudged. It is also a cinematic declaration that such an evil
exists. It is an ultimate rejection of moral relativism. After
all, you cannot really find "good" or "justification"
or "well, sure . . . but" in Satan. There is no bargain,
even as Chris McNeil (Ellen Burstyn) screams at the doctors
"You're telling me that I should take my daughter to a witch
doctor." The answer is, yes, there is no modern skate or
help for you.
The film opens near an archaeological dig in Iraq. There,
Friedken shows a harsh and poverty-stricken world where the blind
are led, a widow grieves,
people work in small foundries like toilers in Hell, the heat is
oppressive and Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) gets a sign that he
will be meeting Satan.
We are immediately transported to Washington, D.C., where another
priest - Father Karras (Jason Miller) - is in a modern Hell. He
is counselor to Catholic priests, he tells one that "There's
not a day in my life when I don't feel like a fraud" and he
tells another "I think I've lost my faith." Karras'
mother is in New York, she needs care, she lives in a slum, and
he is racked with guilt over his abandonment.
Friedken masterfully demonstrates the connection between a
society sick by sin and the infestation of the one girl, Regan
McNeil (Linda Blair). She is the daughter of a Hollywood actress
(Burstyn) on location in D.C. for a film. As her personality
changes, she undergoes rigorous medical procedures (an
arteriogram and a pneumoenchephalogram) that are graphic and
invasive; her father has abandoned her; she is alone and lonely,
in a foreign town and a rented house, most of the time prior to
her ordeal; her exorcist, Father Karras is distraught and on the
edge of breakdown; he counsels other priests sick at heart; his
mother wastes away in New York, eventually dying in a desolate,
cold asylum where the mentally-ill mill about and cackle at her;
the director of Ellen Burstyn's film in the film (MacGowran) is a
lonely drunk cursed my memories of the Holocaust; that same
director scathingly tortures Burstyn's housekeeper, of Germanic
descent. Everything is rife with wrong and discomfort, and
Friedken and Blatty depict hell-on-earth convincingly.
Friedken also shows us the sexual desecration of the Virgin Mary
early in his story, a portent, but also a sad fact that such a
desecration occurs in modern society, and a little girl need not
be possessed for it to happen.
As Regan descends into the throes of possession, Friedken and
Blatty smartly turn the world on its head: the physicians, once
cocky, can offer Burstyn only the Jesuits and when she talks to
Karras (who is also an Ivy League trained psychologist), he
immediately sends her back to the doctors and recommends the
child's institutionalization.
Friedken uses all means at his disposal to discomfort the viewer
visually, from the foul, such as the vomit and goo and the
masturbation-with-crucifix (FYI - Blair had a stunt double who
was used in the disturbing sexual scenes, for those who may have
been wondering - double or no, it is still quite a shock to see a
little girl utter the abomination "Let Jesus fuck you, let
him fuck you") to the subtle (the use of subliminal cuts, as
when Father Karras dreams of his mother and sees a death mask and
when the same mask is overlaid on Blair's face during the
exorcism). He also had the set dropped to below freezing and the
effect on the actors is stunning - their fear is enhanced by
physical cold and the steam of breath is another frightening
component.
Indeed, Blatty - an earnest writer of a morality tract in
constant combat with Friedken, who gravitated to the P.T. Barnum
aspects of the film - said in an interview of the masturbation
scene: "A large section of the audience probably came
because something that shocking and vulgar could be seen on the
American screen. Bill Friedken always said that would be the case;
that they would come to see the little girl masturbate with the
crucifix . . . At the time I didn't believe it; I thought he was
destroying the film. But when I perceived that he was absolutely
right, I thought it was terribly depressing."
The Friedken-Blatty relationship (Blatty wanted Friedken to
direct because Friedken had once honestly derided one of Blatty's
earlier screenplays to the writers' face) has some parallels to
Satan and the child. Blatty constantly fought to place the
theological over the gore and action, Friedken the opposite.
Eventually, Blatty was banned from the shooting lot.
The film has the effect of a freight train loosed downhill. Stan
is introduced as an imaginary friend to a lonely girl. He then
comes in the form of sleep problems, then scratches and thumps.
Before you know it, there is an army of doctors, the girl is a
potential killer and demonic possession enters.
Friedken is constantly tracking his characters slowly, taking the
time to lovingly show what they see. Burstyn's walk home from a
film shoot in Georgetown, where she see Karras furtively
counseling one priest and she also sees two nuns walking, with
the wind whipping their garb, gives an eerie sense of her
watching something foreign and mystical. In fact, most of his
camera work is tracking or slow zooms in and out, with the
occasional hand-held jolt (mostly, when characters are rushing to
Regan's room).
The performances are just right, to a fault. Blair is sweet and
gentle as needs be, and - with the help of a stunt double, the
voice of Mercedes MacCambridge and various pulleys - she
transforms convincingly into a leering, goading demon. Ellen
Burstyn demonstrates a mother at the end of her rope, but also
grows to a hardened, more simple warrior by the end of the film.
Von Sydow is appropriately spooky as the doomed Father Merrin.
McGowran and Lee J. Cobb are winning as the murder victim and the
murder policeman. Cobb's gentle interrogations of Karras and
McNeil are the kind of quiet respites necessary for such a tense
film. Better yet, they represent the skeptic challenging the
believer at the believer's most tenuous. The film should be a
Hollywood treatise on the exposition of minor characters.
The great performance, however, belongs to Jason Miller (who
never really did much after "The Exorcist"). His is a
tortured existence, filled with doubt, and his trepidation shows
in his eyes. Physically, Miller plays him almost as a man who
fears that his weakness is obvious to all, so he shrinks himself.
In that way, Father Karras almost becomes a man who knows Satan
is looking for him. Invariably, Friedken films Miller hunched
over, or huddled in talk, or sitting down, or crouched, or in a
crowd. The effect is to make Karras as invisible as a man who is
losing faith needs to be.
The Exorcist has two principal weaknesses. First, Friedken allows
Blatty his time at slow development and a building story, with
full delving into the medical and psychological battle to save
Regan. But when the Jesuits are called in, you can sense Friedken
getting antsy and saying "This is a summer horror film,
dammit! Let's get on with it." Accordingly, the priests are
thrown into the fray without the same kind of explication as
before. The effect is rushed, but often missed. The film could
have benefited from another 20 minutes, with the same care given
the theological background as that given the medical.
The first weakness adds to the second - the character of Merrin.
Regan as demon calls for Merrin and the individual struggle
between this one priest and Satan (he had performed and exorcism
before) is never fully developed.
Otherwise, I find the film a rarity, a thinking person's horror
film. Indeed, since most thinking people don't go for myth over
science, or the spiritual over the tangible, the film is all the
more ambitious.
Thank you for your time. We'll have a pop quiz later.
