The Exorcist

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Template:Infobox Film The Exorcist is a novel written by William Peter Blatty first published in 1971. It was made into a successful and Academy Award-winning horror film in 1973, with the screenplay being written by Blatty as well.

The film version was directed by William Friedkin and starred Max von Sydow as Father Lankester Merrin, Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil, Jason Miller as Father Damien Karras, Jack MacGowran as Burke Dennings, Lee J. Cobb as Lieutenant William Kinderman and Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil. Regan's voice when possessed was dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge. The theme music is a part of Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield.

Blatty based his novel on a supposedly genuine exorcism from 1949, which was partially performed in both Cottage City, Maryland [1] and Bel-Nor, Missouri. [2] Several area newspapers reported on a speech a minister gave to an amateur parapsychology society, in which he claimed to have exorcised a demon from a thirteen-year-old boy named Robbie, and that the ordeal lasted a little more than six weeks.

Contents

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the film, Father Merrin, an elderly priest, is in the Middle East studying ancient relics which are evidence of demon worship. His discovery of a bizarre statue seems to release an evil force. Meanwhile, a young girl named Regan, living in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., with her mother (a famous actress), becomes inexplicably ill. She undergoes a series of physical and psychological changes.

After unsuccessful medical tests and treatment, Regan's mother turns to religion. The girl is examined by a priest, Father Damien Karras, who is convinced of the diabolical nature of the case. He turns to the local bishop, who appoints Father Merrin to perform an exorcism with Karras assisting. The lengthy exorcism tests the priests, both physically and spiritually. It is interesting to note that the demon possessing Regan went by the name of Pazuzu who Father Merrin had battled on his own years before. One of the more famous lines from the exorcism itself is the two priests chanting: "The power of Christ compels you!"

The film originally contained several key sequences from the novel, which were cut prior to release by director Friedkin, despite Blatty's protests. These scenes were later restored and — along with a number of new digital effects — inserted into the re-release subtitled "the version you've never seen" in 2000.

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Responses

The film was a huge international hit in 1973, becoming the highest-grossing film of the year. To date, it has a total gross of $402,500,000 worldwide (not adjusted for inflation). It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and also won four Golden Globes, including the award for Best Picture - Drama (for the year 1974). McCambridge's role was originally uncredited; after Blair was nominated for her role, McCambridge initiated a lawsuit seeking redress.

The Exorcist is regarded by some critics as being one of the best and most effective horror films; admirers say the film balances a stellar script, gruesome effects, and outstanding performances. However, the movie has developed some detractors as well, including Kim Newman, Pauline Kael, and Vincent Canby, who have criticised it for what they see as messy plot construction, conventionality, and overblown pretentiousness, among other perceived defects. Writer James Baldwin provides an extended negative critique in his book length essay The Devil Finds Work .

The Exorcist contained a number of special effects, engineered by makeup legend and pioneer Dick Smith. Roger Ebert believed the effects to be so unusually graphic he wrote, "That it received an R rating and not the X is stupefying."[3]

The Exorcist was also accused of, among many other things, manipulation of its audience through the use of subliminal imagery. While a detailed article in the July/August 1991 issue of Video Watchdog provides stills that seem to verify this claim, some fans of the film have noted that the imagery in question should be easily apparent to all viewers and therefore cannot be truly considered subliminal.

The film has been seen by some commentators as evoking contemporary issues of female identity, particularly in how female sexuality is threatening to men.

In the United Kingdom, the movie was included in the 'Video nasty' phenomenon of the early 1980s. Although it had been released uncut for home video in 1981, when resubmitted for classification to the British Board of Film Classification after the implementation of the Video Recording Act 1984 it was refused a release and no video copies were to be sold in the UK. However, following a successful re-release in cinemas in 1998, the film was resubmitted and was passed uncut with an 18 certificate rating in 1999, signifying a relaxation of the censorship rules with relation to home video in the UK. The movie was shown on UK television for the first time in 2001, on Channel 4.

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Academy Awards

The Exorcist was nominated for a total of 10 Academy Awards in 1973. At the 46th Annual Academy Awards ceremony, it won two statuettes.

Wins:

Nominations:

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Sequels

John Boorman's poorly-received Exorcist II: The Heretic was released in 1977. Subsequent sequels ignore it.

Blatty directed The Ninth Configuration, a post-Vietnam War drama set in a mental institution. Released in 1980, it was based on Blatty's novel of the same name. Though it contrasts sharply with the tone of The Exorcist, Blatty regards Configuration as its true sequel. A minor character in The Exorcist, an astronaut named Lt. Cutshaw (he actually wasn't given a name in the first film, though Blatty has stated that they are the same person) is the lead character.

The more successful The Exorcist III appeared in 1990, written and directed by Blatty himself from his own 1983 novel Legion, the true sequel to the original novel. Exorcist III ignored the events of Exorcist II and presented a satisfying conclusion to the story after 15 years. Following the precedents set in The Ninth Configuration, Blatty turned a minor character from the first film into the chief protagonist — this time, it is the bumbling Detective Kinderman.

A parody entitled Repossessed was released the same year, with Blair lampooning the role she played in the original.

A made-for-television film entitled Possessed was broadcast on Showtime on October 22, 2000. It claimed to follow the true accounts that inspired Blatty to write The Exorcist. It was directed by Steven E. de Souza and written by de Souza and Michael Lazarou, from the book of the same name by Thomas B. Allen. Main characters were played by Timothy Dalton, Henry Czerny and Christopher Plummer.

A prequel, Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) attracted attention and controversy even before its release. John Frankenheimer was originally scheduled to direct the script by William Wisher and Caleb Carr. However, Frankenheimer died during the film's early casting.

Paul Schrader was hired to replace Frankenheimer. He filmed a version called The Exorcist: Dominion (later retitled Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist), starring Stellan Skarsgård as a younger Father Merrin. Morgan Creek Productions disliked Schrader's rough final edit of the film. Roger Ebert writes that the company thought Schrader's version was "too complex and intelligent, although those of course were not the words they used, and not scary enough." Ebert adds, "it seems scary to me ... (it) is not a conventional horror film, but does something risky and daring: It takes evil seriously."[4]

Schrader was replaced by Renny Harlin. Harlin re-cast some of the parts, keeping Skarsgård, Julian Wadham, Andrew French, Ralph Brown, and Antonie Kamerling, and replacing Gabriel Mann with James D'Arcy (Mann had a scheduling conflict and was unavailable) and Clara Bellar with Izabella Scorupco. Alexi Hawley rewrote the script to make it more conventionally scary. The New York Times quotes Skarsgård as saying that Hawley's contribution "wasn't really a script ... but just a bunch of ideas about how to make the film scarier, basically by throwing in unmotivated scares in every second scene. I didn't like it and I didn't want to do it. But then Renny Harlin came on, who I've worked with before ... who is a friend."[5]

Harlin's version was not widely screened for critics (and was generally panned by those critics who did see it). Blatty was quoted in the New York Times, saying his screening of Harlin's version "was surely the most humiliating professional experience of my life, particularly the finale. I don't blame Renny Harlin, for he gave Morgan Creek, I promise you, precisely what Morgan Creek demanded: not shocking obscenity, but shocking vulgarity."

Harlin's version did disappointing business, grossing about $40 million (the budget was about $30 million for Schrader's unreleased version, and another $50 million for Harlin's).

Schrader's version was ultimately given a limited release, opening the same weekend as Star Wars: Episode Three. The film was renamed Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist and was released as a separate DVD on October 25, 2005. While general reaction to the film has been negative, most reviewers have considered it superior to the Renny Harlin version.

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DVD & Soundtrack Releases

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DVD

The Exorcist has been released three times on DVD:

  • Originally as a bare bones DVD.
  • Then, as a 25th Anniversary Special Edition, featuring commentaries from Freidkin and Blatty, storyboards and the 75 minute BBC documentary The Fear of God - The Making of the Exorcist. (This version has also been released in a Collector's Set, featuring the CD, a book on the making of the film, and reprints of the original lobby-cards.)
  • Strangely, the current release has been reverted to another practically bare-bones edition, featuring only the newer Version You Haven't Seen, with another commentary from Freidkin (generally considered to be far inferior to his earlier commentary, since he has nothing new to add and merely describes what is happening onscreen), Dolby Digital 5.1 EX sound and some trailers.

Thus, there is currently no 'definitive' release of the Exorcist. The 25th Anniversary Edition contains a fine selection of extras, but only has the older cut of the film. The 'Version You've Never Seen' release has far superior picture and sound, but only contains the newer cut and practically no extras.

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CD

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Original Release

The original LP has only been released once on CD, as an expensive and hard to find Japanese import. It is noteworthy for being the only soundtrack to include the Tubular Bells theme, and the composition Night Of The Electric Insects.

Track listing

  • 1. Iraq (Jack Nitzche/Krzysztof Penderecki) (01:57)
  • 2. Georgetown/Tubular Bells (Mike Oldfield) (05:27)
  • 3. Five Pieces For Orchestra, Op. 10: Sehr langsam und ausserst ruhig (Anton Webern) (01:16)
  • 4. Polymorphia (Krzysztof Penderecki) (11:48)
  • 5. String Quartet (Krzysztof Penderecki) (07:11)
  • 6. Windharp (Harry Bee) (02:41)
  • 7. Night of the Electric Insects (George Crumb) (01:38)
  • 8. Kanon for Orchestra and Tape (Krzysztof Penderecki) (09:48)
  • 9. Tubular Bells (Mike Oldfield) (00:27)
  • 10. Fantasia for Strings (Hans Werner Henze) (02:11)
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Rerelease

The Warners re-release (included in the 25th Anniversary collector's set) omits the main theme (Tubular Bells) and the Night Of The Electric Insects, for rights reasons. But includes 15 minutes of music which Lalo Schifrin originally composed for the film.

Track listing

  • 1. Iraq (Jack Nitzsche/Krzysztof Penderecki) (01:56)
  • 2. Five Pieces For Orchestra (Anton Webern) (01:11)
  • 3. Polymorphia (Krzysztof Penderecki) (11:49)
  • 4. String Quartet No. 1 (Krzysztof Penderecki) (07:14)
  • 5. Beginnings from "The Wind Harp" (Harry Bee) (02:41)
  • 6. Kanon for Orchestra and Tape (Krzysztof Penderecki) (09:52)
  • 7. Fantasia for Strings (Hans Werner Henze) (02:21)
  • 8. Music from the Unused Trailer (Lalo Schifrin) (01:10)
  • 9. Suite from the Unused Score to THE EXORCIST (Lalo Schifrin) (11:11)
  • 10. Rock Ballad - Unused Theme from THE EXORCIST (Lalo Schifrin) (01:52)
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Trivia

  • McCambridge's voice was reportedly not processed to make it sound more demonic. She had worked extensively in radio drama and had a flexible vocal range. In interviews, she described eating raw eggs, a pulpy apple, and experimenting with hot pepper sauce to get a properly rough, gurgling sound.
  • The part of Regan was originally offered to actress Dana Plato, whose mother refused to allow her to take it. Pamelyn Ferdin, a veteran of science fiction and supernatural drama, was another candidate, but the producers felt she was too well-known. The part went instead to Linda Blair, a relative unknown who at that time could have been Ferdin's twin. Blair's stunt double in a few scenes was Eileen Dietz, an older actress.
  • There have been rumors that the various Exorcist films were cursed.[7] Blatty, Schrader and von Sydow have discounted such tales as nonsense, used primarily for promotion.
  • Father Dyer is played by Reverend William O'Malley, an actual priest who still teaches to this day at Fordham University. [8]
  • The film was edited at 666 Fifth Avenue in Washington.
  • The poster image and important scene where Father Merrin arrives at the MacNeil house was inspired by René Magritte's 1954 painting L'Empire des lumières (Empire of Light, several versions) [9] [10]. The painting has a daylight sky but the house below in darkness. The director explained (in the film documentary A Decade Under the Influence) it took all day and all night to setup the lighting and they shot the following night.


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External links

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