Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For: The Exorcist - 1973

THE EXORCIST 1973lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-exorcist-1973.html

I remember first becoming aware of William Peter Blatty’s novel, The Exorcist in 1971 when I saw an actress talkingabout it on The Merv Griffin Show. As hard as it is to imagine now, the average person in the '70s didn't know whatan exorcist was, so Griffin initially (and perhaps intentionally) misheard the title and thought the actress was talkingabout a fitness book. Upon hearing what a terrifying read it was, coupled with the inevitable comparisons to thatlongtime fave of mine, Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby – the most high-profile Devil vs. Catholicism novel to date – Iwent to the library and was put on a long waiting list to get The Exorcist.

Before the shot of Father Merrin standing under the streetlamp became an iconictouchstone, the image of an open bedroom window with the drapes blowing

outward was the primary advertising image for The Exorcist

In 1971 I was just a freshman at Saint Mary’s Catholic High School in Berkeley, California. And while devout at thetime, I wasn't quite the same religiously impressionable Catholic School kid who was traumatized by Rosemary’sBaby in 1968. As a novel, I thought The Exorcist reveled a little too much in detailing the grotesqueries of demonicpossession for me to take it as the serious discourse on the eternal battle between Christian faith and evil its authorpurported it to be, but it did grab me as one of the singularly most gripping and harrowing horror novels I'd ever read.What a page-turner! It was scary, emotionally credible, and rooted in a theological world I was familiar with. I'dnever read anything quite like it, and I couldn't put it down. When the film adaptation of The Exorcist came out on theday after Christmas (!) in 1973—with much advance fanfare but very little in the way of actual "How are they goingto make a movie of THAT book?" details—I was somehow successful in persuading my entire family to go to San

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Francisco's Northpoint Theater (where it played for six months...an unheard of run today) to see it before news andreviews gave too much info away. After waiting in a reasonable-sized line to get in (the very last time lines wouldever be that small for most of the film's run), my family and I all had the supreme pleasure of having the holy crapscared out of us in stereophonic sound. Seasons Greetings!

Ellen Bursty as Chris MacNeil

Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil

Max von Sydow as Father Lankester Merrin

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Jason Miller as Damian Karras

Lee J. Cobb as Lt. William Kinderman

When we saw The Exorcist, Mike Oldfield’s eerie “Tubular Bells” theme was in heavy rotation on the radio under thetitle: The Theme from ‘The Exorcist, and advance word had it that people were passing out, vomiting , and beingcarried out of theaters in hysterics in reaction to the unprecedented horror of what transpired onscreen. Anticipationwas so high and lines for the movie were so long that people were even passing out before getting into the theater. Where we lucked out is that we saw The Exorcist right away, while people were still away on Christmas holiday,before the film went into wide release, and before word-of-mouth spread and mass hysteria set in. Few peopleremember it, but The Exorcist was really the dark horse release of 1973. The really heavily anticipated films thatChristmas season were Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman in the prison escape film Papillon; Clint Eastwood inMagnum Force, the sequel to the hugely popular Dirty Harry (1971); and The Sting - a comedy (and thus the mostholiday-friendly release of those listed) which marked the much-anticipated re-teaming of Butch Cassidy & theSundance Kid’s Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

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Jack MacGowran as Burke DenningsThe character actor, familiar to fans of Roman Polanski by his appearances in the

films Cul-De-Sac and The Fearless Vampire Killers, died not long aftercompleting work on The Exorcist. His death at age 54 (from flu-related

complications) is often cited as part of the so-called The Exorcist Curse. Detailsabout which can be found throughout the internet.

All the smart holiday boxoffice money was riding on the above three films. Each movie was a major release boastingthe absolute top-ranking stars of their day, promoted with massive publicity campaigns and pre-sold audienceinterest. In addition, each film had a significant release date jump on The Exorcist (December 16th for Papillon,Christmas Day for The Sting and Magnum Force). The Sting, in particular, was blessed with the added advantage ofhaving received largely positive reviews from the critics, and was shored up promotionally by the growing popularityof its theme music: Marvin Hamlisch’s jaunty adaptation of Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” which became an instantMOR favorite on radio.By way of contrast, The Exorcist was based on a popular and controversial bestseller, but featured a cast of actorswhose names (if known at all) meant absolutely nothing at the boxoffice. In fact, author William Peter Blatty andAcademy Award-winning director William Friedkin (The French Connection) were initially The Exorcist’s mostexploitable commodities.

Kitty Winn as Sharon Spencer

The Exorcist was such a talked-about book that a great deal of interest surrounded its film release, but advancereviews of the film were poor to mixed, and few Hollywood oddsmakers had any confidence that holiday audienceswould be in the mood to see a dark-themed horror film the day after Christmas. So, while most of San Francisco waslining up to swoon over Paul Newman’s blue eyes or see Clint Eastwood blowing bad guys away with his .45; myfamily and I got in to see The Exorcist with comparative ease. Lucky for us that we did. The Exorcist opened on a

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Wednesday, and by the weekend, it had grown into the must-see film of the season. Lines wound around the blockand crowd control tactics had to be employed to deal with the overflow numbers. In the course of a few days, TheExorcist had become a cultural phenomenon.

Site of Where I Had the Holy Hell Scared Out of MeThe Exorcist opened at San Francisco's Northpoint Theater, located on thecorner of Bay and Powell. Click HERE to see great documentary footage oftheater patrons from 1973 reacting to seeing The Exorcist for the first time.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILMLooking back on that first time seeing The Exorcist, the memory that stands out the strongest is of the entireexperience being so thrilling an emotional. There was just a feeling in the air that gave me the sense I was seeingsomething really special. A feeling more exciting than mere anticipation of the unknown; something deeper thanbeing frightened, something more electric than my response to the film's ability to shock, unsettle, repulse, or takeme by surprise. It was the sense that I was being treated to a really different kind of film and being drawn into areality calculated to get me to respond on a visceral level.It was at truly thrilling, one-of-a-kind experience seeing The Exorcist for the first time. It generated for me the kind ofexcitement that makes you shiver in your seat and pull your coat up around your chin. you sit there with your eyeswide open, not wanting to miss a thing, and then every once in a while something would happen that would makeyour jaw fly open or cause you to cover your eyes. . As one grows older, this type of total emotional immersionbecomes harder to come by, but at age 16, I was just mature enough and just naïve enough for The Exorcist to giveme the thrill ride of my life.

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Home & Family and the Illusion of SafetyWhen I saw The Exorcist, I was still at he age still feel where one feels one's homeand family is sufficient a blanket of security to keep harm at bay. The Exorcist, in

detailing the banal normalcy of the lives Chris and her daughter (juxtaposedwith the barely-acknowledged tension of familial discord and divorce), shattered

the illusion of home as sanctuary.

Religious ImageryEven though, at age 16, I was starting to question all I had been taught in years ofCatholic School, the traditions of religion; its mythology and iconography, couldstill prove unsettling to me in a context as violent and anarchic as The Exorcist.

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Adult as ProtectorIn a teenager's world, adults are still the figures one looks to for strength and the

reestablishment of order when things go wrong. The Exorcist, in showing amother helpless to save her child in the face of an unnamed evil, hit a raw nervewith me. This cutaway shot of Chris reacting to the horror of Regan's possessionjust blew me away as a kid. Even today, this brief shot still sands as one of the

one of the most powerful images in the film for me.

Rev. William O'Malley as Father Joseph DyerMost of the teachers at my school were either priests or Catholic Brothers. A

great many of them looked exactly like real-life priest William O'Malley. A fact thatonly went to further cement the disturbing verisimilitude within the fantasy that

was The Exorcist.

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Good vs EvilI daresay that the disheartening state of the contemporary world is enough to

challenge anyone's faith. But to be raised Catholic is to feel acutely the disparitybetween what one is taught to believe and what one encounters in the world. Thevisual excesses of The Exorcist have always felt like such a perfect dramatization

of the inexplicable ugliness in the world that exists side-by-side with all that isbeautiful. Though I'd hasten to label it poetic, I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to

call it powerful (and occasionally moving).

Science vs. ReligionToday, I find the willful disavowal of science in favor of myth and ignorance to befairly absurd, but in my youth, both Rosemary's Baby and (most explicitly) TheExorcist provocatively held forth on the possibility that science was perhaps nomatch for that which could not be explained. This point was driven agonizinglyhome when The Exorcist's scenes of medical science at work proved far more

shocking and inhumane than anything the Devil was able to cook up.

PERFORMANCESOne benefit afforded me back in 1973 that’s denied most viewers of The Exorcist today, was my wholesaleunfamiliarity with the film’s cast. Linda Blair and Jason Miller were, of course, making their film debuts, but outside ofLee J. Cobb, The Exorcist was the first time I’d ever seen Ellen Burstyn and Max von Sydow on the screen. Theremoval of that extra layer of subliminal artificiality—born of watching actors one knows from earlier films portrayingentirely different characters—immeasurably enhanced The Exorcist’s verisimilitude and heightened its intensity forme. The actors were the characters they played. It's something you can't always count on or anticipate, but when afilm asks an audience to accept fantastic events as realistic, it helps to eliminate as many reminders as possible thatone is "watching a movie." In this instance, my ignorance contributed to my bliss.

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Ellen Burstyn’s Oscar-nominated performance is a good example of why, even when making cheap horror films, it’sworth the expense and trouble to get good actors. Neither Damien Karras' crisis of faith nor Father Merrin'spreordained encounter with the forces of evil engaged me as much as the gradual emotional disintegration of ChrisMacNeil and her mounting desperation. Burstyn's incredibly committed performance has always been The Exorcist'semotional center for me, and it's precisely the kind of grounded realism she brings to her role that draws me into thefilm's events and gets me to believe in it. Even as the film's special effects begin to look quaint in this age of CGI,Burstyn's performance never gets old. Everyone in The Exorcist is terrific, but I have total confidence in my beliefthat the film wouldn't have worked at all without her.

I've come to look kindlier upon Lee J. Cobb's ramshackle Lt. Kinderman over theyears. When The Exorcist first came out, Peter Falk's Columbo was still on the air

and Cobb's takes-forever-to-get-to-the-point detective seemed then like animitation.

When it comes to genre films, the most elaborate special effects in the world don’t amount to much when there isnothing human at the center of all that carnage and melodrama. Many a well-made horror film has been ruined byactors incapable of registering even the most rudimentary signs of fear, despair, anguish, or trauma…recognizablehuman reactions which raise the emotional stakes of the drama, helping the audience to become invested in theoutcome.

THE STUFF OF FANTASYNo point in going on about The Exorcist's then-unprecedented shocks. Suffice it to say that I spent a great deal ofthe latter part of the film with my coat at the ready to shield my eyes; my little sister was reduced to tears; and asizable portion of my popcorn went uneaten. There's been much written about what an emotional roller-coaster

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ride The Exorcist is, but few mention what a physical toll this movie takes. I remember my body being wound tighterthan a mainspring every time a character approached that bedroom door. The sense of apprehension and dread Ifelt at every reveal of the degree of Linda Blair's possession was almost unbearable. And the sound! Was there evera film with a more active and jarring soundtrack? Even when your eyes were closed the movie terrified you.

No one fainted or passed out during the screening, but such screaming and yelping you never heard in your life.People leaving the theater had the look of folks who had just been rescued off of a sinking ship or something. Somewere giddy and pleased with themselves for having survived, others looked drained and in need of physical support,and many were just stumbling out as if a daze. Me? I recall wobbly knees and teary eyes (It always makes me crywhen Linda Blair kisses the clerical collar of Father Dyer). Was I grossed out? Yes! Was I entertained? Oh, butyes...it was wonderful!

The Exorcist author and screenwriter William Peter Blatty (r.) makes a cameoappearance.

THE STUFF OF DREAMSThe enduring legacy of The Exorcist disproves the popular belief held in 1973 among the film’s detractors whoclaimed that once the shock value of the gross-out effects were experienced, there was little of substance in the filmfor audiences to enjoy. On the contrary, my familiarity with the film’s shock effects has allowed me, over the ears, togrow ever more appreciative of what a superior example of filmmaking as storytelling The Exorcist really is. Whetherone takes it seriously as the “theological thriller” it was intended to be, or, like me, merely enjoy it as one of the besthorror movies ever made, The Exorcist is a bona fide, gold-plated classic of the first order. And I’m thrilled to havebeen around to experience The Exorcist cultural phenomenon first-hand. I’ll never forget it.

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Linda BlairMet her in a L.A. supermarket and she was such a sweetie when Iasked for an autograph. I commented on how she is one of myfavorite screen criers, to which she replied "You've seen those

movies,...believe me, it's heartfelt!"

THE AUTOGRAPH FILES:

Copyright © Ken Anderson

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