CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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Blizzi, thanks! There they are in the same scene. Nice to notice details like the ray of light transversing Morning’s right hand…
I don’t think of those things you listed as paranormal activity…
The demons telling her to eat is just delusion, and her delusional response was… not to eat. Or, to fast – which again puts her in a similar condition to shamans going thru an ordeal of fasting. Her delusions caused her to stop eating, to practice anorexea. That’s not paranormal, it’s just sick. You ask why she was doing it – well, probably because her mental illness drove her to it. She could have had an unconscious need to punish herself, or in her dissociated state, felt that the “demonic” compulsions were too strong to resist.
Not touching sacred objects – again, that’s not paranormal, it’s just acting out the kind of behavior that is expected when one is – or thinks one is – “possessed”.
Superhuman strength _might_ sometimes indicate paranormality, but does crushing an apple require superhuman strength? I doubt it. Even greater feats of strength do not require a paranormal explanation, e.g., the famous example in the Friedkin film, given by Dr Tanney, of the mother who lifts a car off her child. Enhanced strength, sure, but not “superhuman”.
You’re entitled to think that the Michel case was genuine, but I just don’t see in it any evidence of the supernatural, based on Goodman’s book. Her story is weird and chilling, but not due to any supernatural intervention, just to the wild, bleak landscape of insanity.
Karl Malden might have come close in portraying Kinderman believably – except wasn’t he at that time already in Streets of San Francisco playing a detective…? I believe that Malden, like Kinderman, also wore a hat. If it was pre-“Streets”, he may have been able to pull it off. Post-“Streets” audiences would expect Michael Douglas to be lurking in the wings…
Blizzi, yes, the “details” would have been interesting if fleshed out…
MIKE, I agree… Scott’s Kinderman was not the warm figure that Cobb’s was. Some say that Scott’s Kinderman, hardened by 12 more years’ exposure to savage crimes, became a grouch. However, he was not such in the Legion novel – sometimes gruff, yes, but more in an affectionately teasing manner. Scott’s Kinderman was too much… Patton. I wonder if this was really the interpretation that Blatty wanted for Legion’s Kinderman…
Geez, Blizzi and MIKE, thanks so much for the very kind compliments.
MIKE I would like to consider your kind offer re: the Szumskyj’s essay book. Could you please tell me exactly how that would work? I.e., are the essays just random contributions or are topics assigned or suggested to avoid duplicate treatments? How does copyright work – are the essays individually copyrighted or does this happen as a group deal when they get incorporated into the book? I’m really quite flattered that you think there may be an audience for my meanderings.
MIKE, thanks for taking the time to explain the essay book to me and typing up all the pertinent info. Bluntly, the time constraint is probably too pressing – my summer is turning out to be far busier than I had thought it would be – but I’ll keep your idea in mind. Also I have a concern about quality. For example, having seen Ryan’s url, with all of its depth and literary knowledgability, makes me quite humble and doubting if I am up to the task. Not to mention all the other good posters with great ideas at CapnHowdy. But, again, thank you for your kind words… I am very flattered.
Ryan, thanks for the encouraging words – and for the important correction that the motto was on a card in Merrin’s, not Karras’s wallet. That fact makes the Morning scene work even better as a “Merrin-reflection”.
Blizzi, geez, thanks for the complimentary words. My head needs to go on a diet cuz it’s getting fat from all the nice things folks around here are saying…
Never heard of it, but it’s hard to miss with Karloff. Actually I haven’t seen a lot of his films. I recall being impressed with The Black Cat co-starring Bela Lugosi – it had a gruesome finale and the set decor was stylish and nouveau…
Good info there about Blatty wanting Scott, not Cobb! Yes, Cobb was endearing. I just can’t see Scott saying with Cobb’s conviction – about Chris’s autograph – “I lied! It’s for me!”
Sure, Scott can turn off the toughness, as when he deals with Mrs. Clelia and the old lady who asks if he is her son. But he was abusive to nearly everybody else: “I was signaling beings on Mars – sometimes they answer”; “You’re a racist, Ryan… Go home and talk about…Wops”; “It is NOT in the file! It is NOT!”; “We’re FINE!”, etc.
Cobb never flew off the handle – of course, we always see him solo, never ineracting with his police staff…
correction
it bothers me that if Blatty had those two good actors together for that one brief scene, why did he not include a potentially juicy encounter between the two?
sorry
Folk-fundamentalism at work. Strangle your 3-year-old granddaughter, making sure that she is bloodied in the process. The power of Shit Stupidness compels you. Bottom-feeding slimebag dirt sandwich losers.
The “demons” were part and parcel of her hallucinating brain state, roughly analagous to the “spirits” encountered in shamanic initiation. The names with which she labeled them probably originated with the hallucinations themselves, or were Anneliese’s subjective interpretation of her own dissociated personality fragments.
As Felicitas Goodman pointed out in “The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel”, the “demons” were obviously taken from local Germanic figures, e.g., “Hitler” – and they used the working-class crudities of the lower-class people whom anyone in Anneliese’s social milieu would have experienced locally. (“Locally” is the key: these “demons” were all-too-human expressions, with no suggestion of truly supernatural nonmaterial malevolent personalities.)
Sorry, I do not recall whether or not her eye color changed.
