CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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Nice comments re: re-tooling the spiderwalk. I would have preferred that they drop the bloody-mouth version and kept the creeping-around, long-tongue version. The latter was closer to what happens in the novel, and I think would blend in with the correct kind of fade-out.
I would hate to lose the scene completely, because we get to see another facet of Chris’s character. The look on her face right after Chuck leaves and she sees Regan spidering down the stairs, is priceless. Priceless in terms of her looking driven beyond endurance, and her look of total vulnerability. Whenever I see her turn from the wall and begin to see Regan, my heart goes out to her. Over and over again, every time I view this scene I choke up at “my poor friend Chris” being exposed to a new trauma.
Thanks for all your comments.
Ryan, I just read that Keach, Stacy, was in line for Karras but got bumped for Miller but please don’t kill me, I can’t recall where I saw it. I will post when I run into it again.
Captain, I’m glad you agree that Friedkin’s commentary was awful.
Mike, I need to go shopping and find the DVD you mention that has Blatty’s commentary… my DVD only has the Friedkin and a couple of TVYNS trailers.
Thanks for the tip.I have a few pix from the Ritual, but maybe Fr Lamont would enjoy it if you post some pix…
I never could figure out in The Beginning the stuff about “the Roman rituals”. Seems they were talking about two different things,
1) the red-covered book used in exorcism and featured in all of the Exorcist films. If that is the case, they mis-named it, because its correct name is the Roman Ritual, singular, not “the Roman rituals”, plural;
or
2) Merrin’s work with “the Roman rituals” in general, as if he were somehow involved with some kind of pre-Vatican II reform of Catholic rituals. If that is the case, they’re still off-base because Merrin is not a theologian-liturgical clerk, but rather an archeologist. There is no reason to think of him as revising or being at all involved with “the Roman rituals”.
Ryan, I’m glad you found the Keach reference.
Wouldn’t you know I seem to have the one DVD that doesn’t have any Blatty comments.
I don’t know why he didn’t supply a commentary track for Exorcist III.
I agree, having his explanations would be a rich experience. I don’t know how these things work – did Blatty have a choice whether or not to contribute a commentary? Or did he need to be invited to do so by the producers and/or the DVD people?
You would think that whoever put the DVD together would have wanted to have Blatty on it. I presume they would offer a substantial fee to Blatty? Maybe they didn’t invite him – or maybe he was too expensive for them, or from his POV, maybe they didn’t offer him enough…? Just speculating.
Thanks Blizzi for your comments. Yes, Mom’s face does confuse a clear scene. A scene that is crucial in understanding Karras’s single-minded motivation ought not be be muddled with gratuitous CG.
Too many kids – and adults – these days don’t “get” stuff unless it’s hammered into their heads – and quickly, because their attention spans are too short to absorb detailed story-telling.
The Exorcist unfolds at a deliberate pace. If viewers don’t have the attention span or the patience to enjoy its unfolding, they 1) need to be educated, or 2) serve Pazuzu forever in the infernal regions.
I think literacy has decreased massively since The Exorcist first came out, and I think that this is a big part of the problem. The “masses” seem not to know how to identify filmic metaphor, especially when it is couched in religious terms. They’re like a reader who thinks “Moby Dick” is (only) about a hunt for a big white whale. Similarly, they think that The Exorcist is (only) about a puke-and-filth spewing adolescent in conflict with two priests, one of whom cracks and commits suicide. Sure, there’s a demon mixed in, but he’s not very scary in comparison to the purported “scariness” of post-Exorcist cinematic villains.
Another element is the domestication of “indecency” (quotations because I’m not a prude and am against censorship and don’t wish to impose my standards on anyone), language-use.
When The Exorcist opened, the 60s were in a sense still very much alive. Ironically, the 60s’ new freedom of expression which allowed films like The Exorcist to flourish also “numbed the moral sense”.
Thus, language and scenes considered shocking to the point of traumatization _then_, merely cause yawning _now_. Once films have topped each other in profanity, overdone sexuality, and crudity, then there is little left that can truly shock. (This may be why recent “shockers” rely less on libertinism and more on subtlety and psychology – e.g., “The Sixth Sense”, “The Others”, “An American Possession”, etc.)
Therefore it seems that modern audiences are just too jaded, metaphorically-challenged, and short-attentioned to revere The Exorcist for the great film that it is. Compassion wishes to educate them, while love for The Exorcist also ignites profound sadness and anger over those who cannot or will not appreciate it.
No, sorry, I don’t know if WPB had to cut thru red tape for the citation. He did a good job of clipping relevant portions of such a long text.
Yeah, Legion’s theme seems to be dualism as symbolized by:
the two Vennamun brothers,
the Gemini Zodiac sign of “the Twins”,
Amfortas’s experience of the doppelganger / the “good”, healing Amfortas vs. the “evil”, murdering Amfortas
the two heavenly orbs, one God, the other “the Angel”,
the two spirits inhabiting Karras’s body,
the complentarity of the brotherly relationship between Kinderman and Dyer and Kinderman and Steadman (if I recall the name correctly).
Dyadic metaphors aplenty, like you said, but not so much horror as in The Exorcist.
