CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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Kokumo wrote:
a man as talented as Blatty who understood the rythms of Friedkins' original film may have been able to salvage some of it.
Agreed. But it would have been a Herculean task, since it seems that Boorman did everything he could to destroy Friedkin's subtle rythms from the original film.
FWIW, the only thing I liked about the Boorman film were the early scenes of Merrin in Africa – Kokumo, the very good stage set/sfx of the locust swarm, and Merrin speculating, “Does great goodness draw evil to itself?” – there's a germ of a good Blattian story right there, but for me the rest of the film is putrid roadkill.
Maybe I'm not using the url properly but I don't see it – just a page full of odd and ends for sale.
Hi, Paz. You've been missed over at imdb.
Sorry I don't know anything about the status of Meyers' book – there hasn't been anything on imdb Exorcist or imdb Exorcist III: Legion either.
Nice to see you.
I don't hate TVYNV. In fact, I admire some of its features, while despising others. That is, I see it as a mixed bag.
Major likes include:
The beginning shot of the neighborhood and of the MacNeil house with Regan's bedroom light being turned off, then the Mary statue in the church … and then the mystical segue into the Iraqi muezzin's chanted blessing and the sun rising over Iraq.
Karras' first visit to the language lab where, after seeing the demonic Regan, he is listening to the real Regan's shy, giggly tape recording to her Dad. Obviously Karras is deeply enmeshed in the difference between the girl on the tape and “that thing upstairs” … AND significantly – this scene seques into Karras saying Mass, where his entire manner has changed. As he says, “This is the cup of the new and everlasting covenant, the Mystery of Faith”, it is clear that Karras has been jarred by the tapes. They have re-opened his sense of at least the possibility of the supernatural, and this realization is reflected in Miller's intense, significant delivery of the Liturgy.
Regan's first Dr. visit where she shoves the thermometer angrily back at Dr. Klein and sullenly tells him “I don't feel anything“. Then, while lying on the exam table, Regan's eyes slightly bulge and we see for the first time from her perspective the horrific visage of “the bad” version of Captain Howdy. This shot is completely appropriate and chilling, because it gives us a clear view of what this poor kid is up against. Then there is Regan's temporary, trance-like humming and wandering around the exam room, followed by her falling to the floor – a resonance with her behavior in the novel that was not referenced in the original version. This first examination scene assures the viewer that Regan is an endangered child, alone with Howdy's unpredictable appearances, and is already losing control of her conscious functons. This scene is followed by a painfully humorous explanation from Klein to Chris about Regan's use of profanity. The interaction between Burstyn and Heyman is some of the very best, naturalistic movie medical dialogue in history, and appropriately for the tone of this film, it ends on an unsettling note: Kilen tells Chris not to worry, and Chris replies with a single word: “How?” Perfect ending to a perfect “first medical exam” segment.
The pre-exorcism “lull before the hurricane” with its shots of Sharon trying to tune out the demon's rants and growls by turning up the volume of her transistor radio. The lovely inviting warmth of the living room where Merrin sits quietly saying his Rosary. Chris offering Merrin coffee with a shot of brandy and Merrin's gentle, slightly rebellious reply, “Well, the doctors say I shouldn't … but, thank God, my will is weak”. Giving Merrin a sense of humor provides a pleasant facet of his personality – humor – that was prevalent in the novel but completely missing in the original version. The scene is in no way a “show stopper” in the negative sense. On the contrary, it achieves two somewhat opposed emotional themes: on the one hand, the thickening atmosphere in the house as the demon summons its strength. and yet on the other hand, a bond is built between Chris and the brave, saintly, self-deprecatng Merrin. This emotional warmth culminates in Merrin asking Chris for Regan's middle name. “Theresa,” Chris tells Merrin, who returns an intensely warm gaze, and putting all his heart into his reply says, “What a lovely name” – the final comfort he can offer Chris before the exorcism begins.
And, of course, the “confessional” seen on the stairs where Merrin and Karras try to put some kind of understandable matrix onto the possession. They're both in the dark – “why this girl?” – but Merrin does make the pithy observation that everyone is the demon's target, and the immediate explanation is that the demon wants to dehumanize us to the point that we believe that we are too repulsive even for God to love. This aspect is assuredly accurate, with all of the vomiting, cursing, bleeding, starvation that flows from the demon. To believe that we are still objects of God's love, even though we are fillthy and unable to “purify” Regan, is one test of faith the demon issues simply by taking possession of a person, never mind the deeper theological and existential issues involved in this kind of extraordinary intervention.
Dyer returning to Chris the medal that had belonged to Damien Karras is very moving. In the original version, Dyer pockets it. In TVYNS, Dyer thinks a moment, puts the medal in Chris's hand and closes her hand around it: “No, you keep it”.
And I did enjoy the Kinderman-Dyer banter at the just-closed-and-locked MacNeil house gate. Kinderman's dialogue is rather odd, BUT recall he's a film buff, and his mention of Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball shoud be understandable to all US viewers who weren't born yesterday. Dyer's reaction is great. And, as they walk away arm in arm, the scene is touchingly shot from the aspect of the broken window from which Karras had so recently leaped. The way the scene is framed, it's highly suggestive of Karras being there is spirit, even as his two friends are remembering him. And, last, but not least, the soundtrack provides the original muezzin's chanted blessing as the two new friends walk away, thus musically framing the film between two blessings. Poignant and gently powerful.
So those are aspects of this version that I love. I can do without the multiple Howdy faces, the Pazuzu imprint on Regan's wall, and the dreadful, pointless, puzzling shot of Mary Karras in the window just before Karras jumps. But, excising these elements, I think TVYNS is superior to the original theatrical cut.
You're welcome, Fr. Bowdern 🙂
Yeah, I remember Fonda's and Tom Hayden's shenanigans in Vietnam. I think of it as extreme radicalism, but then, considering the times, it was part of that crazy patchwork quilt. I certainly don't think of her as treasonous, if by treason is meant the betrayal of one's country. She certainly “betrayed” the corrupt Johnson Administration's actions at home and abroad, but that's the right and duty of every American, as I see it. In Vietnam she broadcast messages to the US soldiery to consider refusing to bomb the Vietnamese, which, inasmuch as it was an effort to end the war, wins my admiration. I know this is not a political board, and nobody asked my opinion, but I see her activism as a type of heroism, just as I see Bradley Manning's dispersal of the truth to the American people and the world. This doesn't mean she was never an angry, foul-mouthed bitch, of course. It's just that government-caused-and-sponsored crimes like the Vietnam War, when clearly seen, tend to radicalize many conscientious people “in whose name” the government claims that such incursions are supposedly carried out. As far as her “fraternizing with the enemy”, “the enemy” was of course defined by the US's own viciously enraged imperialistic government. I never thought the North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong, etc. were my enemies. For them to be my enemies, they would have needed to be doing to us what we were doing to them, for instance, napalming our civilians, mass-bombing our towns and farmlands, disseminating Agent Orange, mining our harbors, etc. The US decimated Vietnam, not vice-versa, and still our “enemies” won the ultimate victory. If Fonda had a hand in that process, she has earned my respect.
“The Fonda thing” according to Blatty himself:
= – = – =
I sit here thinking of many things…of a day in the fall of ’71, when as I dozed in a hammock on the backyard patio of my agent, Noel Marshall, I heard the piping voice of Jane Fonda say in guarded tones from within the house, “There’s someone out there.” I believe she meant me… I clenched my eyelids, feigning sleep: for Billy Friedkin and I had offered Miss Fonda the role of Chris MacNeil…, and after reading the novel Miss Fonda had reacted, according to her agent, with the following statement telephoned from Paris: “Why would any studio want to make this capitalist ripoff bullshit?” Which, when I’d heard it, I’d understood to mean that she didn’t want to do the part. Now I heard a screen door sliding open: then footsteps. I opened my eyes and saw Miss Fonda approaching the hammock…. But it seemed that Miss Fonda had come to say something nice. She had heard the report of her comment on my novel and wanted to tell me that it wasn’t true. “The reason I didn’t want to do it,” she explained sincerely, “was because I don’t believe in magic.”
William Peter Blatty on The Exorcist: From Novel to Film, Bantam 1974, p. 3
= – = – =
So, according to WPB, the original “capitalist ripoff bullshit” remark was misattributed to Fonda, secondhand, based on something that her agent was supposed to have said, and then Fonda explained “the real reason” that she declined the part.
Yeah, like it says, memory's in the storyteller's eye. At least if we go along with Blatty's version, we can give some credence to Blair's later protestations of sexual innocence. Maybe 😉
Otoh, Blatty maintained that it did not involve Blair at all, just one of the hundreds of applicants for the part of Regan. Friedkin asked the kid if she knew what masturbation is, and she replied, “Yes”. And then Friedkin had the effrontery to bulldoze on, asking her if she masturbated, to which she replied, “Sure – doesn't everybody?”
Captain Howdy, thank you for sharing this sad news with us. Marcel, judging by his interview footage, was quite a character as well as being an sfx expert.
