CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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It has been posted here before. personally I think it's an interesting viewpoint but ultimately completely baseless.
Mr Ager has too much time on his hands 😉
Captain Howdy said:
I've just sat through it for the first time. It's simply incredible!
Listen here soonÂ
Oooh yeh! These ears are dribbling at the prospect
Sofia said:
Thanks, Jagged,
but if you could change anything about the novel, what would it be? I wish it was longer, with 500 + pages.
Also, my portuguese translation of the novel differs a bit from the original English version. Sentences like, “The house was quiet” was translated to, “the house was immersed in the silence.” so on…
I guess I would have to agree. There is little I would willingly change, but if it could be longer I wouldn't complain. Some more Demon conversations would be welcome, a little back story on the Demon would also be nice although it would risk ripping some of the mystery from the story.
It's a very hard question to answer, how to change something you love so much.
I have to concur. I just checked, it's not on the original or the 25th anniversary edition. It's one of the needless things Freidkin has added for TVYNS.
You have to question his judgement these days, especially after viewing the mess he made of the blu-ray French Connection.
I guess age affects us all in the end. I know it's making me cranky 😉
I can fully understand that. Hope you don't think I was being awkward for the sake of it.
It's just that to these eyes and ears it always seemed that question was answered by Blatty and mostly by the possession of and self sacrifice by Karras at the end of the story. Up to that point I naturally questioned it myself.
Yes, I do have the Travers book. Must confess I haven't read it for a long while though.
Sofia said:
Jagged said:
I think Freidkin has got somewhat stuck on that quote over the years. God bless the man, he was a genius director in his day but he's not the last word on the issue, IMHO Blatty is, and he made it pretty clear what he thought. he was writing a novel about faith and possession. the mental illness was a red herring.
I couldn't agree more on the Anneliese Michell issue. I think you've nailed it.
You can believe in whatever you want. That's the great thing about the novel, too. The book is deeply religious, of course, but Blatty's intention was for the reader to be caught between the belief that Regan was truly possessed, and the notion that she was mentally ill.Â
Blatty on the novel:
“…is this little girl possessed or is she emotionally unbalanced. In approaching it, my tactic was to work with an M.D. who was concerned only with ailments of the body and a psychiatrist. I brought her to these people as a patient. I kept going and adding on new symptoms. The M.D. told me to take her to a psychiatrist. And then I went to a psychiatrist and with him I followed the same methodology. In part, I think that is why the story is so interesting and why you are always in some doubt and suspense, because at every turn there seems to be a new medical or psychiatric explanation for what is happening to the girl. Then as various paranormal phenomena would appear I would again call doctors and psychiatrists with different specialties Â
The name of the psychiatrist I spoke to, oddly, was Hitchcock.”
“The book mentions many scientific theories on paranormal activities, they help to maintain an “investigative” style of storytelling that serves to heighten the drama.”
That's Blatty describing the process of constructing the plot and how he wants the reader to feel whilst reading it.
Later in the same book he states:
“Even in terms of my novel, I have never known the demon's identity. I strongly doubt that he is Satan and he is certainly none of the spirits of the dead whose identity he sometimes assumes. If I had to guess, I would say he is Pazuzu, the Assyrian demon of the southwest wind. But I'm not really sure. I know only that he's real and powerful and evil and apparently one of many-and aligned with whatever is opposed to love.
fatherbowdern said:Â
Ah, but if you watch the Friedkin introduction on the 25th Anniversary Edition, Friedkin says he believes that this film should put some doubt into your mind about inexplicable events. The viewer should be the judge and take away from the film what they viewed.
Lastly listen to the actual audio of a segment of the Anneliese Michel exorcism.
The video link: The Exorcist was release in 1974 in Germany. Anneliese was a devout and strict Catholic. If she suffered from severe mental problems, watched the film, and then imitated what was in the film, that's a no brainer.
Should there a great divide between antiquated religious ceremonies and the practice of medicine/mental health?
Personally, I think this poor German girl's rantings resembles nothing that is demonic in sound on tape (but, it's about a 1/4 good representation on Mercedes McCambridge voiceover for Linda Blair.)
I think Freidkin has got somewhat stuck on that quote over the years. God bless the man, he was a genius director in his day but he's not the last word on the issue, IMHO Blatty is, and he made it pretty clear what he thought. he was writing a novel about faith and possession. the mental illness was a red herring.
I couldn't agree more on the Anneliese Michell issue. I think you've nailed it.
Sofia said:
Amen, fatherb
Jagged, thanks for the explanation, it made sense…but what if there isn't a demon and Regan really suffers from mental illness, hmm? The onset of possession could be a product of suggestion…. (I'm sounding like Father Karras now) .
Ah, but for the purposes of the novel and film, she was possessed and the possibility of it being mental illness was just a red herring.
No need to over analyse that particular dark path 😉
I've read that novel at least a dozen times and it never once read like a screenplay to me.
However it must be remembered that Blatty was a very successful screenwriter, it's how he made his living so his prose is bound to reflect that.
There is nothing lazy about the execution, it was a best selling, incredibly powerful novel with bags of atmosphere. the first time I read it I could not put it down until it was over.
For someone to claim the book has no atmosphere is quite honestly dumbfounding.
Sounds to me like desperate amateur reviewers doing their level best to appear smart by overstating the obvious and looking for faults that are not there. But is amazon and that's pretty much the level of criticism you'd expect to find there.
For truly daft, outlandish and generally sub-normal opinions and theories I always enjoy the IMDB message boards. They get me shouting at the monitor in no time 😉
Nice job. Glad to see it's back. Would like to see some sensible order to the forum posts. At the moment the topics seem to be all over the place. Some dated from earliest to latest, others I'm not sure what's going on.
“But, you know, I don’t get this. Dennings was discovered with his neck turned around in the style of ritual murder by so-called demons. Kinderman says this to Chris while she’s reading the witchcraft book. So how come that according to Regan, Dennings’s neck wrenched around was caused by he hitting the steps?”
Remember “The demon is a liar”.
The whole point of this conversation with the Demon/Dennings entity is an attempt to confound Karras and make him think Regan is Insane and not possessed.
We cannot accept what it says as fact, more likely it is the opposite of truth. As is the statement that Regan did the killing rather than the Demon.The Demon killed Dennings. It twisted his head around, as described in the book Mrs Perrin (cut out of the film) lent Chris and which Regan subsequently read. Specifically in order to introduce doubt into Karras at a later time.
