CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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I saw it on it's first day and sadly it left me cold. I've seen it twice more since and like all Scott's films it's got better with repeat viewing. It is a beautiful looking film although I find the music is a bit too grandiose and intrusive.
I don't have any problems with the so called plot holes that many are complaining about, however I just can't get over how poorly written the characters and their motivations are. It remains a huge stumbling block for me.
When I originally read the novel I would doubtless have pictured different people, More like those Blatty described. At the time I would have had no clue about any real people he had based them on.
But once I saw the film those images stuck and now whenever I read it, despite my better instincts, the faces of the actors have become inevitably entwined with the characters.
I have tried to re-imagine them on previous readings but it sadly doesn't work for me any more.
I somehow suspect the real idiots are the misguided individuals this charlatan and his glamorous cohorts extract vast swathes of cash from in exchange for their dubious services.
As I recal Friedkin decided to claim he had wanted it blue all along when he did the colour timing for the 25th anniversary release.
Me I preferred the sickly yellows of the original prints. I suspect the difference of opinion had a lot to do with Roizman insisting on sitting next to him when they timed the blu ray. That and the French Connection debacle.
I always read it as:
The demon left and went back to wherever it came from, having failed in it’s primary task; to keep Karras from regaining his faith.
Karras wasn’t seeking to kill the demon, merely remove it from Regan, knowing it would not return, his acceptance of such signalling the return of his faith (the clues were laid in an earlier convesation in the book about demons never returning to their old hosts).
Having taken the demon in he had to kill himself in order to stop the demon using him to harm the others in the house. I didn’t think his sacrifice was planned as such, just necessary once he learned the demon’s intent.
I never saw it as him attempting to kill the demon, probably because I read the book first.
Those Channel 4 “100 Greatest” shows are pretty poor representations of public opinion. They tend to only attract votes from 16-20 year olds and definitely do not accurately picture what we Brits really think.
And as for the talking heads they employ to narrate, they are mostly folk no one has ever heard of who could not otherwise get work on TV. They are designed to be made for cheap, last for several hours and go out on a Saturday night which is when we have generally low viewing figures as anyone with a pulse is out enjoying themselves, not sat at home watching cheap crap on TV.
Most descriptions of “Black Masses” were written by witch hunters and persecuters in the hope of drumming up fear and religious fervour in their audience and so justify their own hideous actions.
Less than reliable accounts I would think and mostly invented on the spot.
Conversely there's no smoke without fire so you can bet some inverted Christians throughout the past and moreso in modern times have got down and dirty and exercised the full range of perversions described in such texts.
I have to say this whole thing sounds like a sorry episode from the George Lucas school of writing.
I'm really not much of a fan of revisionism to classic works, however well intentioned. If the novel has stood as well as it has for 40 odd years why on earth mess with it other than for vanity?
Authors and Auteurs are very often their own worst enemies.
I'll reserve judgement until I read the thing but it will be with no small amount of trepidation.
Amazing work. Truely masterful. I am rather jealous, I wish I had such outstanding talent for sculpture.
“Requiem” is the film, it's very low key, very compassionate totally non sensational and really very good.
You see now, I always thought The Exorcist was so successful because it made most of us consider the concept of the Devil's existence for the first time in decades. It was like being confronted with a new terrifying possibility.
People tend to forget we'd just been through a kind of new enlightenment in the 60s and religion had been pretty much disregarded in general culture. As I recall when the book and film appeared the word “Exorcist” was rarely bandied around, so much so that TV programs (at least here in the U.K.) had to go to the length of explaining it's meaning when discussing the film.
Whereas since The Exorcist appeared the concept of demon's and God and the Devil has been done to death in cinema and popular culture so many times the original work can't possibly have the same effect on new audiences.
