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Poor Brooke.  She had a demon for a mother, now she's the mother of a demon.

 

Actually, she might be pretty good as Chris.  She supposedly did a fine job as Morticia in the stage version of The Addams Family.  I think she might have made a good Regan, despite her age.  She had more acting chops than Linda Blair (whom I love nonetheless).  And she certainly looks spooky on the cover of the Audrey Rose paperback.  Speaking of which she tried out for that role too.

 

 

Hard to imagine a better Merrin than Richard Chamberlain.

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And let's not forget the “accidents” that befall Dennings and Leroy.

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Father Bowdern said:

Perfect pets … budgies rather than love birds … a tribute to Hitch perhaps?

Father B

 

Could be a Hitch tribute, didn’t think of that.  I was thinking of the bird/wind motif throughout the film.  Regan’s bird sculpture, the winged demon statute, the cutout birds on the basement wall, the bird sculptures on the mantle in the den, the birds and winged creatures in Regan’s drawings.  There seem to be birds in every room of the house except the bathrooms.  And of course the “demon of the southwest wind” who is present whenever the wind blows, the billowing curtains whenever he’s moving about.  And so forth.

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Wow, I never noticed the birdcage in that scene.  I noticed it here:

Then, a moment later from a different angle:

Symbolically the perfect pet, don’t you think?

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Yes!  I honestly never noticed it before and couldn't believe it.  Every viewing of this film brings something new.

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Father O'Malley might say the slap came from Billy Friedkin!

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Yikes.  Sorry!  I think you're being a little too hard on Ellen though.  After all, Blatty wrote her lines and Friedkin directed her.  Credit (or discredit, if you prefer) where it's due.

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Sofia said:

In the novel it's suggested that Regan picked up the bad language from Burke.

Shirley as Chris of the novel didn't shout at the telephone operator like that. Ellen Burstyn portrays her with such a temperamental, agressive nature.

I'm not so sure.  I reread much of the novel recently, and Chris's potty mouth seemed about the same as in the film.  The idea that Regan picked up the language from Burke is Chris's thought, ironically overlooking her own use of profanities.  The reader, I think, is expected to pick up on this parental filtering.  In fact, there are scenes in the novel where her language is worse than in the film, such as the scene where she confronts Sharon and the Engstroms about the crucifix.  In the film, when they deny putting it in Regan's room, Chris is just mute and stupefied.  In the novel, she loses it (“That f***ing cross didn't walk up there!”).

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Oh well…next time I'll just ask for the photo before theorizing…Where'd you find it?

Still wish they hadn't deleted the sneaker though.

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That shot where Smith is applying makeup to Linda through the car window…Isn't that the scene where they bring her home from the clinic?  They went through all that trouble and we never even see her face in that scene.  We see her from behind when Karl carries her into the house.

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“If there is extraordinary evidence for the extraordinary claim that
the supernatural exists, then the scientific mindset would concede its
existence.”

 

Some people of a scientific mindset would concede.  Others would continue to disbelieve “though one were raised from the dead” as someone once said.  There are rational skeptics and there are the embarassing noisy ones with huge emotional chips on their shoulders about religion.  The latter type would never give in.  I say this as someone who is mostly skeptical about the supernatural.

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I’m so tempted to respond at length, but it would spoil the novel for you.  You really should read it.  Your analysis is very perceptive and remarkably spot-on with what I suspect were Blatty’s intentions.  I’ll just say that the homeless man scene is just a bit longer in the book, and Blatty rather explicitly dwells on what the man signifies.  And this exposition brings up one of the “double binds” you mention, that of Karras-Mother-vocation-poverty.

And I’ll also say—in the hope that it will get you to read the book!–that one key detail of  the homeless man scene stands out as one of the greatest and most bewildering differences between novel and film. 

 

Read it!

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From the novel:

“He stood up and moved closer; then felt a vague prickling at the base of his neck as his friend at last moved, reaching down for an amulet and cradling it pensively in his hand. It was a green stone head of the demon Pazuzu, personification of the southwest wind.”
…

“At the palace of Ashurbanipal he paused; then shifted a sidelong glance to a limestone statue hulking in situ: ragged wings; taloned feet; bulbous, jutting, stubby penis and a mouth stretched taut in a feral grin. The demon Pazuzu.

Abruptly he sagged.

He knew.

It was coming.”

…

“Karras breathed deeply, exhausted. Then exhaled. Dropped his head. No way. Doesn't cut it. He glanced to the plate on the facing page. A demon. His gaze flicked down idly to the caption: “Pazuzu.” “

 

The implication seems to be that Pazuzu is evil and is the posessing entity or at similar to the posessing entity or maybe one of the names by which it was historically known.  But, still, it's not explicitly stated.  And of course Pazuzu is never mentioned by name in the film.  But the statue image reappears during the exorcism.  It was once part of Catholic doctrine (and still might be in theory if not in practice) that all pagan deities were demons.  My uncle was a Passionist priest and a missionary in China before communism.  In a recorded interview he gave, he mentioned that he never felt so close to God as he did there, but that the pagan shrines reminded him of “the closeness of the devil, too.”

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Anyone post this yet?  Chris wakes up and finds Regan in bed with her, then goes to investigate the noises in the attic.  While Chris is gone, Regan’s nightgown changes from blue:

to pink:

This pink gown looks like the same one she was wearing during the “you can bring Mr. Dennings” conversation.  By the way, this closeup may very well be my favorite shot in the whole film.  Very creepy, I can’t even look at it for very long.  And it says so much:  Regan is a wake and can hear the sounds.  She’s aware of them but isn’t talking about them (in the finished film at least; I know about the book and the possible deleted scene).  And what is she looking at so intently, so fearfully?  Who/what does she see?  She seems to be in a trance.  Enthralled, in the original sense of the word…

In the 1973 version, we hear one of the rasping sounds during this closeup.  But we don’t hear it in the 2000 version (whatever it’s called now), which I think is a mistake.  Hearing it during this closeup shows that she’s awake, aware of the sounds, and obviously scared to death by them.

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He's not necessarily Catholic.  There are Islamic prayer beads, google it and see.

Anyway, if I may be (partly) facetious, the parallelism may have been retained somewhat.  When Chris walks through Georgetown and sees those two slightly creepy nuns, they are wearing long dangling rosaries.  Another parallel:  those nuns always make me think of the two men walking hand in hand in Iraq, one of them seeming to be blind. 

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure those nuns are Dominicans (“go pick on them”).  My Dad had two sisters who were in that order.  They had the same white habits with black veils.

Man, the things this film makes you think of…

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