CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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I first saw the ‘Exorcist’ when I was 14, back in ’74. At that time, in that era, the film was a viceral assault upon the senses of this impressionable teenaged youth.
Around that time, I was hypnotically beguiled by the music of Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’, and the fact that snippets of it was used in the film, both the album and the film synergised into a powerful and addictive ambient opus that remain, even today, a defining part of my life history…indelibly imprinted upon my memory. Whenever I play the music or watch the film, I am transported back to that era.None of the other films carry such impressionism. The first film was an ‘event sociologique’, tapping into the inculcated psycological cultural fears of social-superstition evangelised down through history, and contiued even today, by religions around the world.
I had read the book prior to viewing the film, so I confidently thought I knew what to expect, but the visual and aural interpretation given in the film, clothed the book with flesh upon its skeleton. Instead of just being a well-written and thought-provoking novel, it now became a sinister parable of man’s gloating evil. He was not (according to the catholic Blatty) responsible for his self-desecration through acts destructive, cruel, and inhumane, but was instead a finger-puppet to be manipulated by the whims and machinations of actual evil spirits.
I at first went along with this ideologue, but as I grew older and wiser in my discerning philosophy, I saw through the charade (and Blatty’s evangelism), and realised that the so-called ‘evil’ that men commit upon others has nothing whatsoever to do with spirits or demons or the devil, but is soley down to conscience-less empathy for others…nothing more.
Blatty’s (at the time) powerful idea has since become so diluted and machined into a profit business, that to consider it today leaves something of a stifled yawn. Four more films later, only one of which comes near to the concept of the original (ie, Exorcist 3:Legion), but still falls far short, and we have a franchise that is akin to the Star Wars circus.
As an idea and philosophy, I accept that Blatty had something quite relevant to say – and to be argued against – with his book and the film of it. This is why the first film actually worked, because Friedkin’s translation of the book sought to conceptually achieve through sound and vision and atmosphere, the descent of a innocent into adult insanity, profanity, and lewdness. Evil seeks to make us despair of God, to make us doubt Him, and to prove evil’s point, it surfaces in the body of a beautiful innocent female child, and turns her into a feral creature of unrelenting hate and lust.
The child, herself is incapable of seeking help from God, incapacitated as she is by the possessing spirit, so the whole issue of despair turns upon the actions of the mother – a atheist – to reluctantly seek out the Almighty’s aid through that of his representatives on earth…the Catholic Church (I say reluctantly, because the mother does not immediately go to the church, but goes instead through the medical channels which prove impotent against the invasion – a sad and incorrect indictment of science by Blatty). The mother, is in fact, forced by the invading spirit to make her child the focus of battle between concepts of religious good and evil. To bring back a force of God that had once triumphed over the evil possessing the little girl – that of Father Merrin…the Exorcist.
It is Merrin whom is the target of the possession, not the girl. Pride in the possessing evil has brought these events about, the child is incidental to the sought for outcome of the demon. It is Merrin’s downfall that is wanted, it is his despair and rejection in God that the demon wants in order to utterly destroy Merrin. All that is achieved is the former (by Merrin’s death), but not the latter. Here is where the character of Karras plays his most relevant part. A priest whom had lost his faith, was racked by guilt, but now potentially gaining a re-evaluation of himself by curing the child through exorcism…but the exorcism fails. It does not drive the spirit out, but helps it to achieve its goals. Karras, now enraged, grabs the possessed child and flings her to the floor and pummels her with his boxer’s fists. No longer the carer of her body and mind, but now a Christian soldier abjuring the evil to enter him, and as the St. Christopher charm is yanked from around his neck in the fight, the evil does enter him. For a few seconds, he teeters on the edge of madness, but summons up all the reserve of his priestly conscience, and commits the catholic heresy of suicide by diving through the window to tumble to his death at the bottom of the steps outside.
From all of this questions and arguments arise…I may attempt a go at them someday.
Best wishes
Yes, it is possible to demystify Blatty’s story by viewing it through a rationalistic-reductionistic lens. However, this defeats his authorial purpose.
Blatty’s Regan does not “descend into adult insanity… and lewdness.” Nor is she insane or profane. Rather, it is _the invading spirit_ acting through her that is the locus of evil. And this particular evil is specifically spiritual and supernatural, transcending such mundane categories as insanity or lewdness.
Nor does Blatty’s (or Friedkin’s) Karras teeter on the edge of insanity. He enters a state of possession, not mental illness. The novel heavily implies this, and the film is crystal-clear in its presentation of the possessed Karras in demonic make-up.
If you are comfortable with a strictly non-supernaturalist view of the story, that’s fine, but such a perspective by definition tends to exsanguinate Blatty’s narrative.
While you may be convinced that human evil is solely ascribable to human depravity (a view I happen to share), I frankly can’t see how projecting that view onto the novel and/or its film adaptation – can do anything but eviscerate it. The whole point and dramatic thrust of the novel and the film is to strongly suggest and imply a kind of evil that is trans-human – and thus not derivative of normative neuro-and-psychological states. This is why both novel and film exhibit state-of-the-art science’s bafflement and ultimate failure to treat Regan’s case.
The book and film depend on a suspension of consensus beliefs in order to create suspense, dramatic drive, motivation, crisis, climax, and resolution. If the sense of supernatural intrusion is missing, the story becomes rather pointless. In that case, Blatty could just as well have written a leadenly monotonous tale of a kid who goes nuts and attacks some people – or better yet, not written at all.
I am ambivalent per your charge of Blatty’s “evangelism.” Certainly H.P. Lovecraft’s biographer J.T. Joshi agrees with you in his article “The Persistence of the Supernatural.” Of course as an evangelizing atheist himself, Joshi has his own axe to grind, but his point is worthy of consideration that The Exorcist can be seen as a missionizing attempt by Blatty. The reader of The Exorcist is invited, if not virtually forced, to embrace a spiritual, better yet, a Christian, and better yet, a Roman Catholic perspective.
Of course, the presentation of a supernatural incursion into profane life per se is not “evangelical” at all – as atheist H.P. Lovecraft’s own writings attest. The intent of supernatural horror, according to Lovecraft, is the achieving of an effect. But as I said earlier, I can’t conceive how the effect can be achieved if we won’t permit the suspension of disbelief which is the required sine qua non for the effect to work efficiently.
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