[Pazuzus Petals]

What is the significance of the homeless man (wino?) who asks Father Karras for some change? There is an older thread here that asks which scene does each member think is the deepest scene in the movie.  I don't know if this scene is the deepest, but it is certainly for me one of the most potent.

 

Is it because of Matthew 25:44-45:

 

“Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an

hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and

did not minister unto thee?  Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye

did [it] not to one of the least of these, ye did [it] not to me.”

 

Are we right to assume Father Karras snubbed the man?  (I apologize for my lack of familiarity with the novel, which I have not yet read.) 

 

I think there is more to this scene than simply having it be a Chekov's gun that allows the demon to conjure up a recent memory to prove to Father Karras that the demon is genuine and can read minds.  Assuming Father Karras snubbed the man, it seems to resonate with a recurring theme of elder abuse— which is nicely symmetrical with the (well discussed) allegories about child abuse.

 

In my view the most powerful themes of the movie are not the supernatural themes.  They're the mundane themes.  And that, in total, is what makes the movie so powerful writ large.  The supernatural content is nothing more than a frame: a frame that disorients us, and makes us confront familiar struggles and themes from an entirely unfamiliar vantage point. 

 

For example, what parent doesn't understand the anxiety that comes from the paradox that our children need our time but they also need our financial support?  If we spend too much time with our careers— like Chris— there is a risk that our children will get into something awful— like Regan.  That the awful thing is supernatural is, of course, just an allegory.  It could be any awful thing— drugs, alcohol, self-harm, etc.  And what adult child of a parent doesn't understand the ambivalence between wanting to be there for a parent but realizing that one's own independent life is elsewhere? 

 

When Father Karras sees the downtrodden, grotesque, statue-esque elderly people housed in the asylum like cattle (masterfully reminiscent of the grotesque statues we see in Iraq at the beginning of the movie), this is no supernatural horror.  This is a real-life problem, one that pathetically continues to be a problem nearly forty years after this movie has been made.  Our mental institutions and our geriatric care facilities continue to be underfunded and in many cases unworthy of the human dignity of the people who inhabit them. 

 

One of the aspects of the human condition the film summarizes is that we are most vulnerable when we come into the world and as we are about to leave— the most vulnerable among us are the very young and the very old.  The movie indicts us in the sandwich generation— people the age of Chris and Father Karras in the primes of their lives— and confronts the degree to which perhaps we in the sandwich generation (of which I am currently a member) shrink from our duties.

 

And yet, there is a certain paradox many of us with limited means must deal with as another matter of the human condition.  It is interesting that while this is prima facie a supernatural movie, there are no supernatural solutions to the ordinary problems.  Chris is a single mom and she needs to support her daughter.  And while she is a member of a certain elite— the acting profession— the film is quite careful to show the unglamorous hard work that goes into the craft of acting.  So there's not that much choice for Chris.  She can spend time with her daughter all she wants in a soup kitchen, or she can pursue her career and take care of Regan's physical needs.  So the indictment of Chris's neglect is not all that simple.  Money doesn't grow on trees in a natural world.

 

Likewise, Father Karras's uncle points out just as much that limited means result in limited options.  Even with FK's best intentions, he took a vow of poverty so the money ain't there.  We can assume with the Catholic adornments of FK's mother's apartment that she very much approved of, indeed probably was proud of, her son's vocation.  One imagines her encouraging young Damian to follow the calling into the priesthood.  So the indictment of FK's neglect of his mother isn't quite so simple, either.  I would conjecture that his mother has put FK into a double-bind.  I think we can safely assumes she wholly supports his ordination, but complains of the realities that are the consequences of the vocation— stultifying poverty, for one.  It is to Blatty's credit that the movie does not offer the simple equation “faith is good, faithlessness is bad; lose your faith and bad things happen.”  FK's uncle points out that had FK been faithless, he probably would have been rich and could take care of his mother.  In Blatty's world, both faith and faithlessness cause bad things to happen.

 

That brings us back to the homeless guy.  Obviously he is lighted to be subtly demonic-looking and menacing; to suggest that he is a proxy for Pazuzu, doing reconnaissance on the players in his manipulations.  But forget about the subtext.  What about the text?  Is FK obligated to give the guy money because he's a priest?  What about the homeless guy's appeal that because he has the right brand-name ('es a Cathlick) FK is obligated to him?  What if he was Jewish?  Would that absolve FK of any obligation to him?  Does FK feel the lack of obligation precisely because faith is evidently impotent to keep people from degrading fates? 

 

Later on in the asylum we see FK rebuke several (presumably mentally ill) elderly people who come to him with gestures of supplication.  So these are three strikes against FK for rebuffing the elderly— the homeless guy, the asylum inhabitants, and his mother herself. 

 

But what if FK gave the homeless guy some money after all?  Would this make any difference to the narrative that FK is losing his faith?  Is it just as plausible that someone in FK's situation could give the guy some spare change just to avoid the awkward confrontation with the larger problems of the human condition?  If FK had particularly strong faith, does that mean he would give the homeless man some money?  Could a priest with strong faith have alternatively written down the address of a shelter or a soup kitchen for the man?

 

I don't have particularly strong religious views.  I sometimes give homeless people money depending almost entirely on my mood and their demeanor.  I hate to admit that I don't have a consistent principle one way or another.  Either way, whether I do give or don't give, I still feel slightly depressed and defeated in knowing that the problem of poverty is bigger than any of us individually. 

 

But then, to some degree, I think this absolves FK too.  If there is anything in which I firmly believe, it's that large structural problems require large structural solutions.  Poverty and homelessness are large structural problems.  Whatever Blatty (and Friedkin) intend with the subtext of the scene, I come away from the text of the scene all the more affirmed in my conviction that reason— and not faith— is ultimately the pathway to the large structural solutions that will solve large structural problems.  I suspect this is not Blatty's intention or intellectual orientation on the matter.  Oh well.

 

Finally, the movie is also quite thoughtful in that it does not unilaterally declare that the very young and very old— however vulnerable they are— are entirely powerless.  Regan does survive the ordeal.  Merrin may have been defeated in the rematch with Apollo, er, I mean, Pazuzu, but he had the courage to go the distance and arguably weakened his foe to the point where FK could deliver the (quite literal) knockout blow.  It also could be argued that the homeless man subtextually is not powerless but rather powerful, as he is judging and sizing up FK.  The elderly people in Iraq who look upon Father Merrin dispassionately seem also to have the wisdom of the ages.  The old woman in the horse-drawn carriage— that almost flattens Father Merrin as he is preoccupied with an impending new showdown with Pazuzu— is another powerful heckler of Merrin.  The scene from Chris's movie shows the power of young people in large groups— wielding the same kind of power that brought about the civil rights movement, women's liberation and the eventual withdrawal from Vietnam.  So maybe the problem is that the homeless man and FK's mom aren't self-sufficient.  But this isn't the Ayn Rand world where complete self-sufficiency and selfishness in general are the greatest good.  FK's self-sacrifice in the end is a triumph.  Evil fails when good people are willing to sacrifice themselves for each other.

 

I welcome the board's thoughts.  I would be curious to know if anyone else finds the homeless man scene as potent or thought-provoking as I do.

[fraroc]

Holy shit…..you are one smart guy, thats all I have to say..

[Pazuzus Petals]

Well, thanks for saying so.  I'm a bit of a smart a$$ too.  Captain Howdy brings it out in me.

[epicwin123]

This is mind-blowing. I would love to hear what you have to say after you read the book.

And the whole giving homeless people money, I know I would feel guilty if I passed one up, but am a bad person for doing so? I'm going to be ponder this for the rest of the night. Also, why is it that the conditions in mental hospitals (and hospitals in general) hasn't changed for the better? I have awful stories of a hospital around me. Is it so hard to just provide for the people who need it? But then, I don't know. I haven't lived long enough to see alot of the homeless, mental, or anything like that.

[Pazuzus Petals]

By the way, has anybody here ever seen Titicut Follies?  Like The Exorcist it's a classic piece of film; like The Exorcist it's really disturbing; like The Exorcist it features scenes of really demented people and really indifferent mental health practitioners; and like The Exorcist, it's been banned in a lot of places.  Unlike The Exorcist, though, it's a real-life documentary, which, on the whole, makes it actually more disturbing than The Exorcist.  And that's no small feat for a film.

 

Significantly, I saw it while studying in England— it was still banned in the U.S.— and only saw it once, and once was enough.  Long after it was made, the ban on it here in the U.S. was lifted and it was finally shown on PBS.  But it's hardly a mainstay.  It's not on youtube, either.  The filmmaker, understandably, wants to get paid, and he goes after copyright infringers.  You can order it expensively as an educational film; otherwise, forget it.

 

Here's an interview with the director:

http://www.viceland.com/int/v1…..cs/doc.php

[ugotugotugotwhatiwant]

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!

[epicwin123]

I was thinking about this again today, and thought of the Willowbrook State School on Staten Isalnd, NY. I just remembered seeing a program about the building, and history. But to the point, there was this one part that showed Geraldo Rivera doing some investigation on the place, and it was terrifying. (It was a clip from '72) It was all these mental people in horrid conditions. It really is just awful to think about.

[Sofia]

Wow, what a post!! Truly inspiring!

[Pazuzus Petals]

epicwin123 said:

I was thinking about this again today, and thought of the Willowbrook State School on Staten Isalnd, NY. I just remembered seeing a program about the building, and history. But to the point, there was this one part that showed Geraldo Rivera doing some investigation on the place, and it was terrifying. (It was a clip from '72) It was all these mental people in horrid conditions. It really is just awful to think about.

---

Once upon a time Geraldo Rivera was a respectable hard-hitting investigative journalist.  Where does the time go?

[fatherbowdern]

Rivera's downfall was the overly hyped 1986 Al Capone vault opening disaster. It could have been a piece of historical precedence, but Rivera blew it on live television. This is of course when Rivera had the pull to the get job at ABC.

[epicwin123]

Huh, he had a down fall? He had an uprise? I didn't even now. XD

[drexul]

To the original poster…thank you! What a wonderful read. I would love to see more like this here. Truly, thank you.

I too would love to hear your thoughts after reading the book. It is truly an amazing read, and one that makes me long for an HBO mini series that is a faithful adaptation of the book. My feeling in watching that scene was a glimpse of the human flaw that Karras shares with many of us. A flaw that his faith (or lack of) and his priesthood have not been able to enable him to overcome. I felt that he was disgusted with the man…much like Merrin says the demon is attempting to do, make us feel ugly and unworthy of God’s love. I felt Pazuzu chose to mimic that exchange to point out in a way that this priest, this man of God, was essentially reacting to Regans plight the same way…

My two cents

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