By Jerry Saravia
Regan's first medical examination in the new THE EXORCIST
By Jerry Saravia
Regan's first medical examination in the new THE EXORCIST
It is rather unfortunate and saddening that younger people today feel The Exorcist is either a laugh riot or a horror film that has lost its shock value. That is if you consider "The Exorcist" to simply be a horror film, or the William Peter Blatty book to simply be a horror novel. "The Exorcist" is definitely horror, but not simply. Part of its power after all these years is derived from the strong sympathy and empathy towards its main characters, including the grief-stricken Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn); the loss of faith in the gruffly Father Karras (Jason Miller); the sickly, strong believer in goodness over darkness, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow); and of course, the little 12-year-old girl Regan MacNeil, possessed by a demonic force or forces. It's been said before but let it be said again, the underlying principle in any horror film is identification and empathy with the protagonists and that is especially true in "The Exorcist." That makes the shocks and the force of evil in the film that much more effective, afflicting the very people we grow to care about. If you do not care about the characters, the horror will have no genuine purpose. The film's slow pace is therefore essential, evoking the different personalities in the story and thus documenting in minute detail their fears, anxieties, desperation, etc.
The primary characters in the film are Chris MacNeil, her daughter Regan, and the two priests, Karras and Merrin. I've heard someone say that the first hour could be eliminated without much intrusion to the last hour - really? So I guess what this person is saying is that character development is nonessential - we need chills and thrills every second to be scared. We want Stigmata, or something like Scream - we need to be constantly shocked to be scared. Those of you who prefer the latter as cause for something "truly scary" - well, you know who you are. Amazingly, back in 1973, "The Exorcist" was described by Pauline Kael as the kind of film that delivers bloody shocks and thrills every few minutes to keep the audience enthralled. Imagine if this film was made today. Under lesser hands, it would have been exactly what Kael mistakenly described it as. Rather than giving yet another review of the film (which is on my original cover page listed below), let us examine this new re-release supervised by director William Friedkin and writer William Peter Blatty. This new "Exorcist" has 11 minutes of previously unseen footage, restored to a film that now runs 132 minutes. Are these new changes necessary? Do they enhance the story in any way? Let's take a look at what has been added, and why, and what the end result has become.
1.) The film starts. First we get a Warner Brothers logo that is a mint green color segueing to an entirely new opening sequence. We see a night shot'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">night shot'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">night shot of the MacNeil house on 36th and Prospect St. in Georgetown where the lights are on. Regan's bedroom light is then turned off, as the camera pans to the street where a couple walk by. There is then a dissolve to a close-up shot of the statue of Virgin Mary. We hear the familiar strains and shrieks of the musical score, and then comes the red letters on a black background reading "William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist," thus leading to the Northern Iraq sequence.
2.) The first major deleted scene restored is an important one - Regan's first medical examination. Regan is at some hospital undergoing tests for hyperkinesis - a condition where the patient twirls, hums, is temperate, and has problems with math. The first shot is of Regan's mother, Chris, seated in a waiting room knitting a sweater. Two boys are seen in the foreground wrestling. Dr. Levin (Barton Heyman) is giving Regan shots, causing Regan to get rather hostile. There is also a subliminal shot of the white-faced demon as Regan lays in bed undergoing more tests. Then Dr. Levin meets with Chris MacNeil to discuss Regan's condition. He prescribes Ritalin, a stimulant to which Chris responds, "She is higher than a kite now." Levin suggests Regan may be depressed, and has used rather sophisticated foul language while he examined her.
They both laugh, and naturally Chris is also rather alarmed. Dr. Levin then tells her that the best explanation for her behavior is the simplest one.
This scene is significant on many levels. Number one it establishes early on, prior to Regan's later temper tantrums, that she is a sick girl, prone to being tempermental and quite hyperactive. This scene also supplies an explanation for a later scene where Chris soothes Regan, (after Regan had urinated on the carpet during a house party) that as long as she takes her pills, she will be fine ("It is just nerves, that's all.") Blatty has spoken at length of his dismay that Friedkin cut the scene to keep the length of the film to two hours. Blatty's argument was that Chris's line to her daughter would make no sense, especially since Regan seemed happy as a clam at the party. There was nothing to suggest that anything was wrong with her, or that she was remotely sick. This leads to something you might not expect from this new version: ironically, a shot from the original cut has been deleted to preserve this continuity. The close-up shot of the happy, giggling Regan at the party is now gone! This shot of Regan originally preceded the shot of the astronaut having a conversation with Father Dyer. This gives the impression that Regan has been sleeping in her bedroom through the whole party! Now the surprise of the few remaining guests at the party singing while Dyer is playing at the piano makes more sense too, as Dyer sees Regan approaching them.
Regan (looking at the astronaut): "You're going to die up there."
Then she urinates.
3.) After Chris MacNeil arrives back at the house from seeing Dr. Levin, she hears the telephone ringing in the kitchen. She answers it but nobody is on the other line. The lights are flickering on and off and they finally go completely off. Then they turn back on again, and when they do, the second subliminal shot of the white-faced demon can be seen on the right side of the screen. It is a very sudden flash. When Chris goes upstairs to Regan's bedroom, she opens the door and just before she opens it, another subliminal flash of a demon mask is seen. Chris runs to close the window, and leaves. In the long shot of her walking downstairs, we see a gradually forming subliminal shot of the green-toned Pazuzu statue superimposed on Regan's bedroom wall. This whole scene also has new music playing where it was previously silent.
The infamous "Spider-Walk" scene follows, and it was first glimpsed in the 25th anniversary video and DVD edition of the film. It showed a possessed Regan walking on all fours backwards like a spider, resulting in her chasing Sharon, the nanny, with her serpent-like tongue. This new cut does not exactly show this. It has Regan climbing down the stairs on all fours, and we then come to a close-up shot of Regan opening her mouth, which is full of blood. The other difference is in Chris's reaction to what she is seeing. Originally, the scene had Chris reacting in shock at the death of her good friend, Burke Dennings (Jack MacGrowan). In a close-up shot, she pounds her fists on the wall and there was a fade-out to black. Now there is a long shot where she gets the news from her friend who then leaves after telling her. She turns to Sharon and, in a close-up shot, cries out Sharon's name as she looks up at the stairs and sees Regan. Following this new scene is the hypnosis where another minor change occurs, through the intervention of CGI effects. When Regan begins to growl as she menacingly looks up at the hypnotist, her face briefly morphs into a demon's face, particularly noticable are the nose and the eyes. This was not visible in the original version.
4.) Another deleted scene that I never knew was even shot is of Father Karras listening to Regan's giddy taped recording to her father in Europe. The scene is set in a dark audio-visual room where Karras hears her words, which seem so innocent and harmless. It is a very significant scene, nicely contrasted with the scene where Karras listens to a recording of her demonic voice. I love the shot of Karras's reflection in the glass compartments which is multiplied many times, evoking the shot of Charles Foster Kane's reflection in the mirrors from "Citizen Kane."
5.) There are additional shots just a few minutes prior to the infamous exorcism sequence that lend a more human dimension to the film. When Father Merrin first arrives at the MacNeil house, he has a brief exchange with Chris. While Merrin is saying his hail marys, Chris offers to put brandy in his tea. Merrin says he can't have brandy yet offers a mildly humorous reason why he should: "Thank God, my will is weak." Chris smiles and brings him some brandy. Just before Merrin and Karras go up the stairs to Regan's bedroom, Sharon, the nanny, is seen listening to her radio with her earphone to drown out the noise of devilish moans and groans from upstairs. Before Merrin enters the room, he asks Chris what her daughter's middle name is.
Merrin: "What a lovely name."
Chris is more tearful in her reaction to Merrin and Karras, and this scene strikes a more sympathetic note from Merrin, who shares her fears about her daughter's life. I have a feeling that this minor exchange at the top of the stairs was cut because it seems Chris is wearing an obvious fur coat'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">fur coat'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">fur coat, which does not match some of her other reaction shots. For example, just before Karras closes the door to Regan's bedroom to perform the exorcism, Chris is shown in close-up wearing just a sweater over a corduroy shirt. The slow zoom-in shot to Chris sitting in the den in contemplation, unable to knit the sweater she was previously knitting in the first medical examination scene, while Merrin explains how the Devil would like to fool them, shows Chris wearing a sweater over a corduroy shirt as well.
6.) The film's message of faith is made clear during a break in the exorcism where Karras and Merrin sit restfully on the hallway steps (this scene can also be seen in the video/DVD version). Initially, it was a moment of silent glances between the two men. Now there is a dialogue exchange where Karras asks Merrin why this girl had to be possessed. Merrin responds that the idea is to make them despair - to make them appear as animalistic and ugly, and to reject the possibility that God loves humanity. This philosophical passage also makes us understand that the Devil's target is not Regan, it is the priests.
7.) The final sequence where Karras struggles with the demonic Regan on the floor, punching her and asking for the demon to drive itself away from Regan and into his soul, has one slight change. As Karras looks up at the window where the force seems to have escaped to, a subliminal superimposed shot of Karras's mother is shown before he becomes momentarily possessed.
8.) The alternate ending is now in place between Kinderman and Father Dyer, but there are also some other minute changes. The scene where Chris and Regan are in the car driven by their servant Karl has some new shots. Dyer sees them off, after which Regan kisses him and leaves in the car. Dyer says his goodbyes to Willie, the other servant who stays behind. The car stops as Chris calls Dyer over. He runs to the car and she hands him the St. Joseph's medal that Sharon found in Regan's bedroom. There is a medium shot of Dyer standing by the car looking at the medal, which was not in the original cut. His hand closes over it, but instead of keeping it as he did in the original, he hands it back to her and tells her to keep it. The car leaves, and suddenly we see Regan waving at him. Dyer waves back and smiles. In the original version, we only see the back of Regan's head - she never turns around and waves. Initially, Dyer looked on with a glum face and walked to the top of the Exorcist stairs on Prospect St, looking down where his friend Karras had fallen and the film faded out to black. This time, as Dyer walks back, he sees Detective Kinderman looking through the fenced gate of the MacNeil house. He asks if the girl is alright and they strike a conversation about movies, namely "Wuthering Heights." Kinderman jokes that it is a version starring Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball. Dyer remarks he has seen it and smiles, obviously in recognition of Karras. If you recall, the scene between Kinderman and Karras earlier in the film also dealt with a movie discussion, that being Othello, where Kinderman jokingly states that it stars Groucho Marx. Karras remarks that he had seen it. Kinderman asks Dyer if had his lunch, and they walk across the street in long shot as we see the boarded up window of Regan's bedroom, followed by the chants of Iraq on the soundtrack.
Of all the changes in "The Exorcist," the best are the ones that help improve the film and its message of faith. I think the additional dialogue between Karras and Merrin is an improvement on Blatty's original intentions in the novel. I also think it was appropriate to show Merrin's concern for Chris and Regan's health in particular - he knows the exorcism might kill her if not himself. The first medical examination of Regan provides a necessary narrative order of events to Chris's crucial line to Regan about taking pills. Lending even more pathos to the film is the extraordinary scene of Karras listening to Regan's taped recording - a scene that is also in the book. I do have to nitpick though and say that the subliminal shots of the demons should not be there. In the first medical examination, it was unnecessary to have a subliminal shot of the white-faced demon simply because it is too soon to introduce the idea that poor Regan may be possessed. The other demon faces that appear when Chris arrives at the house after Burke Dennings is found dead are also distracting, though I liked it when the face shows up while Chris is in the kitchen. I still feel that the white-faced demon in Karras's dream and in the final exorcism were ample, and enough to show the presence of evil existing in their lives. Too many other subliminal shots is to stretch a rather novel device where brevity is needed.
As much as I like the "Spider-Walk" scene, it seems redundant in retrospect especially since it comes before the hypnosis scene where Regan is momentarily possessed. I am glad Friedkin did not use the extra footage from the "Spider-Walk" where Regan crawls after Sharon with her serpent-like tongue - it is eerie but also rather tongue-in-cheek in a way. The bloodied mouth opening and growling is much more effective, but still not nearly as scary as the hypnosis. I also object to the morphing of Regan's face - that initial shot of her mean, glowering stare said it all. To then briefly shape-shift it to a demon with green eyes is to destroy Linda Blair's extraordinary acting ability.
The final scene of Kinderman and Dyer is a take-it or leave-it deal. I think this change is mostly Blatty's idea and I still refuse to believe that Friedkin would approve of it now (he said he still didn't in the 1998 video/DVD version). Blatty's original novel ends with this scene and it does set up the relationship between the two men in Blatty's sequel "Legion," later filmed as "The Exorcist III." The new ending lends a warmth to the film it did not have it before, and though I approve of the shot where Regan is smiling and waving in the car, I also think that this Kinderman-Dyer epilogue is not needed for precisely the reasons that Blatty stated before. We knew all was right with the world when Regan was back to her innocent self after the demon was driven out by Karras, who sacrifices his own life to save the poor girl. The barely alive Karras also gets his absolution from Dyer. We sense that good has triumphed over evil in at least its perhaps temporary removal. It's made clearer with the new shot of Regan so why push it with this final dialogue exchange.
I will always treasure "The Exorcist" no matter what - to me, it is a rich character study of the meaning of faith in today's world, and how close to home evil can make itself known. Seeing it in a theatre for the first time was a glorious event, as was the surround sound system'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">surround sound system'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">surround sound system, the new music and some subtle sound effects (like the bubbly sounds of Regan's fish tank'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">fish tank'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">fish tank). This film is an experience to be witnessed in a theatre, and should be seen for that reason alone. One can appreciate some of the minor changes in this new version, but the original still stands as the horror classic it was and always will be.
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