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My Life with Linda

How THE EXORCIST ages with us

I. Biographical

There are some films with which we grow up, which plant roots in our memories. These films imprint their stories in our lives and experiences, and become features of our biographies.

Then as we grow older, many experiences begin to fade, and the apparently important memories split from the unimportant ones.

The same is true of films. But unlike the first kiss, the first day of school, or the first journey, we can watch them again, almost relive them. And as we do so, we often realise how different they have become.

It's like meeting an old acquaintance. Some leave us wondering what the interest ever was, but others work their same old magic, ensnaring us all over again. The most astonishing are those who seem to grow old with us. Their form remains unchanged, but they seem to tell us something new and unknown - something previously hidden. Those are the true, if subjective classics, which reflect ourselves, our development and our contradictions. Of course, they only develop through our changing view, but they have to be able to give something back to this view.

THE EXORCIST is a film which repeatedly has you believe you are over fears it plays with. A film you'd like to be able to file away, 'discard' even as 'worked through', like a bad memory of nightmares past.

But then it crosses your path again, and you lean back, relaxed, almost amused in the knowledge that you have now outgrown it - but that is the trap. For more than a quarter of a century, THE EXORCIST has performed a unique metamorphosis, sabotaging anew - and apparently invisibly - our freshly acquired patterns of rationalism which we apply to our primeval fears.

THE EXORCIST has a pact with our art of suppression. It's always the same film, and with each viewing, it provokes the same feelings as were called forth the first time round. It doesn't matter how much older you grow, or how much the view of horror films has become relativised, nor does it matter either, how little one has to do with the devil.

The majority of characters in this film are not particularly interested in the occult. They react matter-of-factly to the incomprehensible and pragmatically to the unnerving. To the point where they don't know how to go on. Then they become fearful, and this fear makes some of them depressed, others aggressive. We would be exactly like the characters in this film, we would behave in exactly the same way, and that is why we fear in exactly the same way as they do.

That is the secret of the film, and that is what has always remained untouchable. How something so absolutely unbelievable can happen to extremely credible people. The authenticity with which the film looks for and describes the emotional reactions and feelings of its characters, goes far beyond the normal boundaries of the genre, to which it nonetheless belongs.

A Psychodochorrorfilm. Panic cinema verité. As if John Cassavetes had filmed Bram Stoker.

II. Linda

There is ample opportunity for self-identification in THE EXORCIST, as the characters are as normal as they are diverse. There are no classic heroes, just difficult but interesting people - whether they are doctors, directors, priests, detectives, a mother… or her child.

That said, the child…
I have never before, or after, feared anything as much as a 12-year-old child called Regan. The idea, that in the most conceivably innocent of human characters, that of a friendly, smiling young girl, lie the headquarters of evil, not only capable of turning the child into a screaming, frenzied, slime-spitting beast, but which also equip her with indeterminable, compulsive intelligence, is such an incredibly drastic vision. Even later (when the vision comes to visit in dreams) it brings with it a distortion of standards to a degree I have never found it easy to get to grips with.

Linda Blair plays Regan with as much grace as lunacy. A performance from the depths of the human soul, a tour de force. She has become a fixture of my sleepless nights, a symbol for the recognition that growing up (at least in my case) only rarely means getting over the traumas of youth. I have lived with Linda - in my head - since the beginning of the seventies. She's somewhere at the back, where it is darker and more diffuse, where the subconscious flirts with nightmares. The child empress of evil, the tender representative of panic rules this underworld.

She is the reason why I sometimes check hotel room wardrobes or cast a look under the bed. Her image should not be free to lie around the apartment. She is not welcome in my thoughts as I fall asleep. Luckily I am not alone, there are others who suffer too, and some have it worse. My Italian friend A., a genuinely enlightened 40-year-old intellectual, worldly-wise, analytical, well-reflected man, often tells me about his battle with his EXORCIST paranoia. In his case, the hysteria is so extreme, that if a magazine contains a picture of Linda Blair, he can't keep it in his apartment, but immediately has to take it outside to the rubbish. He will not stay in a café in Rome if there are posters on the wall announcing the winter re-run of the film. Essentially, it is a problem to even mention the film, and absolutely impossible to imitate individual sentences or gestures.
We often talk about it, like the survivors of a catastrophe, who are still trying to come to terms with their trauma. That is calming.
Whoever watches the film today, might find all this absurd. Maybe it has something to do with the age we were at the first time we saw the film. I was thirteen.

III. Loud/Quiet, Light/Dark

"I designed the film so there would be blazingly bright scenes - as in Iraq - and then there would be these dark scenes in the attic and in the exorcism room. And that the whole film would in a way alternate between the forces of dark and light in a kind of literal way." (William Friedkin)

THE EXORCIST begins in Iraq. Sun. Heat. Glistening light. Disguised faces. Archaeological digs. Sweating men. Shattering noise. And Max von Sydow. Unnerved. A growing premonition. Something is waiting for him. Death is near. The first minutes of the film pass almost without words (other than a couple of Arabic fragments), and in a strange way we are precisely attuned to the energy and methodology of the film - although we won't go back to Iraq.

The phenomenon is that I always forget this exposition especially the detail of it. Looking back, THE EXORCIST begins with an evening shot of Georgetown, Washington. Cut to Ellen Burstyn, who is disturbed at night by sounds from the attic.

All is calm, incredibly calm as she walks along the hallway, the hallway which we don't yet realise has the power to stick in our memories, as it leads to the room of her 12-year-old daughter.

This calm, and the darkness in the house work particularly well, as they come hot on the heels of the burning sun and screeching noise. Moments before, Max von Sydow was standing in front of a demon sculpture, fighting dogs were howling, hooded men were brooding, until the light burned the screen.

Unnerved, we begin to interpret the calm. What's going to happen next? Is it going to be a loud or a quiet film? Will we grow attuned to it? Is it set in a familiar or a strange environment?

It is both an extremely loud and extremely quiet film, and we will never know how to tune into it, it will show the greatest strangeness in the most familiar environment.

IV. People

The prologue fulfils its purpose perfectly. It unnerves us, makes us ambivalent and mistrustful. Viewers fear the calculus of the film and as a result, try to grasp onto the characters. The film, which is demonic, anticipates this and fills us with hope that we will find refuge in the characters, be protected by them.

Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is an actress. Damien Karras (Jason Miller) is a priest and psychologist. Burke Dennings (Jack MacGowran) is a filmmaker. Lieutenant Kinderman (Lee J. Cobb) is a police officer. Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) is a priest and archaeologist. None of these people come anywhere close to the clichés which cinema usually makes of their professions.

The woman on this side: Chris MacNeil, evidently a star, lives the life of a true professional. There is no glamour in her private life, she is as impulsive as direct, a warm, strong-willed, enlightened East Coast American. She's sometimes brusque and mildly aggressive, but always understandable. She is beautiful in a realistic way, and not overly made up. Her marriage has failed, she's a single mother with no religion. Ellen Burstyn combines characteristics which make her attractive both as a mother and girlfriend. We are immediately familiar with and warmed by her. She is not a typical cinema victim. She dares to go into the dark attic on her own and we don't find her bravery ridiculous. But when even she is shaken by fear, our fun is over.

The man between two chairs: Damien Karras says to his colleagues one evening: "I've lost my faith." From that point on, we know that the film will take it upon itself to give it back to him. Karras lives with feelings of serious guilt towards his mother, convinced he doesn't do enough to look after her and that she is dying a lonely death in a psychiatry clinic. Chris asks Karras to help her, and he is the one, who over a long period of time, doubts there is any kind of bedevilment. He pleads for psychological care. He swears to different secular energies, and accepts Satan, so as not to have to open back up to the church and moreover, his religion. Miller plays Karras with sad sympathy, a melancholic city priest, a study of urban, intellectual isolation, who finds redemption in victims.

The unsaved victim: Burke Dennings is mostly drunk, a cynical director, whose cleverness matches his sarcasm. MacGowran (unforgettable in Polanski's DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES and CUL DE SAC) portrays the excessive side of Hollywood, is self-destructive, without inhibition, but through his blatant transparency, he is still somehow nice.

Although we never see it, Dennings is killed by Regan, the demon. An uncomfortable, not at all coincidental choice of victim. In an earlier scene in the film, the daughter speculates half-serious, half-joking, whether Burke might become her mother's next husband. Even though the mother laughingly rejects the idea, Regan's absent father problem is packed into this scene in a playful question, and the demon later chooses the vulgar, archaic option of killing the object of the maternal libido, thus punishing her for the absence of the father.

The snooper, who noses about in the dark: Lee J. Cobb's impressive physical presence, which lends his character of Lt. Kinderman (!) the aura of a clever cop, who knows all the tricks, is mixed with his surprisingly childish, almost naive fascination for watching films, to which he always returns during his investigations. Some of the rare comic moments in the film relate to him:

Kinderman: William F. Kinderman, Homicide.
Karras: What's this all about?
Kinderman: Yeah, it's true you look like a boxer. Like John Garfield in "Body and Soul", exactly John Garfield. People tell you that, Father?
Karras: Do people tell you you look like Paul Newman?
Kinderman: Always.

The astonishing thing about Kinderman's character is that he never really gets behind the truth - moreover he represents the view of the public, trying to make sense of things, to question motives, to convict the culprit. In a friendly way, Kinderman is ridiculous: only we know that he is dealing with the culprit, which completely evades his rational intellectual pass-time.

The saviour who comes face to face with his destiny: Max von Sydow's Merrin moves through the film directly to his death. That even such an impressive man of the cloth is defeated by the demon serves as a lasting afterthought. But on the other hand, even early on in the film, there is a clear indication that the last confrontation with evil will also be Merrin's destiny.

"My approach was coloured by my Protestant upbringing. To me, the devil has never been scary. I was brought up with Scandinavian fairy-tales and folk tales, an in many of those, the devil is kind of ridiculous. He is always a loser." (Max von Sydow)

Nonetheless, an enormous spiritual authority flows from Sydow's lightly trembling, stooped frame, which has something almost aged about it (von Sydow was 38!). As rare as his appearances are during long stretches of the film, the minutes when he is there, remain unforgettable.

THE EXORCIST and its enormous effect would be unthinkable without the extraordinary, rich cast.

V. Directed by William Friedkin

If you consider THE EXORCIST as a person, you have a film with the (not very nice) self-confidence of an equally clever and sadistic offender, who appears to take his victims (here: the audience) earnestly, promising them authenticity, plausibility and seriousness.

Hesitantly, but with increasing trust, we open ourselves up, become interested and curious - like lambs to the slaughter.

On listening to William Friedkin speak, this more or less represents his appearance. He seems clever and rough, tender and brutal, subtle and direct. Overall, quite an uncomfortable kind of man, who hides a certain bitterness behind a cynical mask. Friedkin is a coarse, sometimes almost reactionary intellectual, who pushes through his interests and aims in a vain, aggressive, uncompromising, and if needs be violent way - there is the rumour of him hitting Reverend William O'Malley in order to elicit his desperation; or the excessive force with which he had Ellen Burstyn thrown against the wall in order to maximise the effect of her daughter's attack. In order to convincingly shock Jason Miller, he fired his revolver in the air whilst the camera was running - with no warning.

Regardless of the reservations about method, the power of THE EXORCIST was especially that of the director himself. Driven by a palpitating ambition to shoot the meanest, hardest and simultaneously most intelligent horror film of all time, he spent more than two years (200 shooting days) frightening the cast and crew, demanding the impossible and fraying nerves and psyches to the limit.

"It was way beyond what anyone needs to do to make a movie." (Ellen Burstyn)

"But the actors got used to this. And they would come in in the morning, I had a good relationship with them, so Max would walk in and say: "Good morning Owen, where are the guns this morning?', and I'd say "Well there's a 45 behind this wall and a shotgun behind that one." And he said "Thank you very much".
(Owen Roizman)

When I watch a strong film, I always want to hear a clear, decisive voice with personality. Like when you meet someone exciting, only this someone is a film.

The personality of THE EXORCIST is as monstrous, crass and fascinating as William Friedkin. It's a true film d'auteur.

VI. Epitomes

One of the most impressive film images, was also the poster and the signet of the film.

The striking silhouette of a tall man in foggy back light who has reached his destination. It's a modern apartment block, which has been transformed into a gothic mansion by means of morbid shadows and stark contrasts. The art of THE EXORCIST is quintessentially formulated in this highly charismatic picture, in which this world and the other world, dream and reality, the concrete and the abstract seem to melt together. It's an image with almost Kafkaesque presence: A human being with an insoluble task, an indescribable, shapeless form which has settled into the enemy camp, into a human house. The man wears a hat and carries a bag, he seems to be armed and ready to tackle the task in hand, but at the same time he seems small in the face of it, threatened, or in the worst case scenario: over challenged.

"I remember when we were preparing for the film, Billy was going to art museums, looking through art books and finding images that inspired him. That famous shot that was used in the ad, of Max standing looking at the house, I think, although the composition is different, it was inspired by a Magritte. And of course the thing in Magritte is that it's always very truthful, but then there is this oddness that happens within the realism."
(Ellen Burstyn)

Friedkin's massive credit for THE EXORCIST is largely due to his research for pictures and sounds which are either directly or indirectly in contact with the subconsciousness. The film is laced with moments, excerpts, and arrangements which stick; not so much through what happens as through Friedkin's very subjective, atmospheric manner of mise-en-scène.

And through a fantastic crew.
Camera: Owen Roizman.
Production Design: Bill Malley
Editor: Bud Smith (1)
Make-up: Dick Smith

A general assembly of exceptional talent, who without exception delivered the most impressive work of their careers in this film.

Many of the archetypical epitomes of this film come together at the end, in the real ritual of exorcism. It is also the part of the film which is least fun to write about, both because the scenes in this sequence truly benefit from direct experience, but even more so because they are the elements which sell the film, but not those which carry it.
They are spectacular in every way - but their strength is built up by almost one hundred minutes of preparation. And, as is often the case, even in this long final sequence, the ellipses are the most unnerving moments: what happened in the room when Father Merrin was alone with Regan? How did he die? How come the child is suddenly sitting at the other end of the bed?

VII. The new version

It was released as the "director's cut", and it was a joke. No, it was a cheek. Completely unnecessary scene additions, absurd copied-in visual effects and catastrophic sound quality.

THE EXORCIST was always a mono film, and it has to stay that way because the acoustic concept was in keeping with the technical capabilities of back then. Mono gives the film a physicality, which simultaneously adheres to reality.

Now they have come up with this super sensitive Dolby Digital sound track. (A bad mistake, already made by the restorers of VERTIGO). The several-channelled digital sound, backed up by subwoofers, pushes the film into the distance, turns tones into drones, and makes sounds into effects. All it does is create a strange distance in viewers and listeners. From the front the original sound crackles (too many trebles) . It is simple, realistic and imaginative, whilst effects speakers at the sides and the back churn out a wholly unimaginative and primitive standard rumble, with diverse humming samples.

But the worst thing is that music has been added to it. Cheap, unidentifiable, synthesised tension garb has been poured all over countless scenes which used the silence to slowly reveal their force. The rare, minimalist original score of the film was much more suited to the enormous reservation of the film than extensive sound design is. But when, on the other hand, the silence was invaded, it was so done properly.

The most shocking example is Chris MacNeil calling her ex-husband to tell him to wish his daughter a happy birthday. She complains out loud about his loveless indifference, and neglect of his daughter. The camera slowly moves back from the doorframe, taking us away from the angrily gesticulating Ellen Burstyn, to reveal Regan eavesdropping sadly.

The new music puts this scene in a different light. What was originally a situation which summarised the tragedy of a broken family in an equally smooth and complex situation, has now - with new music replacing the original crackling atmos - been reinterpreted as a moment of suspense, as a premonition of horror, bringing the subtle hint of an unhappy child into direct association with demonic "neurosis".

But it is precisely this indirectness, the carefully formulated idea of the connection between psychology and concrete horror which give the film its aura, its force of projection.

The makers of the "new version" didn't understand any of that, and stole the essential qualities of the film. Get the DVD as long as it is still available. Stay away from the cinema.

VIII. Linda (2)

Linda Blair is now 41, and has shot more than 50 films, almost without exception, B-movies and TV action films, including selected obscurities such as ROLLER BOOGIE (1979) and FATAL BLOND (1992), and classic 80s exploitations such as CHAINED HEAT (1983) or SAVAGE STREETS (1984). Sometimes I still hope that Abel Ferrara will rediscover her, or Quentin Tarantino. For Wes Craven, she was only worth a guest appearance in SCREAM (as a reporter). Like many child and youth stars (I recently read an interview with Bud Cort from HAROLD AND MAUDE and thought of Tatum O'Neal from PAPER MOON) actress Linda Blair hasn't grown beyond her key role.

What can't match to Linda's immortality is when I am alone at night. In the quiet. (2)

Footnotes

(1) Incidentally, the cutting room was located in New York at 666 Fifth Avenue

(2) For the record, in my dreams, calm is mono.

.