Last night while we passed out candy to trick-or-treaers (through a window, wearing a mask), we watched the director's cut of The Exorcist., the iconic 1973 movie about a famous actress (Ellen Burstyn) gradually realizing that her beloved young daughter Regan (Linda Blair) is possessed by the Devil, and, although she's not religious, having to rely on a priest who has lost his faith for an exorcism.
It was a lot more gay than I remember.
1. There's a long Orientalist-exotic scene at the beginning, with Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) on an archaeological dig in Iraq, digging up an icon of the demon Pazuzu. It has nothing to do with the rest of the movie: Reagan gets possessed by playing with a Ouija board she found in the basement. But it's full of hot Middle Eastern guys.
2. The character of Father Merrin is based on archaeologist Gerald Harding, who supervised the excavation of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948. And who was gay.
3. Mom is divorced. She denies "liking" a male friend in that way. Her friend Sharon is always around. Is she a lesbian?
4. When Regan begins exhibiting weird behavior, like cursing and telekinesis, they subject her to a bond of horrifying, impossible-to-watch medical tests. Again and again. "We want to eliminate physical causes before we even consider seeing a psychiatrist." So psychiatry is the last resort, after drilling holes into Regan's brain? Heck, I'd be seeing a psychiatrist first. Much less invasive.
This reminded me of the various types of "cures" that gay/lesbian people were subjected to before Stonewall (and youth, to an extent, still are).
5. Father Karras (Jason Miller), the hot, muscular former boxer priest, is played by Jason Miller, a playwright with no previous acting experience. He was obviously cast for his hunk appeal.
6. One doesn't expect him to display any heterosexual interest now, being a priest, but there are no girls mentioned in Father Karras' past, either. Plus he goes to movies and hangs out in a bar with police lieutenant Kinderman (Lee J, Cobb). Are the two boyfriends?
7. The possessed Regan spews forth lots of homophobic slurs at the priests. Because the Devil is homophobic, or because he wants to reveal their "shameful secret"?
8. Both Father Karras and Father Merrin die during the exorcism. Father Dyer (Father William O'Malley, a priest in real life) arrives to close the case. Regan doesn't remember anything about her trauma, consciously, but she kisses him on the cheek in gratitude. Then the theatrical version ends.
But the director's cut has an additional scene in which Lt. Kinderman sidles up to Father Dyer and asks him to a movie and then to lunch. He takes his arm, and they walk off in a "this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" moment.
Apparently Lt. Kinderman has a prriest fetish, and he's already looking for a new boyfriend.
9. Director William Friedkin has a complicated relationship with the LGBT community. He directed both Boys in the Band (1970) and Cruising (1980).
10. William Peter Blatty, author of the original novel, didn't have a complicated relationship with the LGBT community at all. He hated gay people -- child molesting, God-hating, mincing, swishing perverts! -- and in the book had some of his mouthpiece priests say so.
