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.
Um, no mention of Dyer being overtly, screamingly gay? He’s as camp as a row of tents at the party (“My idea of Heaven is a solid white nightclub with me as a headliner for all eternity, and they LOVE me!!”).
ReplyDeleteBTW, Sharon isn’t Chris’s friend, she’s her PA.
sharon is chris' friend AND assistant
Delete"This is Sharon. She's...um....um....my personal assistant. Yeah, that sound reasonable. Sharon, dear, don't forget to...um...make those calls."
ReplyDeleteYeah, like that.
DeleteThe devil should mention all the altar boys. Someone has to. (And back then, the fact that they were boys, now damned to grow up to be homa-sexshuls and so they must be punished as well, was more scandalous than that they were children.)
I could be wrong about this since I have not seen the movie in years. I think Regan was possessed by Pazuzu and not the devil. There is a beautiful silhouette moment when Regan is reaching up into the air from the bed and behind her you see the Pazuzu icon Father Merrin found. But I could be wrong about this.
ReplyDeleteNot wrong, the idol was not clear in the original though and was clear in the directors anniversary cut(also featuring the idol in several scenes to show the start of the possession) No, Pazuzu is not the devil, but in almost all recorded exorcisms, demons refer to themselves as the devil due to a language barrier, meaning they are dereived from hell and almost all the world knows of the devil more then demons as a source of evil. If you say you are Pazuzu or you are a demon, it doesn’t have the same punch. Demon know this, they have long been aware or PR and branding
DeleteThe priests discuss "She says she is possessed by the devil," which is a clear sign of psychosis rather than demonic possession, sort of like claiming that you are Napoleon. But the demon could be lying. They like to inflate their own importance.
ReplyDeleteWell, at least his mother is libeled for heterosexuality...
DeleteThere is a scene in which Father Dyer comforts Father Karras after the death of his mother. The two men get drunk and who knows where that usually leads...
ReplyDeleteThat’s the scene that led me here. Watch the end of it, when Karris makes a desperate last second pass.
DeleteI think I missed that. We kept being interrupted by trick-or-treaters.
ReplyDeleteThe scene in Iraq has everything to do with the rest of the movie. When Merrin discovers the relic bearing a resemblance to Pazuzu, it foretells both the possession and the fact that Merrin and Pazuzu are old enemies (this is why the demon hollers Merrin's name when he first enters the house prior to the exorcism).
ReplyDeleteRegan does not get possessed by an ouija board. She was already possessed when the film first cuts to the house in Georgetown.
Oh, have you thought about doing a retrospective on Butch Hartman? Fundamentalist con artist of animation.
ReplyDeleteThe prologue is Irag sets the theme of the movie- good vs evil, the holy vs the unholy. The longer cut has more local color- but I prefer the original cut- "The Exorcist" is still one of the scariest most shocking films ever made- read the Pauline Kael review- she hated the movie but does bring up some interesting points
ReplyDeleteI didn't know he was homophobic, since "Fairly Oddparents" has lots of gay subtexts.
ReplyDeleteI saw the film again and yeah it's obvious that Father Dyer is gay but he also had a crush on Father Karras ( and who can blame him) watch the comforting scene again and you get the feeling Karras would not mind some some man action from Dyer.
ReplyDelete"Father Dyer" was credibly accused of sexual abuse of a 17 year old student whom he had groomed. Blatty and Friedkin had both expressed how they enjoyed an interpretation someone had written about Merrin and Karras being gay lovers. One of Blatty's last books featured a gay man as a character, albeit a stereotyped one with a poodle, who makes it to heaven. I think his attitudes may have changed, like many people's. Now we hear witchcraft and many think of Wicca not satanism as in the movie. Now we see "The Boys in the Band" as leaning anti-gay (hopefully) where at the time it came out it was thought of as a major achievement. There are so many analyses of "The Exorcist" it's fascinating.
ReplyDeleteYeah “Boys in the Band” was thought of as progressive because no one died! Up until them, blatently(or sometimes even sutextualy) gay characters had to die- you know, to pay for their “sin”. I remember watching it thinking it was kind of vicious in its treatment of the men. However, the okay was written by a gay man, who has since said he himself was miserable and bitchy at the time, so he apologizes if it was wrong, but that it was more to something being wrong with his attitude at the time toward himself. The characters were pieces of him
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