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Thursday, October 21, 2010
BD impressions: The Exorcist
10:39 PM / BD Impressions / 
23 Comments
The first time I saw William Friedkin's THE EXORCIST was in March 2001, when it got its first ever airing on UK TV (two years after the British Board of Film Censors finally saw fit to unban it). To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed. I don't think it could ever have lived up to the hype surrounding it, but I remember feeling incredibly disappointed when it finished. Since then, I've seen it again twice and liked it a little more each time, as well as read the novel on which it is based. I enjoyed the novel, and hoped that revisiting the film for a fourth time, this time on BD, might be enough to tip it over the edge for me.
Regrettably not. I would never claim it to be a bad film, but for me it's simply not the masterpiece others consider it to be. I find it rather cold and empty, consisting of choppy snippets and subplots that don't gel together, as if screenwriter/novelist William Peter Blatty felt he absolutely had to throw in EVERYTHING from the novel. The script has a habit of jumping over large chunks and then TELLING you afterwards what you've missed. The most egregious example is the death of Damien's mother: in one scene, we see her confined to a psychiatric hospital but very much alive; in the next, we're told by another character that she died in her home and wasn't found for two days. The bits I appreciate the most are mainly technical in nature - Regan's transformation (a mixture of make-up and animatronics), the subliminal images, the shot of Max Von Sydow arriving at the house (which graces just about every home video cover, and rightly so)... the use of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells"... the performances, which are solid across the board... It's what I'd call a well-made movie, which basically means I can appreciate the skill that is readily apparent on both sides of the camera, even if the end result leaves me a bit cold.
Admittedly, I find it hard not to compare the film unfavourably with THE OMEN, a similarly "high-brow" take on the demonic possession subset of the horror genre by a major Hollywood studio, and for me what separates the two of them is their approach to the subject matter. Biblical quotations aside, THE OMEN doesn't try to pretend it's something it isn't. It knows exactly what it is: an extremely glossly, technically accomplished rollercoaster ride with a star-studded cast and one of the best scores ever to grace a horror film. It is, in a sense, classy schlock. It sets out to entertain, and it succeeds in spades. THE EXORCIST, meanwhile, sets out to brow-beat you into submission. It takes itself incredibly seriously and has a keenly developed sense of its own (self-)importance. Now, I don't object to films taking themselves seriously, but THE EXORCIST veers a little too close to hitting the viewer over the head with the "This is serious stuff, dammit!" stick for my liking... and when that serious stuff is something as fanciful as demonic possession, and the poo-pooing of medicine in favour of rituals and chanting, I'm inclined to think a less preachy touch would have gone down better... with me, at any rate. I could name a number of atheists who love this film, but I've also seen many people claim that you can't possibly appreciate the film fully unless you believe in what it portrays. That may be so, but it doesn't compel me to look on it any more favourably (and I think it's a fairly weak defence, in any rate - a lack of belief in hobbits and elves didn't stop millions from flocking to THE LORD OF THE RINGS).
In his video introduction, Friedkin says that you get out of THE EXORCIST exactly what you bring to it, and I'm inclined to agree with him. If you believe in demonic possession, this may well be one of the scariest films ever made. If like me, however, the very idea gives you a fit of the giggles, it becomes very hard to take Blatty and Friedkin's stern tone with the solemnity they so clearly wanted. With that in mind, I'd like to propose a little experiment by asking the following two questions: (1) Do you believe in demonic possession? and (2) Do you think THE EXORCIST is a masterpiece? Obviously, I'm only going to get data from a small subset of people, but I'm genuinely curious as to whether there's any correlation between belief in the supernatural and a love of the film.
Image quality: Oh, Warner, Warner, Warner... Once again what looks like an excellent master is sullied by iffy compression. The look of both encodes (theatrical and extended cuts, housed on separate discs) is inconsistent, with some scenes looking excellent and others suffering from a smorgasbord of artefacting. At its best, the disc holds its own against other catalogue titles from the same period. At its worst... well, the Scandinavian release of THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE springs to mind. I don't know whether to blame the encoder, or the codec itself, or both, but wherever the blame lies, it's clear that the heavy grain was just too much to handle, and I can't help wondering what the film could have looked like if someone other than Warner had been responsible for the disc. 7/10
I watched the original theatrical version rather than the "extended director's cut" (previously known as The Version You've Never Seen, a title that is now somewhat redundant). While both are completely different codes, there is little appreciable difference between the two in terms of overall encoding. However, it is worth pointing out that the extended cut suffers from elevated blacks. This is extremely noticeable during the opening and closing credits, but it affects the entire film and results in some loss of shadow detail (compare Example 16 with this shot from the extended cut). Personally I have no real desire to watch the extended cut again (the majority of the additions, I feel, simply restate what is already obvious and, in some cases, disrupt the tone entirely - particularly the gratuitous "demon face" inserts), but it's a very poor show that the disc was allowed to go out with such an obvious mistake present.
The Exorcist
studio: Warner; country: USA; region code: ABC; codec: VC-1;
file size: 25.5 GB (theatrical cut), 31.7 GB (extended director's cut);
average bit rate (including audio): 30.02 Mbit/sec (theatrical cut), 34.37 Mbit/sec (extended director's cut)
23 Comments
Fascinating to read all the responses, folks. Keep 'em coming!
And yes, I definitely want to see both REQUIEM and THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE.
David S.H.:
Oh yeah, definitely miles better than any DVD release.
Greg:
That's interesting - I may have to give it a look, although if memory serves correctly none of the added scenes or extensions really add anything of value to the film, except to emphasise what was already obvious.
Marcus and Kentai:
Perhaps "preachy" wasn't the best word to use, but to me it does feel as if the filmmakers are desperate to convince the audience that demonic possession (and I mean "real" demonic possession rather than psychological problems) is real, something which also comes through quite clearly in the various interviews with Friedkin and Blatty on the BD. For me, the most eye-rolling aspect is the condescending portrayal of the medical profession, which has a very palpable feeling of "Pfff, doctors! What do THEY know?", very much hurting its credibility for me. The likes of THE OMEN certainly makes brief reference to psychological problems as an explanation for the events on display, but I think this is a more effective approach than openly confronting modern medicine and psychiatry and dismissing them in the way that THE EXORCIST does.
I agree, a horror film that takes itself seriously is something to be applauded, but there's a fine line between "serious" and "passing off nonsense as reality". A film like SUSPIRIA takes itself seriously too, but it does so within the confines of the (fantasy) world it has created rather than stepping into the real world and trying to discredit logic and reason. Likewise, I have no trouble buying into the idea of the living dead in a George Romero film, because these films are more concerned with telling an engaging story than assaulting you with the "This is really happening, god-dammit!" stick.
To provide a rather pithy comparison, it's like a film like TOY STORY engaging in a philosophical debate about whether toys are alive or not. We accept the idea of living, talking toys in TOY STORY because the film establishes its rules and then conforms to them. You can of course argue that demonic possession and toys coming alive are two very different things (not so much from my perspective, though) but it would be a similar example of fantasy trying to attack logic and emerge victorious. When those of a religious persuasion try to take on science, they invariably emerge looking rather foolish.
I think another problem (that Kentai and Colin both point out) is the extent to which Friedkin emphasises the traditional "horror movie" (for want of a better description) elements like the pea-soup vomit, 180-degree head turn and levitation, which detracts from the ambiguity of the novel. Obviously ambiguity is far easier to pull off with the written word than in visual form, but I feel that where the novel leaves room for an alternate interpretation (i.e. that Reagan WAS just mentally disturbed and the exorcism worked because she believed in it so strongly... though how a child raised as an atheist could suddenly, with seemingly no external influence, develop such a profound belief in Catholic mythology is a mystery to me), the film does the exact opposite.
As for Damien's mother's off-screen death... no, I didn't NEED to see it on-screen per se, but the way in which it is handled feels clunky and disjointed to me. Perhaps it's just the aspiring screenwriter in me, but it feels like bad storytelling to me to convey such a significant event in the form of a "Oh, by the way, this happened to the film's protagonist, then this happened, then this happened" dialogue exchange between two different characters. I would at least have established that Damien had removed his mother from the hospital beforehand. To refer to THE LORD OF THE RINGS again, it reminds me of the way the defeat of Saruman is handled at the beginning of the theatrical cut of THE RETURN OF THE KING. The first time I watched the film, it actually threw me for a long time because I'd just been shown Damien's mother alive and confined to a hospital. To be told almost immediately after that scene that she died at home and wasn't found for days felt like I'd just been given two contradictory pieces of information.
Paku:
I forgot to mention that in my write-up. It's weird, almost as if they selectively recoloured the boarded-up window. Interesting, the extended cut features a similar shot (different take) that doesn't suffer from this problem.
Kamyar:
Not sure if it makes any difference, but I liked the film MORE on this than on any previous viewing, so at least in my case, this isn't an example of revisiting a beloved film and being disappointed by the experience.
(Posted on Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 3:40 PM)
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1. David S.H. said:
1) I'd consider myself an atheist so demonic possession isn't something I'd believe in, 2) The Exorcist is a good film but it certainly didn't impact me the way I thought it would.
I think part of the problem is I knew a lot of the twists before I'd even watched the film, so instead of being shocked I was waiting for certain moments to happen. I even laughed at the crucifix masturbation scene. To be honest by today's standards I'd even consider it a little bit tame, although that may be the numb horror fan in me talking...
Its a shame the transfer is a little lacking but I'm sure its probably still leaps and bounds over the DVD.
(Posted on Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 11:53 PM)