William Friedkin's 1973 masterpiece " The Exorcist " is my all time favourite film. I have, in my posession, eight copies on varying format's and editions. It inspired me to investigate and research cinema and to create my own someday. I'm still captivated by the the technical innovations, the subject matter, the many levels of subtext within the narrative, the themes that are presented, the "no holds barred " visual style, the performances, the cinematography..it's endless. One thing I never saw it as was a simple " Horror" film, now don't get me wrong, there is no better example of a horror film and I doubt there ever will be, but this film is so much more than a scary film, it's not just a roller coaster ride or an endurance test, it's not a "body count" film and it's not "quiet,quiet quiet..bang!" film. It's an artitic, innovative film that discusses theology and it's place in the modern world, the meaning of human nature, the concept of good and evil, the guilt of single parenting, a comment on the perception and treatment of troubled children and the trials and tribulation of puberty seen from both the child and the parent's perspective. It's these things and more, that's what i see when I watch it and I could find nothing more disconcerting when having to sit through my first cinema screening of the film with people, sat behind me, who serve to do nothing but cheapen it by tittering and chuckling all the way through it!
I understand that not everyone shares the same love for this film that I do, but I think that it's a film that deserves respect for being as iconic and inspirational as it is. "The Exorcist" is a film which , these days seems to inspire laughter and mockery from younger, fresher audiences, I actually don't find this as much of a problem, in fact, it's these reactions which have informed my desire to use this film as the subject of my dissertation. But it's the "boyfriend" sat above me, who has obviously seen this film before and has brought along his girlfriend with the intention of showing her how tough he is for not getting effected by any of the more punishing scenes in the film, in fact every time one of these scenes would be close, I would here a kind of anticipation which could only be described as overly macho tittering, which whilst showing her that he knows what's coming, which also served to evoke some typical high pitching "mewing" from her, thus pushing the levels of peripheral obnoxiousness to an almost unbearable level.
Strangely though, I did find my own reactions interesting, It hasn't bothered me before when this has happened when watching other films. It really made me reflect on my own reactions towards the audience that night. Why should it matter to me, what they think of the film or how they treat it?. i suppose that maybe part of the reason is that i wanted this screening to be perfect , for me. I wanted the right seat, the right screen, the right accompanying beverage and i wanted this screening to be a life changing experience, an event that reassesses the film for me, after all, this should have been the perfect way to view this film and i have been waiting to see it this way all my life.
When i came out of the cinema, my first feeling was that i had ticked something off my list of " things to do before I die " rather than reflect on the film itself. What does this say about how my experience informs my reaction. for example I don't think anything will ever beat the first time i viewed it alone at fifteen years old on a beaten up bootlegged VHS tape. It was an occurrence which has influenced every viewing and every mention of that film. It's true that I did'nt really start to see all the aforementioned aspects until much later, my curiosity and my knowledge deepened with each and every viewing. In fact, my favourite memory is from the brilliant documentary "The fear of god" in which Mark Kermode describes his own initial experience with the trailer for the film, which by his admission scared the life out of him, yet all these years later it's his own personal favourite film leading him to not only put together a documentary buit wirte an accopanying book and campaign to get find the original cut of the somewhat maligned sequel " The Exorcist III ".
I had no idea that when I first saw this film that it would lead me to fall in love with it years later or that it would inspire me to really research and study cinema and film so seriously that I would end up studying a degree based on the subject. This film really made me look at all other films in a completely different way, I looked for things that I wouldn't have necessarily have seen or appreciated before, I began to really love films on a much deeper level. Maybe It's wrong of me to expect that others find that same sense of inspiration when seeing that film, maybe they've found there own touchstone which they can lavish with their love and adoration. Either way I think that this will be an interesting subject to tackle and I look forward to seeing where this takes me.
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