Category Archives: 1973

1970s, 1973, Grade, Horror, Past, Review, review-movie, S+, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: The Exorcist – 1973

Leave a comment
Director(s)William Friedkin
Principal CastEllen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil
Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil
Jason Miller as Father/Dr. Damien Karras
Max von Sydow as Father Merrin
Lee J. Cobb as Lieutenant Kinderman
Release Date1973
Language(s)English
Running Time 121 minutes
The title card comes in a deep red font surrounded by black.
A black-and-white perspective on the sun rising.
The fantasy fades and the hues of the sun overpower the frame.
The opening sequence of The Exorcist marks the end of simplistic worldviews; order is broken and the world isn’t a clear cut black-and-white image anymore. The battle begins with a hellish intensity that must be overcome.

The film opens with a bright red title card as the Islamic call to prayer is heard in the background. A grayscale image of a desert is shown before its burning red, orange, and yellow hues dominate the screen. The simplicity of the black-and-white image gives way to a hellish haze that burns the natural environment around it. The world isn’t black-and-white and the battle between good and evil has begun.

Animals walk in the haze of the desert.
People dig at a site.
Location card indicates we’re in Northern Iraq.
Father Merrin (Alex von Sydow) is framed between the legs of a young boy looking up.
A series of establishing shots let us know we’re in a desert on a dig site somewhere in Northern Iraq. Despite being shot like a documentary, the establishing shots culminate in a picturesque frame where Father Merrin is trapped in between the legs of a young boy. It’s a sign of strenuous things to come, where he’ll be be starting at a lower vantage point.

We see a series of establishing shots – animals walking through a haze and workers digging up a site – before a location card shows up informing us that we’re in Northern Iraq. The presentation makes us feel like we’re watching a documentary. Eventually the camera comes upon and follows a young boy at the site who runs through the grounds. He stops and we see the subject of his search, an older archaeologist and priest named Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), positioned between his legs looking up. The child informs the priest that that something of interest has been dug up.

Despite the fact that the compositions and camera movements are done in a naturalistic, unassuming manner, director William Friedkin is still able to fill the film with evocative frames like this one to set up the narrative. Merrin is trapped by the child and the announcement. He looks up from a lower position suggesting that what’s to come will be a struggle for him, one in which he will be lowered. The fact that the one giving him the message and demarcating him is a child is not a coincidence; it’s just one small demonstration of one The Exorcist’s major strengths: the ability to portray events in documentary like fashion while retaining full control on what each frame entails in a thematic sense. This is how Friedkin transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Merrin (Max von Sydow) finds the Medal of St.Joseph.
Merrin (Max von Sydow) finds a sculpture of Pazuzu’s head.
A lone bird flies through the sun covered frame.
Merrin’s (Max von Sydow) hands tremble as he takes his medication.
Merrin (Max von Sydow) sees a blacksmith tending to burning fire.
The blacksmith looks at Merrin. One of his eyes is clouded in shades of gray.
Father Merrin finds both a medal of St.Joseph and a sculpt of Pazuzu’s’, a demon-God, head. This double finding of a sign of good luck and a sign of bad luck will be repeated as a motif throughout the film. After finding both items, we see the sun dominate the frame for a split second as a bird flies through the frame – this creature will show up later. The experience disgruntles Merrin so much that even a simple encounter with a blacksmith becomes elevated.

Merrin walks through the desert towards the location of the aforementioned discovery and finds a medal of St.Joseph. The medal is out of place in the environment, both geographically and chronologically, calling to question how and why it’s present in the area. The film even calls attention to the discrepancy by having the characters mention that such an artifact doesn’t belong in the area. After puzzling over the medal, Merrin starts to dig and comes upon a sculpting. The sound of the wind gets stronger as he brushes the dust off the figure revealing it to be a statue of Pazuzu. [1] While Pazuzu is never mentioned explicitly, it’s clear from the material and discussion on the film that the figure is of Pazuzu. As he stares at the ominous looking head, the sound of buzzing flies becomes more intense.

Once again, the hellish haze of the sun takes control of the screen; this time its presence is brief while it burns not just the desert like before but also a large building in the background; the flames have made their way to civilization. A single bird flies through the frame; the conflict has started to move. The scene dissipates and we cut back to Merrin sitting in a crowded area. It’s clear he’s perturbed by his encounter with Pazuzu as his hands tremble fumbling with his medicine. From the way his eyes glaze out, we know he’s not taking in any of his surroundings; his mind is focused entirely on the presence of malevolence. He gets up and walks through the city before coming upon a blacksmith. The intensity of the flames from their work feels off-putting as they remind us of the intensity of the sun. A simple encounter becomes nefarious as our mind puts the visual cues together; a sub-conscious fear is being laid out.

Insert shot of the clock’s chime.
Insert shot of the clock.
Insert shot of a recovered statue head.
Merrin (Max von Sydow) catalogues his finding.
Merrin (Max von Sydow) picks up the Medal of St.Joseph. The clock goes on behind him.
Merrin (Max von Sydow) looks at the Medal of St. Joseph.
Merrin (Max von Sydow) looks at the head of Pazuzu while being informed it’s a ward against evil.
Merrin (Max von Sydow) notices the clock behind him has stopped.
Friedkin hides subliminal clues in this establishing montage; seemingly benign insert shots become triggers for a scare in the making. By clueing us in to look at the clocks, not from one but two separate angles, Friedkin manages to get our subconscious hyper-focsed on the clock. This is why it stopping hits as hard. The fact that it happens after a repetition of the double finding motif – Merrin touches both the medal and statue again – helps both techniques reinforce one another. This is how the film weaves psychic chains.

We see another set of establishing shots – a clock chime, a clock head, recovered statues – before revealing Merrin documenting his dig findings. He picks up the medal and looks at it for a brief moment before picking up the head. Another worker in the building notes that the head is a figure of “Evil against Evil.” This mention is not without purpose; Pazuzu is both a demon associated with the evils of the air and a God invoked by people to protect against other more malicious forces. [2]Near eastern antiquities : Mesopotamia. Statuette of the demon Pazuzu with an inscription – Near Eastern Antiquities | Louvre Museum. (n.d.). … Continue reading Thus, we have a symbol of God from a different area juxtaposed against the symbol of a God-Demon from a more local culture being discovered by a Father who is deadly terrified of the latter.

Immediately, the clock behind Merrin stops and our anxieties rise along with him. Because Friedkin disguised the clock parts as part of the establishing shot, our minds were primed to pay attention to the clock without being immediately aware of it. This makes its eventual stoppage more effective because it’s something we’re already thinking about. Friedkin shows us the clock multiple times in a non-innocuous manner, so he conditions us even further to recognize its disparity as off-putting. Combining this with the juxtaposition of the findings amplifies our unease, transforming a small clock pause into a moment of utter panic.

Merrin (Max von Sydow) walks past a group of Muslims praying.
A woman looks down at Merrin from above.
Merrin (Max von Sydow) walks past two women who are veiled.
Merrin (Max von Sydow) is almost hit by a carriage.
Even though nothing should be going wrong, we’re primed for the worst to happen. Every point of God is met with a counter-point of bad luck, so after Merrin walks past Muslims praying, we’re expecting something go awry. He walks past a woman looking down on him, just like the child did earlier, which starts the trepidation. After he walks past two women, we’re not even surprised that he’s almost run over. The film constantly generates expectations because of how it repeats itself.

Merrin leaves the establishment as a group of Muslims start to pray – a callback to the call for prayer at the start of the film. Despite being a man of faith, he makes no notice of the group and walks past them. It’s a continuation of the juxtaposition between the figures; orientations towards religions constantly mix and swap in this battle for and of faith. While the anxiety ridden priest makes his way around a corner, the camera cuts to a woman who seems him from up above looking down. The shot itself is nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s inclusion in an already tense movement makes us scared for the elderly priest. The last time someone was looking down on him, the child giving the announcement, he was met with a dark presence.

We cut from the women back down to Merrin who stares down at the ground as he walks past two women. Within seconds of passing them, he is almost ran over by a carriage which approaches from a darkened tunnel. Is this Pazuzu or is it just Merrin’s pre-occupation?

Merrin (Max von Sydow) looks up as a shadow comes over him and a gust of wind threatens to blow off his hat.
A statue of Pazuzu is revealed to be above, with the burning sun behind it.
Pazuzu and Merrin (Max von Sydow) stare off.
A man is revealed to be behind Merrin.
Dogs fight in the desert.
The camera zooms in on Pazuzu.
Pazuzu and Merrin (Max von Sydow) are engaged in battle.
Pazuzu and Merrin’s (Max von Sydow) battle dissolves into the red heat of the sun.
The heat of the sun covers everything.
The heat of the sun dissolves into the cool looking cityscape.
The city is revealed to be Georgetown.
Chris (Ellen Burstyn) hears some animal noises and goes to investigate. A black-and-white image of her daughter is positioned next to her bed.
Chris (Ellen Burstyn) puts on an orange robe and goes to investigate the source of the noise.
Regan (Linda Blair) wears yellow pajamas.
The window to Regan’s room is open and a gust comes in.
The confrontation between Merrin and Pazuzu sets the stage for everything to come and marks one of the greatest movie introductions. The wind and sound of animals are established to be antagonistic forces as their presence makes way while Merrin realizes he’s being stared down on by Pazuzu. Merrin has been set lower by the boy, woman above, and now finally, the demon-God before him. We already know the battle will be brutal. A man behind Merrin reminds us that the entity of Pazuzu is not one of pure evil; Merrin is reacting strongly but a local doesn’t move. The film is establishing sources of ambiguity.

At the same time, the battle dissolves into the harsh sun, tying the battle between Merrin and Pazuzu to the universal breaking of black-and-white morals. This further dissolves into Georgetown, which is bathed in a cool blue. The battle has changed locations.

As Chris moves from her black-and-white photograph of Reagan to Reagan herself, we notice that the mother-daughter duo pair are wearing the colors of the sun. Another movement of black-and-white breaking to the intensity of the solar spectrum. At the same time, the gusts of wind break through Reagan’s window. Another repetition.

An answer is given. Merrin walks down to the dig site and a gust of wind blows threatening to take his hat off. His face is cast in shadows as he looks up. The camera cuts to a statue of Pazuzu looking down upon him, the blinding hot sun appearing right behind the figure. Finally, the confrontation has come to a head. The sounds of dogs fighting and the gusts of wind rage over the soundscape as the two combatants take their stances. The two figures stand apart from each other, Merrin positioned lower looking up, as the scene dissolves into the burning bright sun – a confirmation that the days of a black-and-white world are over. This burning environment dissolves to an establishing shot of Georgetown; the arena of the battle has shifted grounds from Iraq to Washington D.C.

The camera moves from the city to the bedroom of a large mansion. We see Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) writing notes on her bed. On her nightstand is a large black-and-white portrait of her daughter, Regan (Linda Blair). Chris hears loud animal noises coming from her attic and gets up to investigate. She puts on an orange nightgown before checking on Regan, who happens to be asleep in yellow pajamas. The window in Regan’s bedroom is wide open and gusts of wind are blowing through. A black-and-white image that gives way to orange and yellow, gusts of wind, and animal noises are all signs that the conflict we saw in the opening act has made its way here. Once again, Friedkin has managed to tell us what’s going to happen with just the most subtle of elements, using the repetition of visual and auditory cues to highlight the parallels between the evil happenings between both locations.

Extras playing students on the film hold up signs in protests against the Vietnam War, which was hugely unpopular and televised at the time.
Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) laughs in the background as he watches Chris and Burke squabble.
The sub-text of the Vietnam war is present but the reasoning for why is never given to the audience. Instead, we’re made aware of its odd placement in the film and then made to laugh at it as to let it float away, to the recesses of our subconscious.

The next day comes and we cut to a film materialized within the film; it turns out Chris is a famous movie actor and is on set filming a movie about the Vietnamese war. Extras on set hold up signs indicative of the counter-culture at the time. The Vietnam war was raging and was immensely unpopular to many college aged students at the time. The war was famous for being the first “televised war” and media reporting at the time made it infamous at large. [3]Spector, R. H. (2016, April 27). The Vietnam War and the Media. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Vietnam-War-and-the-media-2051426.. In particular, it was a time associated with the hippie movement – a group who was known for its opposition to consumerist bourgeois culture and Christianity. [4]Quinn, D. (2019, August 21). The mixed legacy of the 60s hippie movement. The Irish Catholic. https://www.irishcatholic.com/the-mixed-legacy-of-the-60s-hippie-movement/. It’s place in a film about supernatural evil feels out of place. However, this strangeness is called to attention by a crew member who asks the in-movie director, Burke Dennings, if “this scene [is] really essential” and if “[Dennings could] consider on whether or not [the film] can do without it?” Chris then follows up and asks Dennings to explain the student’s motivations for tearing the building down. In both cases, no real answer is given, but the mention of a purpose entices us to give the scene more attention than we would; immediately, we become aware that what we’re about to see has a purpose which allows the sub-text to become imprinted on our psyches.

Dennings ignores the crew member and responds to Chris’s question by reiterating her role. He tells her that as a “teacher at the college, [she] doesn’t want the building torn down.” In exasperation this non-answer , Chris exclaims, “C’mon I can read for Christ’s sake.” – the first verbal mention of Christ in the film – and continues her search for a purpose to the scene. Dennings is still unable to provide a reason and jokes around with Chris about the situation – diffusing it and providing entertainment for the throng of people who have come around the shoot to watch it in action. In the audience is a priest adorned in black, Damien Karras (Jason Miller), who smiles along in excitement at the proceedings. The joke diffuses us as well as it does the proxy audience within the film, causing us to drop our guard again; the lingering questions disappear, leaving only their spectral vestiges behind to accumulate in the the recesses of the mind.

Chris (Ellen Burstyn) mentions God as she tells the students to calm down.
The camera picks up on Damien (Jason Miller) as he leaves the crowd.
Damien (Jason Miller) leaves as Chris mentions that change has to occur within the system.
Chris (Ellen Burstyn) walks past a yellow door as the wind blows Autumn leaves past her.
Chris (Ellen Burstyn) walks past a red door as the wind blows Autumn leaves past her.
Chris (Ellen Burstyn) smiles at children in Halloween costumes running past her.
Chris walks past two Nuns, one of whom is carrying a rosary.
Chris ( Ellen Burstyn) sees Damien (Jason Miller) consoling another priest but can’t make out the conversation due to the loud noise of wind displacement.
The filming scene does a great job establishing that Chris and Damien’s paths have and will continue to intertwine almost as if fate is pushing them together. We start with Chris, hop to Damien in a crowd of faces, then cut back to Chris who eventually runs back into Damien. It’s a poetic movement; they can’t meet till the time is right.

Chris’s journey back is also a double of Merrin’s journey in Iraq. She walks past red and yellow (the sun), goes past kids in costumes (a symbol of evil against evil) and nuns holding a crucifix (a symbol of the Lord and two veiled women), while the wind blows and “Tubular Bells” play. We know she, like Merrin ,will have to deal with the forces of evil.

Our attention focuses on the scene itself as it begins. Chris, now in character, walks up to the top of the school and tells the students to stop their protests. Once again, she verbally mentions “God” in her exclamations while telling the crowd of extras around her that if they “wanna effect any change [they”] have to do it within the system.” The irony of a wealthy atheist actress playing a teacher working against the counterculture movement while invoking “God” and “the system” is so astoundingly blatant that the fact that Friedkin was able to disguise each element by only subtly drawing a viewer’s attention to it, while simultaneously not compromising the structure of the film proper is proof enough of how textured The Exorcist is at cultivating multifaceted themes. As Chris’s monologue comes to a close, the camera zooms in on a crowd of faces before finding and following the young priest, Karras, as he makes his way to the Church.

The in-movie scene ends and Chris walks back from the set to her mansion. The red, orange, and yellow Autumn leaves around her blow as the wind blows them around her. The iconic theme music, “Tubular Bells” plays, a confirmation to the audience that the sings they’re seeing are a confirmation of the evil that has come to lay siege to the MacNeils. Chris walks by a series of doors, the first of which is yellow and the last of which is red. Children, symbols of innocence, dressed in Halloween costumes run by her. The tradition of wearing costumes on holiday started namely to protect people from evil spirits. Costumes were meant to disguise oneself from evil. Wearing the monsters protected one from monsters – evil against evil. It’s fitting then that the innocent Regan, soon to be possessed, is being affected by Pazuzu of all entities.

Unlike the innocent depictions of costumes on these children, Chris will be forced to deal with the real thing; just like in Iraq, the conflict has started and Chris, just like Father Merrin, will have to come face to face with her nightmares. On the other side of the street, two nun’s walk by. Their presence does not make the sinister soundscape abate. This scene is done in parallel to Merrin’s own walk in the opening; both parties walk by women in veils as evil pursues. Eventually, Chris come to the Church’s gates and sees Father Karras. He starts to talk but both us and Chris are unable to hear as the soundscape is once again interrupted by the sound of the winds. Chris and Karras have not met yet but the seeds for their encounter have been planted.

With this, all the key players have been introduced and The Exorcist can truly begin as Regan MacNeil finds herself in a series of supernatural events that force her mother and self into action in a race to save their lives. The above description of the first 16 minutes is only scratching the surface of the intricate and deeply enigmatic story lying at the heart of the film. Hypnotic suggestions loom around every corner as the movie cuts between sequences in thematic fashion. Consequently, the story’s rythm always feel constant so we’re none the wiser to how much time has passed in between scenes. It’s from these “gaps” that Friedkin puts the mysteries of the film behind. Just like the medal Merrin finds at the start, The Exorcist is littered with minor oddities like repetitions of certain quips and details in the mise en scène like the cover of a magazine that are brought to attention and then pushed to the periphery only to pop up later in the strangest of ways.

Strange cuts and displacements offer an answer one way, while the nature of the narrative suggests others. Based on how a viewer interprets one event, they color the way other events proceed; each of these decisions, culminates in how one processes the ending and subsequently the themes of the movie. Each little detail is placed there with a purpose, waiting to be deciphered in the matrix of meaning afforded by the rich subtext the film employs. The end result is a movie with an infinite permutations of meanings, each justified by an orientation grounded in the film itself.

For example is the film, like Stephen King suggests, about “the entire youth explosion that took place in the late sixties and early seventies”? [5] King, S. (2010). Danse macabre. Gallery.The film-making scene in-movie would certainly be evidence to suggest as much. Or is the film about the way we demonize the Other? The use of Pazuzu as opposed to directly invoking the Devil from the start is a choice made for a reason. These are only a few of the questions the movie allows us to ponder. Every detail, no matter how small it is, presents with it another layer of themes by which to interpret the primary conflict and a set of questions along with them. It’s not an exaggeration to say that one could watch the movie on repeat and come to a different conclusion each time.

Regan (Linda Blair) is shaken by her blue bed while dressed in yellow pajamas.
Chris (Ellen Burstyn) talks to Dr. Klein (Barton Heyman) in a blue hallway.
Lt. Kidnerman (Lee J. Cobb) accosts Damien (Jason Miller) in front of blue seats.
I have to applaud the efforts in production design to ensure such a consistent color scheme. One only has to pause at a important enough juncture to see the scenes bursting in either blues, oranges, reds, and/or yellows depending on the nature of the scene. Whether it be in the architecture or the clothing, the relevant colors are there when they need to be and frequent enough to not feel like coincidence.

This is due, in no small part, to the way Friedkin repeats motifs, making the connections between seemingly disparate moments seem clear if one is looking. The colors red, yellow, and orange are first introduced at the start of the film and represent the spiritual battle. Whenever the colors prop up in the mise en scène, like in the color of the doorways or the characters clothing, we can already tell something is afoot. This is the color of the fight. In contrast, blues envelop the screen whenever a party is attempting to work against the malicious entities. It makes sense from a color theory perspective; in contrast to the heat feeling generated by the sun’s gradient, the cool and calm feeling of the blues feel like a natural response. Likewise, wind makes its presence apparent preceding scenes of terror, reinforcing Pazuzu’s dominion and area of reach. Animal noises like growls and barks creep into the soundscape reminding us of the buzz of the flies and the fighting of the dogs in Iraq while “Tubular Bells” all but confirms the sinister is going to happen when it turns up.

Damien (Jason Miller) tells Tom (Thomas Bermingham) that he, Damien, has lost his faith.
Chris (Ellen Burstyn) hears animal noises from above.
Ellen (Chris Burstyn) bathes Regan (Linda Blair) after the latter’s incident. The darkness crowds around them as the light gets further away.
The fact that Friedkin could get some of the shots he did with the style of filmmaking he was pursuing is testament to his genius. The use of harsh shadows, smoke, and distant sources of light let him give all his images a distinct texture while enabling thematically rich visual storytelling.

Furthermore, the film’s lighting and use of shadows hearkens back to German Expressionism movement, and to an effect the noir movement which was deeply influenced by the former movement. Smoke fills many frames, emanating from cigarettes constantly being lit and the freezing cold temperatures of the increasingly chilly gusts of wind, giving them a more textured and gritty look. Lighting is harsh and often shows the dark nooks and corners in characters faces. Shadows encroach on characters visually demonstrating the influence of evil on their lives. Likewise, divinity comes in the form of bright lights which often show up near the spiritually inclined characters.

By sticking to a mostly unassuming style, Friedkin is able to employ all the above stylistic flourishes, call attention to them momentarily, and then sweep that attention under the rug in favor of something else. The end result is a hypnotic film that creeps under the skin without notice. Suggestions become patterns which become motifs that inform how one proceeds down the mine. Our mind is conditioned to associate certain triggers with evil and others with good, ultimately giving the viewer full reign in determining what the film really means.

The documentary like severity by which the subject matter is treated is the reason this subsequent engagement is so powerful and potentially cathartic. Because everything leading up to the supernatural phenomena is so grounded, the inclusion of such events is given a real power. Every single actor, from the main to the side cast, deals with the events of the film with a cold sense of realism forcing us to do the same. While I could spend at least a few paragraphs detailing the meticulous performances on display, I mainly want to draw attention at how well the film humanizes our leads and gets us to care about their well-being. In particular, the mother-daughter relationship between Chris and Regan, played by Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair respectively, is sweet and endearing; their love is palpable. Blair presents her soon-to-be possessed character as innocent, whimsical, and child-like.

This is why her flip to cruel and off-kilter hits so hard; it feels impossible to believe that such a sweet little girl could transform into something so much more sinister. There’s no respite from the macabre cruelty put on display. One isn’t allowed to escape from the violence or allowed to cast it aside; instead, they’re forced to sit and marinate with it, imbuing it with their own personal subjective tendencies. It’s no wonder then that the film elicited such strong reactions when it was released with some more sensitive members fainting in theatres. [6]Vanderbilt, M. (2017, August 23). Audiences had some intense reactions to the exorcist in 1973. The A.V. Club. … Continue reading The movie tapped into the cultural zeitgeist at the time and pricks on a litany of unconscious fears and desires ranging from generational to cultural that are bound to generate strong responses even now and it does all that while remaining a conventionally frightening movie that doesn’t cheap up on the spectacle of the scares.

There’s a reason The Exorcist is often the first name mentioned in discussions regarding the greatest horror films of all time[7]I’m in the camp of critic Mark Kermode who regards The Exorcist as the greatest film of all time. I’m not at that level, but I have the film in my top 30 of all time and it constantly … Continue reading At one level it is as spiritual of an experience as a film by Dreyer or Bergman and then on another level it’s use of spectacle is of the greatest variety providing chills so deep and unsettling that they still serve as a benchmark, along with John Carpenter’s The Thing, on how to utilize practical effects to make horror as real as possible. It is a film that understands true terror lies hidden in the unconscious, so it employs psychological ands subliminal tricks to prime our minds and feelings for the nightmares to follow, but it doesn’t forget that the audience has come to be scared, so it pays off all the tension with the most depraved and upsetting images it can. It’s one of the crown jewels of cinema and is proof the medium’s power at truly probing the corners of one’s mind. Friedkin puts it best in his intro to the film: ” Over the years, I think most people take out of The Exorcist what they bring to it. If you believe the world is a dark and evil place, then The Exorcist will reinforce that. But if you believe that there is a force for good that combats and eventually triumphs over evil, then you will be taking out of the film what we tried to put into it.” [8] William Friedkin’s Introduction to The Exorcist. Warner Brothers. (1973) The Exorcist.

REPORT CARD

TLDRThe Exorcist is one of the greatest works of cinema, let alone horror cinema, serving spiritual lessons along with nightmares in equal amount. It is a film that treats every frame as an opportunity to set up subliminal scares, demonstrating that the best results require the most delicate of touches. By lulling the audience to the film’s hypnotic, but elliptical, rhythm, Friedkin forces every viewer to engage in a subjective tango with his mangum opus thereby ensuring that no two viewing experiences are totally alike. Multiple events in the film require the viewer to imagine their own scenes of terror in order to get a “whole” perspective on what transpires. If you give yourself wholly to it, The Exorcist will take you on an unbelievable journey that only the cream of the crop of cinema can dare to venture. The choice is yours.
Rating10/10
GradeS+

Go to Page 2 for the for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis.
Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .

Pages: 1 2 3
1970s, 1973, A+, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, psychological, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Review: Don’t Look Now

Leave a comment
Director(s)Nicolas Roeg
Principal CastJulie Christie as Laura
Donald Sutherland as John
Sharon Williams as Christine
Nicholas Salter as Johnny
Hilary Mason as Heather
Clelia Matania as Wendy
Massimo Serato as Bishop Barbarrigo
Renato Scarpa as Inspector Longhi
Release Date1973
Language(s)English
Running Time 110 minutes

A little girl, Christine, runs along in her shiny red raincoat, playing with a ball near an ominous looking lake. Her brother, Johnny, who’s biking near her, runs over a glass surface and breaks it. An unlucky omen. Their father, John, turns in his seat, almost as if aware of the disturbance despite being firmly positioned in his house. Johnny looks at his bike, attempting to figure out the damage done to it. He looks back and sees his little sister in the background, clearly visible next to the lake.

Johnny looking back on his sister, ensuring that we , the audience, are aware that she’s present but far away and precariously close to the body of water.

Christine tosses her ball up and the movie cuts to John tossing his wife, Laura, a pack of cigarettes. Christine’s ball drops into the pond creating a splash and the movie cuts back to John as he spills a glass of water over a slide he’s looking at.

The slide John is looking at before he spills water over it. it depicts a short figure clad in a shiny red raincoat sitting in a Church.

Psychic connections and shared actions. An insert of the ball floating without Christine. Her missing presence tells us all we need to know before the movie cuts back to John looking at the damaged slide.

The slide once hit with water starts to bleed color, as a running red trail develops and starts to flow from the little red figure.

The slide which up to this point depicted a small figure adorned in a shiny red raincoat transforms into a bloody mess, as the water spreads the red color around like a pool of blood. John moves towards the outside, as though he knows something awful has transpired. Laura picks up the slide, takes a quick look, and tosses it on the couch seat next to her. A quick cut of Christine’s unmoving body in the water is followed by Johnny running to get his father.

Christine’s body floating limp in the body of water.

It’s clear what’s coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch.  As John jumps into water the movie constantly cuts between him howling in pain, holding his daughter’s corpse and the slide, whose red color continues to expand. The music is daunting and ominous until suddenly an uplifting melody plays. At this moment, the slide transforms once more as the red flow of water becomes a rainbow of colors, almost like a beam of light through a prism.

The slide almost fully covered in the water and its effects. The figure is blurred out of sight. Only the colors it provides remain, but the red has transformed into a spectrum of colors . The base image has been fully transformed through the water “bending” the initial image.

 John gets out of the water and tries to resuscitate Christine, but it’s far too late to do anything for her as she is. Mustering the last bit of strength in his body, he moves towards the house, barely coherent as his face contorts in pain. Laura sees him coming the window holding their dead daughter and screams. This scream transforms into the sound of a drill as the movie cuts to the couple in Italy, the main location for the rest of the movie, and the place where the couple’s respective journey to deal with the pain of their loss starts.

This almost 8-minute opening perfectly encapsulates everything that makes up Roeg’s masterpiece, Don’t Look Now. It’s a story about grief, hardship, and suffering. That much is obvious from the drawn out and emotionally devastating depiction of Christine’s death and her parents’ subsequent responses. The use of both visual and auditory match-cuts reinforces the psychic relationships between seemingly unrelated events and the way that aspects of life can bleed into and affect one another. The visual representation of the transforming slide highlights the way perspective and time can alter the way images are perceived. At first, it’s a plain image that John looks at curiously – the object of interest not immediately understood by the audience. Then the small red figure transforms into a blood spiral. A premonition of the violence to come. But interestingly enough, Roeg doesn’t stop here. He lingers on the slide until the blood red flow transforms into a shining rainbow. This combined with the uplifting melody that plays immediately before it suggests that the image can be read in another way. In another light. A refraction of sorts. Almost like truth is perspectival and something that can’t be ascertained in the moment. This is confirmed by the final match cut, this time auditory as opposed to visual, which transforms Laura’s scream into the sound of a drill being used at John’s new place of employment.  Now it’s impressive enough that this level of seamless editing and visual and auditory storytelling could be sustained in such a cohesive manner for 8 minutes.

However, what makes this movie a true cinematic tour-de-force is that it continues to expand and build upon all these of these ideas for the rest of the near 2-hour run-time in a similar fashion. The movie never lets up in its use of immaculate cross-cutting to constantly reinforce the idea that life is an accumulation of elements that circle around one another in a series of interpretations and re-interpretations. The early motifs involving water, reflections, refractions, duplicate images, and psychic connections are all pushed to their poetic limits to create a finely tuned tale that constantly subverts your expectations in the best way possible. Through its use of consistent visual motifs, the movie manages to use flashbacks and flashforwards in ways that feel integrated into the very essence of the narrative. A body of water transforms into rain which transforms into grey colored eyes, connecting fragments of the story happening at different times and in different places. Nothing feels out of place because the “place” you’re watching is constantly transforming before your eyes. Just like the slide, the end goal/image can only be understood by watching the story’s full progression up to that point and even that understanding is open to interpretation.

At the heart of the story is the tale of a couple desperately trying to communicate with another and recover from the grief and emotional devastation caused by the loss of their child. John’s new job involves moving to Italy for a while as he helps to renovate an old dilapidated Church. While having lunch with Laura, he runs into Heather and Wendy, two sisters who seem to show a heavy interest in the grieving couple. The former, who happens to be blind, claims that she’s a psychic who can see the spirit of Christine. She tells Laura that her daughter is happy and “with” the couple. This affirmation in some kind of spiritual afterlife along with the image of her happy daughter brings Laura out of her depressive state. She wholeheartedly puts her faith in the two strangers and their proclamations and finds a newfound energy that gives her back a sense of meaning. When she mentions this to John, the latter scoffs at it as foolish and quite literally walks his own path away from Laura. He refuses to entertain the idea that his daughter could still be “there” and closes himself off more.

  • Laura attempts to persuade John to give the sisters a shot so that he can begin to heal like her.
  • John literally pushes Laura away and tells her to go on her own path as he walks down a perpendicular street away from her.
John and Laura in front of entry/exit attempting to communicate and find a way past their grief. It ends with John going one way as Laura goes the other, reflecting the way perspective (rationality vs affective sensibility) drastically affect the actions we take.

This sharp contrast between the two exemplifies the subjective nature of responding to grief and how being open versus being closed can lead to radically different conclusions and actions. Throughout the movie, John continues to be closed, suspicious, and unable to openly say what he wants to say. This is a characteristic that’s demonstrated by all the men in the movie from his employer, Bishop Barbarrigo to a police inspector, Longhi.  On the other hand, all the women in the movie are open and cordial with one another, operating with good faith with respect to one another. As the plot progresses and interactions between different sets of characters occur, the effects of one’s predisposition towards possibility and openness become far more pronounced. Male to male communication scenes are awkward and cold. Women to women communication scenes are open and receptive. Added to this jumble is Roeg’s genius decision to not include subtitles for any of the Italian spoken in the movie. That’s right. A movie set in Italy, with only a few English-speaking characters, has no subtitles for what the majority of the background characters have to say. There are multiple scenes of John communicating with town folk in Italian and it’s impossible to determine if he’s actually saying something meaningful or just getting confused. The lack of subtitles also amplifies the uneasiness we feel, because like John, every interaction is an “unknown.” This means that we, the audience, have to make a determination on what characters intentions and actions really entail. Like John, we can be suspicious and read the situations with a cold rationality. Or like Laura, we can read the situations with an intuitive and affective sensibility.

Of course this level of emotional resonance would only be possible if the actors involved were capable of bringing a wide range of affective reactions to the situations that unfold. The way Donald Sutherland expresses his grief in early scenes and rage in later scenes is not only wholeheartedly believe but emotionally devastating. It hurts to watch him suffer and anguish in the guilt he feels over Christine’s death. Serving as a counterbalance of sorts, Julie Christy brings a genuine sense of life and and joy into the scenes she’s in. From the way her smile lights up in her eyes as she plays with children in a hospital to the jovial enthusiasm she exhibits while talking to the sisters, she becomes a beacon of hope in an otherwise dour and depressing movie. Hilary Mason’s performance as the movie’s “psychic” is what brings Sutherland and Chrisy’s range together as her depiction of psychic happenings simultaneously feel staged and genuine. The way she contorts , moves, and emotes during these moments feel overtly theatrical and I remember thinking her character was full of it during some scenes and incredibly trustworthy in others. It’s her duality that allows the interpretative schema that underpins the stories logic, narrative, and position respective to the audience to work out. Without all 3 actors nailing their scenes, the attempt at placing the audience in the position of following John versus following Laura , of following cold rationality versus open affectivity, would fail. It’s all about opening up the scene to interpretations.

Things are never what they really seem and becoming steadfast in one perspective destroys the possibility of seeing things through other perspectives. The best part? The movie ends in the same way it began- an immaculate set of cross and match cuts that tie all the strands of the story and themes together in a way that still leaves things up to interpretation. Even after multiple re-watches of this movie, I can honestly say I don’t have it all worked out, but that’s the point. If I did, I wouldn’t have as much watching the movie over and over again.

Report Card

TLDRDon’t Look Now is one of the best edited movies of all time and manages to make every cut and transition matter. The way the narrative plays with time and perception through its innovative motifs – reflections, refractions, and duplications -is something in a league of its own and transforms this tale of grief, despair, and recovery an impressionistic masterpiece that one needs to experience to believe. If you love movies, you owe it to yourself to watch this one. If you’re a horror fan, that goes doubly for you. There’s rarely a movie that so masterfully combines all of its elements to create a narrative that simultaneously ties up every loose end while leaving them open.
Rating10/10
GradeA+

Go to Page 2 to view this review’s progress report .

 

Pages: 1 2