1 00:00:30,750 --> 00:00:33,200 The word "possesses" possesses more S's 2 00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:35,450 than any other word possesses. 3 00:00:36,910 --> 00:00:40,830 This is Bill Friedkin, day one, take one. 4 00:01:27,450 --> 00:01:34,450 Everything has to do with the mystery of fate or faith. 5 00:01:34,450 --> 00:01:40,370 And "The Exorcist" is about the mystery of faith. 6 00:01:40,370 --> 00:01:43,080 The only film that influenced me 7 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:48,080 in the making of "The Exorcist" was Dreyer's film "Ordet." 8 00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:52,540 There were no films about possession that I knew about. 9 00:01:52,540 --> 00:01:54,750 There were no religious films 10 00:01:54,750 --> 00:01:58,500 that weren't really sappy at the time, 11 00:01:58,500 --> 00:02:03,790 like "The Ten Commandments" was largely spectacle. 12 00:02:03,790 --> 00:02:08,620 "Ordet" is a simple, elegant film. 13 00:02:08,620 --> 00:02:12,370 It's so beautifully staged and photographed, 14 00:02:12,370 --> 00:02:17,250 and it contains elegant simplicity to show 15 00:02:17,250 --> 00:02:22,120 what amounts to literal resurrection in the film. 16 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:26,120 I can't watch it without bursting into tears. 17 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:28,370 You totally believe it. 18 00:02:28,370 --> 00:02:32,290 There is no question that this is happening. 19 00:02:32,290 --> 00:02:35,700 It's not a cinematic trick. 20 00:02:35,700 --> 00:02:39,160 I asked "The Exorcist" audience 21 00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:42,200 to believe in what they were seeing. 22 00:02:43,950 --> 00:02:47,580 I'm a strong believer in fate, that it's very difficult 23 00:02:47,580 --> 00:02:51,200 for anyone to control their own destiny. 24 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:53,450 You can do certain things, 25 00:02:53,450 --> 00:02:59,370 but in many ways, I think biology is destiny. 26 00:02:59,370 --> 00:03:01,950 I don't know how I ever got into the film business 27 00:03:01,950 --> 00:03:04,200 coming from where I came from. 28 00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:07,370 I lived in a one-room apartment in Chicago 29 00:03:07,370 --> 00:03:09,040 with my mother and father. 30 00:03:09,040 --> 00:03:11,040 My mother took me -- 31 00:03:11,040 --> 00:03:15,700 I don't know how old I was, 7 years old, maybe -- 32 00:03:15,700 --> 00:03:19,500 to a movie theater called the Pantheon, 33 00:03:19,500 --> 00:03:22,040 which was on Sheridan Road in Chicago. 34 00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:25,450 We go in this large place, a lot of people around. 35 00:03:25,450 --> 00:03:26,700 I don't know what they're doing there. 36 00:03:26,700 --> 00:03:28,120 I don't know what's gonna happen. 37 00:03:28,120 --> 00:03:32,370 All of a sudden, the lights went down. 38 00:03:32,370 --> 00:03:36,080 The lights went to complete darkness, 39 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:39,660 and I heard what turned out to be the parting 40 00:03:39,660 --> 00:03:43,000 of a gigantic set of curtains, 41 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,660 and then a light appeared on a screen 42 00:03:46,660 --> 00:03:49,580 with some titles on it, and I screamed. 43 00:03:49,580 --> 00:03:54,660 It was sheer terror of the process. 44 00:03:54,660 --> 00:03:58,200 I think it was a film called "None but the Lonely Heart" 45 00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:02,000 with Cary Grant, a Clifford Odets story. 46 00:04:05,660 --> 00:04:08,410 Love me, son? 47 00:04:08,410 --> 00:04:10,700 Disgraced you. Disgraced you. 48 00:04:10,700 --> 00:04:12,080 Disgraced me, ma? 49 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:14,500 No, ma, no, didn't disgrace me. 50 00:04:14,500 --> 00:04:16,700 This is your son Ernie Mott, 51 00:04:16,700 --> 00:04:19,910 the boy who needs you, loves you, wants you. 52 00:04:19,910 --> 00:04:22,700 I was in my 20s, 53 00:04:22,700 --> 00:04:25,870 and I was working first in the mailroom 54 00:04:25,870 --> 00:04:28,040 at a television station in Chicago 55 00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:30,200 right out of high school. I never went to college. 56 00:04:30,200 --> 00:04:33,500 A friend of mine casually mentioned 57 00:04:33,500 --> 00:04:38,120 there's a movie playing at a theater called the Surf. 58 00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:39,870 "What is it?" "'Citizen Kane.'" 59 00:04:39,870 --> 00:04:42,450 And I went to the noon show, 60 00:04:42,450 --> 00:04:45,870 and I stayed there for the rest of the day. 61 00:04:45,870 --> 00:04:48,290 And I was just flabbergasted. 62 00:04:48,290 --> 00:04:53,200 When I left the theater around after midnight, 63 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:57,580 I thought, "I have no idea what this is, 64 00:04:57,580 --> 00:05:00,700 but that's what I'd like to do." 65 00:05:00,700 --> 00:05:02,500 Charles? 66 00:05:02,500 --> 00:05:04,750 Yes, Mommy? 67 00:05:06,250 --> 00:05:09,330 Mr. Thatcher is going to take you on a trip with him tonight. 68 00:05:09,330 --> 00:05:12,830 "Citizen Kane" is about the mystery of fate 69 00:05:12,830 --> 00:05:17,580 and how fate took this little boy away from a poor cabin. 70 00:05:17,580 --> 00:05:21,290 And because his mother was left a worthless deed 71 00:05:21,290 --> 00:05:23,200 to the Colorado Lode, 72 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:25,910 he became the richest man in America. 73 00:05:28,500 --> 00:05:31,830 This was an act of fate. 74 00:05:31,830 --> 00:05:38,160 The meaning of "rosebud" is the biblical idea 75 00:05:38,160 --> 00:05:41,080 of what shall it profit a man 76 00:05:41,080 --> 00:05:45,040 if he should gain the whole world... 77 00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:47,080 But lose his own soul? 78 00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:51,910 The "rosebud" moment is profound and in a class by itself. 79 00:05:51,910 --> 00:05:54,950 Kubrick did it in "The Killing." 80 00:05:54,950 --> 00:06:00,750 The great expense of stealing all this racetrack money 81 00:06:00,750 --> 00:06:03,910 and $2 million floats up into the air. 82 00:06:03,910 --> 00:06:06,580 That's a great "rosebud" moment, 83 00:06:06,580 --> 00:06:10,540 as is the moment in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" 84 00:06:10,540 --> 00:06:14,580 when all of the gold bags are cut open by the bandits 85 00:06:14,580 --> 00:06:18,000 who steal them because they think they're water. 86 00:06:30,750 --> 00:06:35,370 It's an underlying statement about the futility, 87 00:06:35,370 --> 00:06:38,660 the futility of everything. 88 00:06:38,660 --> 00:06:41,000 Throw that junk in. 89 00:06:45,540 --> 00:06:51,000 And this incredible idea of a lost pure... 90 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:54,620 love is burned up. 91 00:06:54,620 --> 00:07:00,620 What a profound statement, and what an incredible idea. 92 00:07:02,410 --> 00:07:03,790 And there's not a day in my life 93 00:07:03,790 --> 00:07:05,080 that I don't feel like a fraud. 94 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:06,330 I mean, priests, doctor, lawyers -- 95 00:07:06,330 --> 00:07:08,160 I've talked to them all. 96 00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:13,040 There's serendipity connected with all of the films I made. 97 00:07:16,330 --> 00:07:20,000 But nothing like "The Exorcist." 98 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:26,040 I feel to this day as though there were forces beyond me 99 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:30,830 that brought things to that movie like offerings. 100 00:07:30,830 --> 00:07:32,790 The whole picture was put together 101 00:07:32,790 --> 00:07:37,410 by the movie god, from Blatty sending me the novel 102 00:07:37,410 --> 00:07:40,160 after we had not seen each other for years. 103 00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:44,660 The studio didn't want me to direct the film initially. 104 00:07:44,660 --> 00:07:46,870 I went on to win the Academy Award, 105 00:07:46,870 --> 00:07:48,870 which was a longshot. 106 00:07:48,870 --> 00:07:52,120 I wasn't even a member of the Academy. 107 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:53,410 All of it. 108 00:07:53,410 --> 00:07:55,620 It's fate. 109 00:07:55,620 --> 00:07:57,580 Yeah, fate. 110 00:07:57,580 --> 00:08:02,000 I only can make a film if I can see it in my mind's eye, 111 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:04,290 and in a very short time, 112 00:08:04,290 --> 00:08:09,580 the whole film popped into my head from his novel. 113 00:08:09,580 --> 00:08:12,450 I knew exactly how I wanted to make it, 114 00:08:12,450 --> 00:08:14,500 what I wanted to keep from his book, 115 00:08:14,500 --> 00:08:16,080 what I wanted to leave out. 116 00:08:16,080 --> 00:08:19,870 I didn't want any backstory, no flashbacks, 117 00:08:19,870 --> 00:08:22,250 just a straight-ahead story 118 00:08:22,250 --> 00:08:25,450 that was done as realistically as possible. 119 00:08:25,450 --> 00:08:28,330 After I was finally hired to direct the film, 120 00:08:28,330 --> 00:08:33,330 Blatty came to me with a little envelope, and he said, 121 00:08:33,330 --> 00:08:35,370 "I've got a surprise for you. 122 00:08:35,370 --> 00:08:37,290 I've written the script." 123 00:08:37,290 --> 00:08:39,700 I didn't know that. He gave me the script. 124 00:08:39,700 --> 00:08:41,910 It was about this thick. 125 00:08:46,330 --> 00:08:50,700 I felt it was a travesty of his novel, 126 00:08:50,700 --> 00:08:52,830 and I told him that. 127 00:08:52,830 --> 00:08:56,950 It had flashbacks, it had red herrings. 128 00:08:56,950 --> 00:09:00,700 I said, "Bill, this -- your script is not the book. 129 00:09:00,700 --> 00:09:03,040 I really want to shoot the novel." 130 00:09:03,040 --> 00:09:09,700 So I marked up my own copy of the hardcover, 131 00:09:09,700 --> 00:09:11,540 the first edition. 132 00:09:11,540 --> 00:09:14,370 I mark things in, out, in, out. 133 00:09:14,370 --> 00:09:15,910 I cross things out. 134 00:09:15,910 --> 00:09:18,870 Go from this sequence to that. 135 00:09:18,870 --> 00:09:21,500 I literally marked it up so that mostly, 136 00:09:21,500 --> 00:09:24,580 he could see what I wanted to keep from the novel 137 00:09:24,580 --> 00:09:26,580 and what I felt we didn't need. 138 00:09:26,580 --> 00:09:28,540 Blatty had omitted the prologue 139 00:09:28,540 --> 00:09:30,700 in the first draft of his script, 140 00:09:30,700 --> 00:09:35,160 and I told him his worst enemy would not have... 141 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:36,660 done this to him. 142 00:09:36,660 --> 00:09:39,750 Everyone, including his publisher, said, 143 00:09:39,750 --> 00:09:41,540 "You don't need this prologue." 144 00:09:41,540 --> 00:09:42,950 They didn't understand it. 145 00:09:42,950 --> 00:09:49,250 I said, "Bill, we have to open in Iraq." 146 00:09:49,250 --> 00:09:52,830 That opening chapter... 147 00:09:52,830 --> 00:09:56,000 that started my skin crawling when I read it, 148 00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:57,950 and I didn't know why. 149 00:09:57,950 --> 00:10:00,450 I'm sure a lot of people to this day are puzzled, 150 00:10:00,450 --> 00:10:02,450 "What the hell is that?" 151 00:10:02,450 --> 00:10:07,200 But it is the introduction, and the -- to me, 152 00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:10,660 the very solid underpinning for the whole piece. 153 00:10:10,660 --> 00:10:13,160 We got permission to go. 154 00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:16,120 I knew basically where I wanted to go, 155 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:17,700 which was in northern Iraq, 156 00:10:17,700 --> 00:10:20,160 the little town where we wound up filming, 157 00:10:20,160 --> 00:10:22,330 which is Nineveh in the Bible. 158 00:10:22,330 --> 00:10:27,410 It's called al-Hatra, or al-Hadr, H-A-D-R, 159 00:10:27,410 --> 00:10:29,290 to the Iraqis. 160 00:10:29,290 --> 00:10:31,700 There happened to be a German archeologist 161 00:10:31,700 --> 00:10:33,870 working there with a German crew 162 00:10:33,870 --> 00:10:37,250 and Iraqis that were doing a dig there, 163 00:10:37,250 --> 00:10:41,870 and I met with him and asked him if we could film this actual dig 164 00:10:41,870 --> 00:10:46,750 and have Max von Sydow walking around while it was going on. 165 00:10:46,750 --> 00:10:48,620 And so that's what we did. 166 00:10:48,620 --> 00:10:50,660 It was an actual dig, 167 00:10:50,660 --> 00:10:53,250 and the stuff they were coming up with 168 00:10:53,250 --> 00:10:57,330 were the severed heads of statues 169 00:10:57,330 --> 00:11:04,450 because it turned out that at some point before Christ, 170 00:11:04,450 --> 00:11:10,660 the city of Hadr had been sacked by the Sasanians, 171 00:11:10,660 --> 00:11:14,500 I believe it's 80 B.C. 172 00:11:14,500 --> 00:11:17,870 They cut off the heads of everybody living there, 173 00:11:17,870 --> 00:11:20,500 and they cut off the heads of the statues. 174 00:11:20,500 --> 00:11:24,910 And this is what the archeology team was coming up with, 175 00:11:24,910 --> 00:11:28,620 along with other artifacts, which I show in the film. 176 00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:36,290 Jack Nitzsche rubbed his hand over a wine glass, 177 00:11:36,290 --> 00:11:39,620 and that makes the opening sound of "The Exorcist." 178 00:11:39,620 --> 00:11:44,500 And then it segues from that to something we recorded in Mosul, 179 00:11:44,500 --> 00:11:49,120 which is the muezzin's call to prayer in Arabic. 180 00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:54,620 The words "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar," 181 00:11:54,620 --> 00:11:58,160 "God is good" in Arabic. 182 00:11:58,160 --> 00:12:00,620 "God is great." 183 00:12:00,620 --> 00:12:03,950 Those are the first words of the film, 184 00:12:03,950 --> 00:12:08,250 the first words in Blatty's novel, northern Iraq. 185 00:12:08,250 --> 00:12:09,910 That's where it took place. 186 00:12:09,910 --> 00:12:13,870 You couldn't go out into the Mojave Desert and shoot it. 187 00:12:13,870 --> 00:12:17,410 There was no CGI in those days. 188 00:12:17,410 --> 00:12:19,870 You had to go there. 189 00:12:19,870 --> 00:12:22,910 There's one side angle that I made especially 190 00:12:22,910 --> 00:12:27,500 because in the background of von Sydow, not too far away, 191 00:12:27,500 --> 00:12:32,000 is the tomb of King Nebuchadnezzar, 192 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:36,000 which is built on top of the tomb of the prophet David. 193 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:37,540 That's where we were. 194 00:12:37,540 --> 00:12:40,580 The movie opens with a bright sun. 195 00:12:40,580 --> 00:12:43,950 When we got into the color-timing room, 196 00:12:43,950 --> 00:12:48,160 I decided to open the film with a black and white sun 197 00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:50,540 that slowly bleeds into color. 198 00:12:50,540 --> 00:12:52,120 I don't think 199 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:56,750 there's any conscious meaning behind my choices. 200 00:12:56,750 --> 00:13:01,040 These are instinctive things that don't... 201 00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:03,080 translate into a how. 202 00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:07,790 It looks like, in retrospect, I knew what I was doing, 203 00:13:07,790 --> 00:13:10,040 but I was just following my instinct. 204 00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:12,200 And I believe that's what happened 205 00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:15,620 throughout the entire film. 206 00:13:15,620 --> 00:13:18,910 This is from Bill Blatty's novel "The Exorcist." 207 00:13:18,910 --> 00:13:20,250 It's the beginning. 208 00:13:20,250 --> 00:13:22,950 "The blaze of sun wrung pops of sweat 209 00:13:22,950 --> 00:13:25,080 from the old man's brow. 210 00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:27,370 He kept his hands around the glass of hot, 211 00:13:27,370 --> 00:13:29,950 sweet tea as if to warm them. 212 00:13:29,950 --> 00:13:33,000 He could not shake the premonition. 213 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:37,830 It clung to his back like chill wet leaves." 214 00:13:37,830 --> 00:13:42,410 So that paragraph is about one word -- "premonition." 215 00:13:42,410 --> 00:13:45,450 And so he looks around, and he sees various things 216 00:13:45,450 --> 00:13:47,790 that add to the premonition -- 217 00:13:47,790 --> 00:13:51,830 blacksmiths who are pounding, bending steel, 218 00:13:51,830 --> 00:13:53,580 and one of them turns and looks at him 219 00:13:53,580 --> 00:13:56,410 and has an eye missing, 220 00:13:56,410 --> 00:14:01,290 similar to the way the demon looks when she's levitating. 221 00:14:05,450 --> 00:14:09,660 And a lot of people think that it foreshadows something. 222 00:14:09,660 --> 00:14:13,620 I had no intention of foreshadowing anything 223 00:14:13,620 --> 00:14:15,330 that I shot there. 224 00:14:15,330 --> 00:14:19,660 I just shot what was of interest and put it in the film, 225 00:14:19,660 --> 00:14:23,830 and over the decades, it's been interpreted and reinterpreted. 226 00:14:23,830 --> 00:14:28,700 Some of the interpretations make sense to me. 227 00:14:28,700 --> 00:14:30,660 They were never intended. 228 00:14:33,620 --> 00:14:36,290 The clock stopping. 229 00:14:37,660 --> 00:14:40,120 I don't know what the hell it means. 230 00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:43,910 I never thought about imposing... 231 00:14:43,910 --> 00:14:47,620 metaphor or meaning, other than the St. Joseph Medal 232 00:14:47,620 --> 00:14:51,700 that is falling in Father Karras' dream 233 00:14:51,700 --> 00:14:56,120 that was the medal that was found in Iraq by Father Merrin, 234 00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:58,910 and he scratches around further 235 00:14:58,910 --> 00:15:03,660 and comes up with a small head of Pazuzu 236 00:15:03,660 --> 00:15:10,370 attached to some mud that's embedded itself on it. 237 00:15:10,370 --> 00:15:12,660 And he scrapes away the face of it, 238 00:15:12,660 --> 00:15:18,540 and he -- you just see his face react to the image of Pazuzu. 239 00:15:18,540 --> 00:15:23,540 And he right there gets the premonition 240 00:15:23,540 --> 00:15:27,620 of -- of the whole movie, of everything that's to come. 241 00:15:27,620 --> 00:15:30,620 The opening in Iraq does set the tone 242 00:15:30,620 --> 00:15:32,910 and the mood for the entire film, 243 00:15:32,910 --> 00:15:39,950 the atmosphere of dread and an ancient supernatural mystery. 244 00:15:39,950 --> 00:15:44,790 Without saying anything about what I just said, 245 00:15:44,790 --> 00:15:51,910 it brings about the appearance of the Abyssinian demon Pazuzu. 246 00:15:51,910 --> 00:15:54,370 It shows the character of Father Merrin 247 00:15:54,370 --> 00:16:00,370 as an archeologist priest, and it lingers over... 248 00:16:00,370 --> 00:16:02,370 more than an hour's worth of film 249 00:16:02,370 --> 00:16:06,330 before you ever see Father Merrin again. 250 00:16:06,330 --> 00:16:08,790 He had performed exorcism before. 251 00:16:08,790 --> 00:16:11,160 That comes out later. 252 00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:13,580 Don't you think he's too old, Tom? 253 00:16:13,580 --> 00:16:15,250 How's his health? 254 00:16:15,250 --> 00:16:16,750 He must be alright. 255 00:16:16,750 --> 00:16:19,580 He's still running around, digging up tombs. 256 00:16:19,580 --> 00:16:23,080 Besides, he's had experience. 257 00:16:23,080 --> 00:16:24,410 I didn't know that. 258 00:16:24,410 --> 00:16:26,950 10, 12 years ago, I think, in Africa. 259 00:16:26,950 --> 00:16:29,370 The exorcism supposedly lasted a month. 260 00:16:29,370 --> 00:16:31,330 Heard it damn near killed him. 261 00:16:31,330 --> 00:16:35,620 Then he gets a premonition that you, the audience, 262 00:16:35,620 --> 00:16:41,120 have to sense that he's going to face this ancient enemy again. 263 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:43,410 So to me, 264 00:16:43,410 --> 00:16:47,200 it's every bit as important as any scene in "The Exorcist" 265 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:52,200 to set the mood and set off the idea... 266 00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:56,620 of the supernatural in our midst. 267 00:16:56,620 --> 00:17:01,370 That whole idea of... 268 00:17:01,370 --> 00:17:07,290 building a mood as well as a story is gone. 269 00:17:07,290 --> 00:17:10,370 I will tell you that in most of my films, 270 00:17:10,370 --> 00:17:13,620 but especially "The Exorcist," 271 00:17:13,620 --> 00:17:17,620 I was strongly influenced by music. 272 00:17:17,620 --> 00:17:19,700 And I've always... 273 00:17:19,700 --> 00:17:23,870 been consciously and unconsciously influenced 274 00:17:23,870 --> 00:17:27,790 by music that builds layer upon layer, 275 00:17:27,790 --> 00:17:31,200 things like Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," 276 00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:33,290 which is a slow build. 277 00:17:33,290 --> 00:17:36,540 Stravinsky said it starts quietly 278 00:17:36,540 --> 00:17:42,040 because if you start with drums, you have to end with thunder, 279 00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:44,620 so he started with a solo instrument 280 00:17:44,620 --> 00:17:46,450 playing a very quiet melody. 281 00:17:48,450 --> 00:17:51,250 It then builds into one of the most powerful 282 00:17:51,250 --> 00:17:55,700 and in a way terrifying pieces of music ever written. 283 00:17:59,660 --> 00:18:02,700 I love films that build layer on layer, 284 00:18:02,700 --> 00:18:06,750 like "2001," like "Psycho." 285 00:18:06,750 --> 00:18:11,370 That's all about maintaining a tone and a mood 286 00:18:11,370 --> 00:18:16,910 and creating it from a dead start. 287 00:18:16,910 --> 00:18:18,450 The mood of a film changes. 288 00:18:18,450 --> 00:18:22,120 There are moments of extreme brightness 289 00:18:22,120 --> 00:18:26,660 and happiness in the early parts of "The Exorcist." 290 00:18:26,660 --> 00:18:28,700 Oh, I love you. 291 00:18:28,700 --> 00:18:30,700 I love you. 292 00:18:33,330 --> 00:18:36,700 The tone is the same almost throughout -- 293 00:18:36,700 --> 00:18:42,290 an overriding sense of dread that inhabits the entire picture 294 00:18:42,290 --> 00:18:46,700 and that audiences were and are usually aware of 295 00:18:46,700 --> 00:18:48,700 before they go to see the film. 296 00:18:51,410 --> 00:18:53,500 You really don't want me to play, huh? 297 00:18:53,500 --> 00:18:54,830 No, I do. 298 00:18:54,830 --> 00:18:56,830 Captain Howdy said no. 299 00:18:56,830 --> 00:18:58,120 Captain who? 300 00:18:58,120 --> 00:18:59,910 Captain Howdy. 301 00:18:59,910 --> 00:19:02,160 Who's Captain Howdy? 302 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:04,040 You know, the mood goes from 303 00:19:04,040 --> 00:19:06,910 wonderful mother-daughter relationship 304 00:19:06,910 --> 00:19:13,540 into an extreme alteration of a 12-year-old's personality. 305 00:19:13,540 --> 00:19:16,700 Lick me! Lick me! 306 00:19:22,660 --> 00:19:26,500 In many of the sequences, even earlier ones, 307 00:19:26,500 --> 00:19:29,580 seem to foreshadow what's to come. 308 00:19:29,580 --> 00:19:32,830 I was very conscious and aware 309 00:19:32,830 --> 00:19:36,950 that by the time people started to see the film, 310 00:19:36,950 --> 00:19:40,250 word would get around what it was about. 311 00:19:40,250 --> 00:19:43,620 I knew that people would be aware 312 00:19:43,620 --> 00:19:46,790 they were coming to see a film about demonic possession, 313 00:19:46,790 --> 00:19:50,540 not a girl who had a problem with her brain. 314 00:19:50,540 --> 00:19:52,370 It takes a while to get to the possession, 315 00:19:52,370 --> 00:19:53,620 as well it should. 316 00:19:53,620 --> 00:19:55,410 Mom, you should've seen. 317 00:19:55,410 --> 00:19:59,000 This man came along on this beautiful gray horse. 318 00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:03,910 You have to see what this young child was like 319 00:20:03,910 --> 00:20:06,250 before her appearance 320 00:20:06,250 --> 00:20:09,950 and her behavior altered completely. 321 00:20:09,950 --> 00:20:15,040 And of course, the possession scenes had to top one another. 322 00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:18,950 It starts very early with just a bed shaking 323 00:20:18,950 --> 00:20:22,580 and no dramatic changes in the girl's character, 324 00:20:22,580 --> 00:20:26,700 and it builds to complete personality change, 325 00:20:26,700 --> 00:20:31,830 superhuman strength, and horrible actions by the girl 326 00:20:31,830 --> 00:20:36,160 that a 12-year-old would be incapable of committing. 327 00:20:39,830 --> 00:20:44,200 There is a concept that I was aware of at the time 328 00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:48,250 called expectancy set. 329 00:20:48,250 --> 00:20:51,450 If you're walking down a dark street at night 330 00:20:51,450 --> 00:20:54,500 where there has been a crime recently or a murder, 331 00:20:54,500 --> 00:20:59,450 there's something that occurs within you, 332 00:20:59,450 --> 00:21:03,250 where you get butterflies. 333 00:21:03,250 --> 00:21:05,660 Mother? 334 00:21:05,660 --> 00:21:07,410 What's wrong with me? 335 00:21:07,410 --> 00:21:09,450 And that works on audiences. 336 00:21:09,450 --> 00:21:11,660 They come in wanting to be scared, 337 00:21:11,660 --> 00:21:14,620 and you can -- you can play on that. 338 00:21:14,620 --> 00:21:16,290 It's just like the doctor said, 339 00:21:16,290 --> 00:21:18,450 it's nerves, and that's all. 340 00:21:18,450 --> 00:21:19,870 Okay? 341 00:21:19,870 --> 00:21:23,080 Burke Dennings, good Father, 342 00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:26,040 was found at the bottom of those steps leading to M Street 343 00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:29,120 with his head turned completely around, 344 00:21:29,120 --> 00:21:30,910 facing backwards. 345 00:21:30,910 --> 00:21:33,870 I remember when I was growing up 346 00:21:33,870 --> 00:21:38,790 and I used to walk to high school in Chicago, 347 00:21:38,790 --> 00:21:42,160 and I would walk through a neighborhood 348 00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:47,700 where there had been a brutal, vicious murder, 349 00:21:47,700 --> 00:21:54,450 where a young girl in a house along the way... 350 00:21:54,450 --> 00:22:00,290 had been taken out of her bedroom window and decapitated. 351 00:22:00,290 --> 00:22:03,370 And the body parts were lying on the lawn 352 00:22:03,370 --> 00:22:08,330 and in the streets outside the house, 353 00:22:08,330 --> 00:22:10,330 and I remember consciously 354 00:22:10,330 --> 00:22:13,580 walking past that house of horrors 355 00:22:13,580 --> 00:22:16,790 every day on my way to high school 356 00:22:16,790 --> 00:22:21,910 and thinking about that brutal crime that took place there. 357 00:22:21,910 --> 00:22:24,870 I have an idea before I shoot a scene 358 00:22:24,870 --> 00:22:27,160 of how I think it should look, 359 00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:30,160 and then when we're filming the scene, 360 00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:34,790 I might see something that makes me want to have another angle 361 00:22:34,790 --> 00:22:41,540 or a different -- a closer angle or have no coverage whatsoever. 362 00:22:41,540 --> 00:22:45,790 In "The Exorcist," we were often in cramped settings, 363 00:22:45,790 --> 00:22:50,200 you know, in very tight spaces, and it was difficult to get... 364 00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:54,040 either a second or multiple cameras. 365 00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:56,000 Or it was a play, 366 00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,250 and in many ways, he filmed it like a play. 367 00:23:00,250 --> 00:23:02,580 That's the simplicity of it. 368 00:23:02,580 --> 00:23:06,370 Today, cinema, even widescreen cinema, 369 00:23:06,370 --> 00:23:11,370 even action-adventure films, rely on the close-up. 370 00:23:11,370 --> 00:23:14,450 If you see a film as powerful as "Ordet," 371 00:23:14,450 --> 00:23:17,410 you realize it's a cop-out. 372 00:23:17,410 --> 00:23:22,200 I can't think of any close-ups in "Ordet." 373 00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:24,790 Look, there is nothing more powerful 374 00:23:24,790 --> 00:23:27,450 than a close-up of Steve McQueen. 375 00:23:27,450 --> 00:23:31,040 Not the greatest landscape you could film, 376 00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:37,080 not the Taj Mahal, has the power of a close-up of Steve McQueen. 377 00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:42,040 You could tell what McQueen was thinking without words. 378 00:23:43,950 --> 00:23:46,250 Dreyer's film of Joan of Arc 379 00:23:46,250 --> 00:23:52,120 is built on close-ups of the main character 380 00:23:52,120 --> 00:23:58,330 going through her suffering and her passion at the stake. 381 00:23:58,330 --> 00:24:01,830 When you see a play on the stage, like "12 Angry Men," 382 00:24:01,830 --> 00:24:04,120 you make your own close-ups. 383 00:24:04,120 --> 00:24:08,410 In cinema, the director makes that decision for you. 384 00:24:08,410 --> 00:24:10,370 In the film "Ordet," 385 00:24:10,370 --> 00:24:13,540 Dreyer did not make that decision. 386 00:24:13,540 --> 00:24:17,330 The best way to do anything is with simplicity. 387 00:24:17,330 --> 00:24:20,700 Hitchcock usually found the simplest solution, 388 00:24:20,700 --> 00:24:25,450 even in complex situations, like what was it like for a guy 389 00:24:25,450 --> 00:24:29,410 to be stabbed and fall backwards down the stairs? 390 00:24:29,410 --> 00:24:33,660 Hitchcock's films are about the possibilities of cinema. 391 00:24:33,660 --> 00:24:37,200 As an observer who happens to be a film director, 392 00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:41,120 you have to look at something and decide how to film it. 393 00:24:41,120 --> 00:24:44,450 So you have to envision first what is the event 394 00:24:44,450 --> 00:24:48,290 that's gonna take place in these different locations? 395 00:24:48,290 --> 00:24:52,000 And they're speaking to you while you're doing that. 396 00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:55,370 Some inner voice is saying, "What about this?" 397 00:24:55,370 --> 00:24:59,910 Then you're trying to figure out how to put it together 398 00:24:59,910 --> 00:25:03,790 so that it becomes kind of seamless 399 00:25:03,790 --> 00:25:06,750 because it's all made up of separate shots 400 00:25:06,750 --> 00:25:09,700 in a -- the way a Jackson Pollock painting 401 00:25:09,700 --> 00:25:12,250 is made up of dots 402 00:25:12,250 --> 00:25:16,830 and the Monet impressions are made up of just brush strokes. 403 00:25:18,790 --> 00:25:21,910 "The Exorcist" and "The French Connection," 404 00:25:21,910 --> 00:25:25,160 many parts of them look like a documentary, 405 00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:29,120 but I had made documentaries and so I knew the approach to that. 406 00:25:29,120 --> 00:25:32,700 When you make a documentary, as you're doing now, 407 00:25:32,700 --> 00:25:35,580 you don't know what the subject's gonna say, 408 00:25:35,580 --> 00:25:37,950 and so you roll with the flow. 409 00:25:37,950 --> 00:25:41,660 And it has often rough edges. 410 00:25:41,660 --> 00:25:43,450 I like the rough edges. 411 00:25:43,450 --> 00:25:47,000 I had this great camera operator on a number of films, 412 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:49,750 but he started with me on "The French Connection." 413 00:25:49,750 --> 00:25:52,120 His name was Ricky Bravo. 414 00:25:52,120 --> 00:25:56,500 He photographed the Cuban Revolution at Castro's side 415 00:25:56,500 --> 00:25:59,700 from the Sierra Maestra mountains to Havana, 416 00:25:59,700 --> 00:26:03,080 and Ricky could do anything with a handheld camera. 417 00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:05,160 I wouldn't let Ricky be on the set 418 00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:06,790 while Owen was lighting the set. 419 00:26:06,790 --> 00:26:08,290 When we were lit, 420 00:26:08,290 --> 00:26:10,160 I'd say, "Okay, Ricky, we're ready to shoot," 421 00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:13,000 and I'd let him go and find the scene. 422 00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:16,830 And I would say to him, "Don't ever cut. 423 00:26:16,830 --> 00:26:19,700 Just keep the camera rolling and just find the shot, 424 00:26:19,700 --> 00:26:22,000 as you did with Castro." 425 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,290 So I'd set up a scene, 426 00:26:24,290 --> 00:26:27,620 two guys walk into a room, as in "French Connection." 427 00:26:27,620 --> 00:26:30,000 They go over the desk where a guy sits down. 428 00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,790 The other two guys flank him, they move around, 429 00:26:32,790 --> 00:26:36,790 and Ricky's finding the scene like it's a documentary. 430 00:26:36,790 --> 00:26:39,580 And sometimes, he would cut, 431 00:26:39,580 --> 00:26:42,830 and I said, "Ricky, I told you never to cut. 432 00:26:42,830 --> 00:26:44,660 Why did you cut?" 433 00:26:44,660 --> 00:26:47,200 He said, "Oh, this fellow was completely blocked. 434 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:49,790 He was blocked by the other guy." 435 00:26:49,790 --> 00:26:52,370 I said, "Ricky, is that what you said to Castro 436 00:26:52,370 --> 00:26:54,410 when he was in the mountains up there? 437 00:26:54,410 --> 00:26:56,580 Did you say, 'We got to do it again, Fidel, 438 00:26:56,580 --> 00:26:58,790 because you got blocked?'" 439 00:26:58,790 --> 00:27:00,620 In most people's mind, 440 00:27:00,620 --> 00:27:04,250 a feature film is different from a documentary. 441 00:27:04,250 --> 00:27:06,410 A feature film is like a play, 442 00:27:06,410 --> 00:27:09,540 and it's all set up and lit and composed. 443 00:27:09,540 --> 00:27:11,500 I don't look at it that way. 444 00:27:11,500 --> 00:27:18,200 I'm more interested in spontaneity than perfection, 445 00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,250 and you don't get spontaneity on take 90. 446 00:27:21,250 --> 00:27:22,790 William Wyler was -- 447 00:27:22,790 --> 00:27:25,830 his nickname was "90-take Wyler." 448 00:27:25,830 --> 00:27:27,330 His films are great, 449 00:27:27,330 --> 00:27:29,750 and whatever his technique was -- 450 00:27:29,750 --> 00:27:31,450 I wasn't there. 451 00:27:31,450 --> 00:27:33,120 "The Best Years of Our Lives" is as good as anything. 452 00:27:33,120 --> 00:27:34,910 He did a lot of takes, 453 00:27:34,910 --> 00:27:39,080 and he used to shoot around the clock, setups everywhere. 454 00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:41,200 But they were his insurance policy. 455 00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:43,080 He felt that need, 456 00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:47,290 and I know that Kubrick is said to have done 90 to 100 takes. 457 00:27:47,290 --> 00:27:49,410 I'm a one-take guy. 458 00:27:49,410 --> 00:27:52,290 I don't believe in take two. 459 00:27:52,290 --> 00:27:58,500 Von Sydow was great until he got to a point in the scene 460 00:27:58,500 --> 00:28:03,700 where Father Merrin has to declaim at the demon, 461 00:28:03,700 --> 00:28:09,290 "I cast you out, unclean spirit, in the name of the father 462 00:28:09,290 --> 00:28:13,660 and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," 463 00:28:13,660 --> 00:28:18,450 and that had to be done powerfully by a man 464 00:28:18,450 --> 00:28:20,580 who we have established 465 00:28:20,580 --> 00:28:25,330 is taking little nitroglycerin pills for his heart condition, 466 00:28:25,330 --> 00:28:27,120 is on the verge of death. 467 00:28:27,120 --> 00:28:30,910 But he had to come up with this powerful reading, 468 00:28:30,910 --> 00:28:35,370 and for some reason, Max couldn't do it. 469 00:28:35,370 --> 00:28:37,700 It wasn't powerful enough. 470 00:28:37,700 --> 00:28:46,500 The scene needed, you know, brass, not strings. 471 00:28:46,500 --> 00:28:51,700 And I said, "Max, what is wrong? 472 00:28:51,700 --> 00:28:55,540 I'll do anything that you suggest to get you to do -- 473 00:28:55,540 --> 00:29:01,120 we'll fly Ingmar Bergman in here to direct this scene." 474 00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:04,580 And he said very calmly, "No, no, no, no." 475 00:29:04,580 --> 00:29:08,580 He said, "This is -- This is not a matter of Bergman. 476 00:29:08,580 --> 00:29:13,120 I guess what it is is that I just don't believe in God." 477 00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:47,790 I said... 478 00:29:47,790 --> 00:29:50,410 "But you played... 479 00:29:50,410 --> 00:29:55,790 Jesus in the movie 'The Greatest Story Ever Told.'" 480 00:29:55,790 --> 00:29:57,290 He said, "Yes. 481 00:29:57,290 --> 00:30:01,080 I played him as a man, not as a god." 482 00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:04,000 What is your name? Jesus. 483 00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:09,500 That's a good name. 484 00:30:09,500 --> 00:30:11,540 Thank you. 485 00:30:11,540 --> 00:30:14,450 I said, "Well, play this guy as a man." 486 00:30:14,450 --> 00:30:16,700 And he said, "Okay. 487 00:30:16,700 --> 00:30:19,330 Give me a little time." 488 00:30:19,330 --> 00:30:21,000 We left him alone in the dressing room, 489 00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,250 he came out, he went in front of the camera and did it, 490 00:30:24,250 --> 00:30:26,080 and that's what's in the film. 491 00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,500 I cast you out, unclean spirit! 492 00:30:29,500 --> 00:30:31,040 Shove it up your ass, you faggot! 493 00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:33,370 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 494 00:30:34,410 --> 00:30:36,500 It is he who commands you, 495 00:30:36,500 --> 00:30:39,450 he who flung you from the gates of Heaven 496 00:30:39,450 --> 00:30:41,540 - to the depths of Hell! - Fuck him! 497 00:30:41,540 --> 00:30:43,660 - Be gone... - Fuck him, Karras! Fuck him! 498 00:30:43,660 --> 00:30:45,290 ...from this creature of God! 499 00:30:47,620 --> 00:30:50,450 I don't understand that. 500 00:30:50,450 --> 00:30:52,160 I don't know what happened there. 501 00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,040 That's one of the strangest things 502 00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:56,790 that happened to me as a director, 503 00:30:56,790 --> 00:30:59,620 and his reason for not being able to do it 504 00:30:59,620 --> 00:31:01,660 was so foreign to me 505 00:31:01,660 --> 00:31:04,540 because what -- what is an actor doing? 506 00:31:04,540 --> 00:31:06,000 Acting! 507 00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,660 Years later, Blatty and I talked about that. 508 00:31:09,660 --> 00:31:11,250 Blatty said to me, 509 00:31:11,250 --> 00:31:14,540 "I think he just didn't want to do it that way." 510 00:31:14,540 --> 00:31:20,370 Max's strength and power came from understatement as an actor. 511 00:31:37,250 --> 00:31:40,370 The main thing about getting what you want as a director 512 00:31:40,370 --> 00:31:44,120 is how you cast the picture. 513 00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:45,500 If you've miscast it, 514 00:31:45,500 --> 00:31:48,120 you'll never get what you want -- ever. 515 00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:52,370 Blatty wrote himself as Father Karras. 516 00:31:52,370 --> 00:31:56,290 He drew on his own feelings, his own experiences. 517 00:31:56,290 --> 00:31:57,950 He set the film in Iraq 518 00:31:57,950 --> 00:32:01,700 because he had been to Iraq as a correspondent. 519 00:32:01,700 --> 00:32:04,120 Now, I'm going to confess something 520 00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,120 that I don't think I've ever said before in public, 521 00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:10,540 and that is the fact that Blatty wanted to give me 522 00:32:10,540 --> 00:32:15,040 his entire percentage of profit of the movie 523 00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:17,790 to let him play Father Karras. 524 00:32:17,790 --> 00:32:22,250 And I didn't see him as Father Karras. 525 00:32:22,250 --> 00:32:26,580 I saw a play called "That Championship Season" 526 00:32:26,580 --> 00:32:27,830 by Jason Miller. 527 00:32:27,830 --> 00:32:29,790 It turned out that he had gone 528 00:32:29,790 --> 00:32:32,790 to Catholic University in Washington, 529 00:32:32,790 --> 00:32:35,750 studied for the priesthood for three years, 530 00:32:35,750 --> 00:32:38,330 had a crisis of faith, and dropped out, 531 00:32:38,330 --> 00:32:44,160 and then he put all this lapsed Catholicism in his play. 532 00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,200 Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. 533 00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,620 So I told him I was making the film of "The Exorcist." 534 00:33:05,620 --> 00:33:08,330 I told him how much I loved his play, 535 00:33:08,330 --> 00:33:10,370 and about a week or so later, 536 00:33:10,370 --> 00:33:14,580 I got a call in California from Jason in New York. 537 00:33:14,580 --> 00:33:17,450 And he said, "Hey, you know that 'Exorcist' book 538 00:33:17,450 --> 00:33:19,040 you were telling me about?" 539 00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:20,290 He said, "I read that book." 540 00:33:20,290 --> 00:33:22,750 He said, "I am that guy." 541 00:33:22,830 --> 00:33:25,620 He said, "I am that guy." 542 00:33:25,620 --> 00:33:27,410 I said, "Well, you're not that guy. 543 00:33:27,410 --> 00:33:29,250 We've signed another actor." 544 00:33:29,250 --> 00:33:31,080 Before I ever met Jason Miller, 545 00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:35,830 we signed an actor named Stacy Keach to play that part. 546 00:33:35,830 --> 00:33:40,870 No man is just because he does just works. 547 00:33:40,870 --> 00:33:44,750 The works are just if the man is just. 548 00:33:44,750 --> 00:33:49,200 He said, "I want -- Why don't you screen-test me?" 549 00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,290 I said -- I got angry. 550 00:33:51,290 --> 00:33:53,080 I said, "What for? 551 00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,830 I told you, I've cast the part." 552 00:33:55,830 --> 00:33:58,250 He said, "I'm telling you," 553 00:33:58,250 --> 00:34:02,040 and so I said, "Okay, you want to shoot a screen test, 554 00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,250 I'll set up a test for you, and after it's over, 555 00:34:05,250 --> 00:34:07,120 I'll take the film out of the camera 556 00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:14,040 and give it to you and you can show it to your grandchildren. 557 00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,870 You come out here on your own nickel, 558 00:34:16,870 --> 00:34:19,120 knowing that we've cast the part." 559 00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,830 We set up a dolly track on an empty soundstage 560 00:34:22,830 --> 00:34:25,410 with just lights, no set. 561 00:34:25,410 --> 00:34:29,660 I called in Ellen Burstyn, who I had cast... 562 00:34:29,660 --> 00:34:32,910 to do a scene with Jason, 563 00:34:32,910 --> 00:34:37,290 the scene where she's walking along a path 564 00:34:37,290 --> 00:34:41,870 in Georgetown and tells Father Karras... 565 00:34:41,870 --> 00:34:43,120 It just so happens 566 00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:46,250 that somebody very close to me is... 567 00:34:46,250 --> 00:34:50,950 is probably possessed and needs an exorcist. 568 00:34:50,950 --> 00:34:55,580 Then I had Ellen interview Jason about his life, 569 00:34:55,580 --> 00:34:59,500 where I put the camera over her shoulder and just studied him, 570 00:34:59,500 --> 00:35:03,290 and then I made a shot of him, an extreme close of him, 571 00:35:03,290 --> 00:35:05,830 saying the -- the mass. 572 00:35:05,830 --> 00:35:10,700 The next day, I saw the rushes of that scene, 573 00:35:10,700 --> 00:35:13,450 and the camera just loved him. 574 00:35:13,450 --> 00:35:16,370 I went to John Calley at Warner Bros. 575 00:35:16,370 --> 00:35:18,910 I said, "I'm gonna hire this guy." 576 00:35:18,910 --> 00:35:21,750 He said, "He's a complete unknown. 577 00:35:21,750 --> 00:35:23,660 He's nobody. 578 00:35:23,660 --> 00:35:25,370 You have Stacy Keach." 579 00:35:25,370 --> 00:35:26,950 I said, "I don't care. 580 00:35:26,950 --> 00:35:28,330 This is the guy. 581 00:35:28,330 --> 00:35:30,160 I don't have to direct this guy. 582 00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:32,250 He is the guy." 583 00:35:32,250 --> 00:35:34,370 And we went with him. 584 00:35:34,370 --> 00:35:36,620 I wasn't proud of it, 585 00:35:36,620 --> 00:35:39,950 but we had to pay off Stacy Keach. 586 00:35:39,950 --> 00:35:44,080 Paid him in full, his salary. 587 00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:46,450 And they did think I was nuts, 588 00:35:46,450 --> 00:35:51,580 but I had what has been described by Fritz Lang 589 00:35:51,580 --> 00:35:55,660 as a kind of sleepwalker's security. 590 00:35:55,660 --> 00:36:00,950 I personally think... 591 00:36:00,950 --> 00:36:04,080 that I made my films 592 00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:09,580 with a kind of sleepwalking security. 593 00:36:09,580 --> 00:36:11,500 I did things... 594 00:36:11,500 --> 00:36:14,580 which I thought were right. 595 00:36:14,580 --> 00:36:16,620 Period. 596 00:36:16,620 --> 00:36:19,330 That's what I had when I made "The Exorcist." 597 00:36:19,330 --> 00:36:24,540 I felt that every decision I made was the right decision, 598 00:36:24,540 --> 00:36:27,160 and I didn't question my instincts. 599 00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:30,000 And I had the power... 600 00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:31,700 then to do that. 601 00:36:31,700 --> 00:36:36,160 The studio had offered it to Stanley Kubrick, 602 00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,620 Arthur Penn, and Mike Nichols. 603 00:36:38,620 --> 00:36:41,290 Those three guys passed. 604 00:36:41,290 --> 00:36:43,750 They didn't know how to make the picture, 605 00:36:43,750 --> 00:36:45,620 but I did know how to make the picture. 606 00:36:45,620 --> 00:36:47,790 And they sensed that. 607 00:36:47,790 --> 00:36:50,790 And Jason's great in the film. 608 00:36:50,790 --> 00:36:54,160 He shouldn't have been in that picture. 609 00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,120 I accidentally saw his play. 610 00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:02,330 I accidentally was moved by it, another gift from the movie god. 611 00:37:02,330 --> 00:37:07,040 Look, it's very difficult for an actor, even a great actor, 612 00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:10,080 to produce an emotion in front of a camera. 613 00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:14,870 Behind the camera may be dozens, 614 00:37:14,870 --> 00:37:19,500 if not more, people standing right behind the camera, 615 00:37:19,500 --> 00:37:23,250 walking around, milling, reading the newspaper sometimes, 616 00:37:23,250 --> 00:37:24,750 eating lunch. 617 00:37:24,750 --> 00:37:27,290 I met Father Bill O'Malley, 618 00:37:27,290 --> 00:37:30,120 who plays Father Dyer in "The Exorcist," 619 00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:31,700 through Bill Blatty, and I met him. 620 00:37:31,700 --> 00:37:35,250 And I could see and hear instantly that he was Dyer, 621 00:37:35,250 --> 00:37:37,200 but he wasn't an actor. 622 00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:40,870 He is a priest, and I just turned him loose... 623 00:37:40,870 --> 00:37:43,870 My idea of heaven is a solid white nightclub 624 00:37:43,870 --> 00:37:46,700 with me as a headliner for all eternity, 625 00:37:46,700 --> 00:37:48,200 and they love me. 626 00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:55,700 ...until we came to the scene where he has to come to tears 627 00:37:55,700 --> 00:38:01,500 as he's giving the last rites to his good friend who's dying, 628 00:38:01,500 --> 00:38:03,700 and O'Malley couldn't do it. 629 00:38:03,700 --> 00:38:07,700 And I took O'Malley aside and I said, 630 00:38:07,700 --> 00:38:10,830 "Bill, do you love me?" 631 00:38:10,830 --> 00:38:12,290 He said, 632 00:38:12,290 --> 00:38:13,540 "Yes, of course I love you, Bill. 633 00:38:13,540 --> 00:38:14,870 You know that." 634 00:38:14,870 --> 00:38:17,500 I said, "Do you trust me?" 635 00:38:17,500 --> 00:38:19,750 Said, "Of course I trust you." 636 00:38:19,750 --> 00:38:22,450 I said, "Okay," and I turned away 637 00:38:22,450 --> 00:38:25,910 and then I hit him full in the face. 638 00:38:25,910 --> 00:38:27,910 I smacked him in the face, and I pushed him 639 00:38:27,910 --> 00:38:31,080 in front of the camera and I said, "Action." 640 00:38:42,330 --> 00:38:45,950 And afterward, he hugged me and thanked me 641 00:38:45,950 --> 00:38:49,830 because there was no other way he was gonna ever get to that, 642 00:38:49,830 --> 00:38:53,160 but I don't think I would do that again that way. 643 00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:57,500 Techniques like that would -- would not go over today. 644 00:38:57,500 --> 00:38:59,700 That wasn't something I invented. 645 00:38:59,700 --> 00:39:02,330 That was done by directors like John Ford 646 00:39:02,330 --> 00:39:05,950 and George Stevens to produce that emotion. 647 00:39:05,950 --> 00:39:09,790 Ford and Stevens -- they do whatever technique worked. 648 00:39:09,790 --> 00:39:13,540 I remember seeing a story in Life magazine, 649 00:39:13,540 --> 00:39:16,950 a photo essay on the production of the film 650 00:39:16,950 --> 00:39:20,950 "The Diary of Anne Frank," directed by George Stevens. 651 00:39:20,950 --> 00:39:25,580 So they had a big set built of the top-floor apartment 652 00:39:25,580 --> 00:39:28,950 where the Frank family was hiding, 653 00:39:28,950 --> 00:39:32,160 and they were in abject fear 654 00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:36,370 when the Nazi sirens would go by in the streets of Amsterdam. 655 00:39:36,370 --> 00:39:38,370 And there's a picture of George Stevens 656 00:39:38,370 --> 00:39:44,000 sitting on top of the set on the crossbeams with a rifle, 657 00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,790 and he used to shoot off a rifle 658 00:39:46,790 --> 00:39:51,330 to get a reaction from the people in the room. 659 00:39:51,330 --> 00:39:55,790 And I did that all throughout "The Exorcist" film. 660 00:39:55,790 --> 00:39:58,870 There's the one shot I remember in particular. 661 00:39:58,870 --> 00:40:01,370 It's a tight close-up with Jason Miller 662 00:40:01,370 --> 00:40:04,700 is working at the desk in his room, 663 00:40:04,700 --> 00:40:07,580 and then a phone rings. 664 00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:12,620 I didn't play a phone. 665 00:40:12,620 --> 00:40:15,410 I shot a rifle. 666 00:40:15,410 --> 00:40:17,620 There are many ways in which you work 667 00:40:17,620 --> 00:40:20,040 with the actors and the crew. 668 00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,700 There's no one technique. 669 00:40:23,700 --> 00:40:30,620 With someone like Ellen Burstyn or Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, 670 00:40:30,620 --> 00:40:34,250 one of the greatest American actors who ever lived, 671 00:40:34,250 --> 00:40:36,750 you don't give them a lot of direction. 672 00:40:36,750 --> 00:40:41,040 You talk initially before you shoot the film, 673 00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:43,750 make sure you're on the same page, 674 00:40:43,750 --> 00:40:45,500 and then they go out and they do it. 675 00:40:45,500 --> 00:40:48,000 And if you need or want to correct anything, 676 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:49,870 you'll say something to them, 677 00:40:49,870 --> 00:40:54,910 much as the conductor of a symphony orchestra 678 00:40:54,910 --> 00:40:58,540 talks to the members of the orchestra. 679 00:40:58,540 --> 00:41:02,040 That section a little softer or a little louder 680 00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:04,120 or faster or slower, 681 00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:07,500 and that's basically all you'll adjust 682 00:41:07,500 --> 00:41:09,660 with -- with a great actor. 683 00:41:09,660 --> 00:41:12,500 Might your daughter remember, perhaps, 684 00:41:12,500 --> 00:41:15,290 if Mr. Dennings was in her room that night? 685 00:41:15,290 --> 00:41:17,870 My favorite scene in "The Exorcist" 686 00:41:17,870 --> 00:41:22,660 is a scene where Lee J. Cobb, who plays Detective Kinderman, 687 00:41:22,660 --> 00:41:27,330 is at the opposite end of a table from Ellen Burstyn, 688 00:41:27,330 --> 00:41:31,870 and it's a very quiet scene where very little happens 689 00:41:31,870 --> 00:41:35,910 in which he suggests to her without saying it 690 00:41:35,910 --> 00:41:38,330 that her daughter might have pushed a man 691 00:41:38,330 --> 00:41:40,910 out of her bedroom window. 692 00:41:40,910 --> 00:41:42,830 Just two setups -- 693 00:41:42,830 --> 00:41:46,750 one over her shoulder, one over his -- 694 00:41:46,750 --> 00:41:50,410 that moves toward each one of them, 695 00:41:50,410 --> 00:41:53,410 just pulling the audience closer. 696 00:41:53,410 --> 00:41:55,330 All interior, 697 00:41:55,330 --> 00:42:01,120 and I remember saying to them, yes, just interiorize that. 698 00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,870 Ellen, you know what he's saying, 699 00:42:04,870 --> 00:42:06,700 but you can't show it. 700 00:42:06,700 --> 00:42:11,120 Don't show him how this is killing you inside. 701 00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:14,160 Suppress that emotion throughout, 702 00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:17,950 and she played that scene so beautifully. 703 00:42:17,950 --> 00:42:20,040 That's the way she wanted to play it. 704 00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:22,910 Same with Lee. 705 00:42:22,910 --> 00:42:25,450 As the tension is relieved, 706 00:42:25,450 --> 00:42:31,370 the camera almost imperceptibly moves away from that. 707 00:42:31,370 --> 00:42:35,540 The scene I've just described is... 708 00:42:35,540 --> 00:42:39,950 one of the most tension-filled in the film 709 00:42:39,950 --> 00:42:42,500 because of what's being said. 710 00:42:42,500 --> 00:42:44,200 She's sitting there at the table. 711 00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,910 She says to him, not knowing what to say... 712 00:42:47,910 --> 00:42:50,580 Would you like some more coffee? 713 00:42:50,580 --> 00:42:53,830 ...hoping that he'll say, "No, I'm fine," and get out of there, 714 00:42:53,830 --> 00:42:55,410 and he turns and says... 715 00:42:55,410 --> 00:42:56,660 Please. 716 00:42:56,660 --> 00:42:58,290 Oh, my God. 717 00:42:58,290 --> 00:43:02,620 That moment on her is devastating. 718 00:43:10,370 --> 00:43:14,500 And he calmly suggests to her... 719 00:43:14,500 --> 00:43:16,540 You might ask your daughter 720 00:43:16,540 --> 00:43:17,950 if she remembers 721 00:43:17,950 --> 00:43:20,870 seeing Mr. Dennings in her room that night. 722 00:43:20,870 --> 00:43:22,950 Look, he -- he wouldn't have any reason 723 00:43:22,950 --> 00:43:24,410 in the world to up to her room. 724 00:43:24,410 --> 00:43:26,200 Oh, I know, I realize, 725 00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,250 but if certain British doctors never asked, 726 00:43:29,250 --> 00:43:30,830 "What is this fungus?" 727 00:43:30,830 --> 00:43:33,830 we wouldn't today have penicillin, correct? 728 00:43:33,830 --> 00:43:39,250 It's a brilliant dialogue, and he then says... 729 00:43:39,250 --> 00:43:42,040 I-I really hate to ask you this, but... 730 00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:44,290 for -- for my daughter, 731 00:43:44,290 --> 00:43:47,410 could you please give an autograph? 732 00:43:47,410 --> 00:43:50,790 And that completely relieves the tension. 733 00:43:50,790 --> 00:43:53,290 You're a very nice lady. 734 00:43:55,830 --> 00:43:58,750 - Thank you. - You're a nice man. 735 00:43:58,750 --> 00:44:02,580 Wonderful character scene with very few words, 736 00:44:02,580 --> 00:44:05,000 but the tension is totally relieved 737 00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,450 because after he goes out the door, 738 00:44:07,450 --> 00:44:11,330 all hell will break loose in the house. 739 00:44:11,330 --> 00:44:13,370 And after he leaves, 740 00:44:13,370 --> 00:44:19,120 I added the sound of a ticking grandfather clock... 741 00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:23,000 which to the audience has the effect of a bomb ticking 742 00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:24,450 before it goes off. 743 00:44:24,450 --> 00:44:26,540 It's a quiet 744 00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:33,080 There is a grandfather clock buried in the shot, 745 00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,000 but for the most part, you would not be conscious of it 746 00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:37,870 if you were in the room with it. 747 00:44:46,500 --> 00:44:50,330 And then all of a sudden, there's a scream 748 00:44:50,330 --> 00:44:56,040 that comes from upstairs, which is the bomb going off. 749 00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:59,120 Nothing is more shocking than... 750 00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:03,950 the masturbation scene, and that was Blatty's intent. 751 00:45:03,950 --> 00:45:06,580 And I told him, 752 00:45:06,580 --> 00:45:10,910 and he agreed, that I wasn't going to sugarcoat it. 753 00:45:10,910 --> 00:45:13,950 Here it is. This is what happens. 754 00:45:13,950 --> 00:45:15,830 Let Jesus fuck you! Let Jesus fuck you! 755 00:45:15,830 --> 00:45:18,910 Let him fuck you! 756 00:45:18,910 --> 00:45:26,330 It was...extremely disturbing, that sequence, 757 00:45:26,330 --> 00:45:30,910 both to conceive of and to shoot 758 00:45:30,910 --> 00:45:38,080 because it's probably the only time in any film 759 00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:42,620 where something like the crucifix and the vagina 760 00:45:42,620 --> 00:45:47,410 are brought into the same frame of film. 761 00:45:48,660 --> 00:45:50,250 I came up with this notion, 762 00:45:50,250 --> 00:45:52,790 which I discussed with Dick Smith, 763 00:45:52,790 --> 00:45:56,790 that the makeup should be organic to something 764 00:45:56,790 --> 00:45:59,120 that Regan had done to herself, 765 00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:02,750 and it occurred to me that the makeup should grow out of that. 766 00:46:02,750 --> 00:46:05,160 Dick Smith liked that idea, 767 00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:08,500 and he then created the makeup to grow out 768 00:46:08,500 --> 00:46:10,580 of what appeared to be 769 00:46:10,580 --> 00:46:15,580 gangrenous self-inflicted wounds on her face. 770 00:46:15,580 --> 00:46:18,750 Ensor is one of my favorite artists 771 00:46:18,750 --> 00:46:20,790 who influenced me a great deal, 772 00:46:20,790 --> 00:46:24,250 and the masks in a film I made called "The Brink's Job," 773 00:46:24,250 --> 00:46:27,750 which is about a famous robbery in the 1950s, 774 00:46:27,750 --> 00:46:33,620 are inspired by Ensor's paintings of masks. 775 00:46:33,620 --> 00:46:37,870 I showed these masks to Dick Smith for "The Exorcist" 776 00:46:37,870 --> 00:46:39,410 just to show 777 00:46:39,410 --> 00:46:42,620 certain expressive things that were possible. 778 00:46:42,620 --> 00:46:48,000 The first makeup test that Dick did was just white face... 779 00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,450 dark eyes, red lines under the face, 780 00:46:51,450 --> 00:46:53,000 and I didn't like it. 781 00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,160 I thought it looked like makeup, 782 00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:59,450 but then some months later in the cutting room, 783 00:46:59,450 --> 00:47:01,580 the editor, Bud Smith, 784 00:47:01,580 --> 00:47:04,870 showed me the makeup tests again. 785 00:47:04,870 --> 00:47:07,200 He said, "Look at this frame." 786 00:47:10,450 --> 00:47:14,160 When you see just a frame or two of it, it's shocking, 787 00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:16,580 and it speaks volumes. 788 00:47:16,580 --> 00:47:18,330 It's not in the script. 789 00:47:18,330 --> 00:47:20,450 I decided to put it in later, 790 00:47:20,450 --> 00:47:23,450 and then when I did the 2000 version, 791 00:47:23,450 --> 00:47:26,370 I added a couple of more. 792 00:47:26,370 --> 00:47:30,790 I think all of us probably think... 793 00:47:30,790 --> 00:47:32,700 in subliminal perception. 794 00:47:32,700 --> 00:47:36,160 First time I saw it was done by Alain Resnais 795 00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:40,700 in "Last Year at Marienbad" and in "Hiroshima Mon Amour." 796 00:47:50,330 --> 00:47:52,870 And that made a profound impression on me, 797 00:47:52,870 --> 00:47:54,830 and I used it in "The Exorcist." 798 00:47:54,830 --> 00:47:59,330 I've used subliminal cuts in "Cruising" 799 00:47:59,330 --> 00:48:01,750 during the murder scenes 800 00:48:01,750 --> 00:48:07,200 and in "Sorcerer" as momentary mental flashbacks. 801 00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:09,500 I did that with sound, as well, 802 00:48:09,500 --> 00:48:12,080 but it's much more imperceptible. 803 00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:16,370 Subliminal sounds like the pig squealing, 804 00:48:16,370 --> 00:48:20,700 which is mixed into the demon voice in places. 805 00:48:28,750 --> 00:48:31,830 A fly that's caught in a bottle with a microphone 806 00:48:31,830 --> 00:48:34,450 stuck down there that's in there. 807 00:48:37,330 --> 00:48:40,540 I'm basically an old radio guy. 808 00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:48,040 My earliest influence was dramatic radio. 809 00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:51,830 Everything was in the imagination, everything, 810 00:48:51,830 --> 00:48:56,080 and it was through not only the human voice and music, 811 00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:58,330 but through sound effects. 812 00:49:00,750 --> 00:49:06,620 "The Exorcist" is an experimental sound museum, 813 00:49:06,620 --> 00:49:12,000 and so when I came into film, I was very much drawn 814 00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:16,040 to trying to continue that kind of use of sound. 815 00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:21,410 The demon voice was sculpted out of various sounds 816 00:49:21,410 --> 00:49:24,830 and the voice of Mercedes McCambridge. 817 00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:36,910 I had this friend from Chicago 818 00:49:36,910 --> 00:49:40,790 that I used to work with who was basically an announcer, 819 00:49:40,790 --> 00:49:44,200 but he was a great experimenter with sound. 820 00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:46,700 His name was Ken Nordine. 821 00:49:46,700 --> 00:49:50,160 Now, in this mound of think, 822 00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:56,660 in my huge, small individual love. 823 00:49:56,660 --> 00:50:01,540 Mine, yours, anyone, anything so related closer than any close, 824 00:50:01,540 --> 00:50:02,790 so close that... 825 00:50:02,790 --> 00:50:04,120 I called him and I said, 826 00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:07,450 "Ken, can you create a demon voice?" 827 00:50:07,450 --> 00:50:09,790 And he experimented for months, 828 00:50:09,790 --> 00:50:14,000 and I started to think, "This -- This doesn't work. 829 00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:15,540 Why doesn't it work?" 830 00:50:15,540 --> 00:50:17,410 Well, it's the voice of a man, 831 00:50:17,410 --> 00:50:23,250 no matter how intentionally distorted, but... 832 00:50:23,250 --> 00:50:26,450 it can't be a woman's voice, either. 833 00:50:26,450 --> 00:50:30,870 So I start to think, "Is there anyone... 834 00:50:30,870 --> 00:50:36,040 who sounds both male and female? 835 00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:38,830 Sort of neuter?" 836 00:50:38,830 --> 00:50:41,200 It popped into my head 837 00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:44,500 from the old days of dramatic radio, 838 00:50:44,500 --> 00:50:46,160 Mercedes McCambridge. 839 00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:47,700 You heard her tell how 840 00:50:47,700 --> 00:50:49,660 they're gonna run the railroad through here, 841 00:50:49,660 --> 00:50:52,250 bring in thousands of new people from the east. 842 00:50:52,250 --> 00:50:56,660 Farmers, dirt farmers, squatters. 843 00:50:56,660 --> 00:50:58,870 They'll push us out. 844 00:50:58,870 --> 00:51:02,250 I show her the film in rough cut... 845 00:51:02,250 --> 00:51:05,500 without any sound, with Linda Blair's voice. 846 00:51:05,500 --> 00:51:08,080 What an excellent day for an exorcism. 847 00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:10,700 But wouldn't that drive you out of Regan? 848 00:51:10,700 --> 00:51:14,080 It would bring us together. 849 00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:15,830 You and Regan. 850 00:51:15,830 --> 00:51:17,290 You and us. 851 00:51:17,290 --> 00:51:21,790 She said, "Do you know anything about me? 852 00:51:21,790 --> 00:51:25,290 I was a practicing Catholic from childhood, 853 00:51:25,290 --> 00:51:30,080 then I became a suicidal drunk, I went through AA, 854 00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:35,330 and I can no longer have a drink, even." 855 00:51:35,330 --> 00:51:39,580 But she said, "In order to do what you need me 856 00:51:39,580 --> 00:51:42,290 to do with this voice, I'm going to have to 857 00:51:42,290 --> 00:51:46,830 put alcohol down my throat, and I'm going to have to 858 00:51:46,830 --> 00:51:51,450 several times a day swallow raw eggs." 859 00:51:51,450 --> 00:51:56,540 And she said, "I want you to tie me to a chair like this, 860 00:51:56,540 --> 00:52:01,000 and I will sit squatting on the chair 861 00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,620 so that I feel some actual pain, 862 00:52:04,620 --> 00:52:07,950 and I will smoke again and drink again. 863 00:52:07,950 --> 00:52:12,830 But I want these two priests in the room who are friends of mine 864 00:52:12,830 --> 00:52:16,000 at all times in the recording studio. 865 00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:19,620 You'll have to give them some money for their church. 866 00:52:19,620 --> 00:52:21,950 And let's see what we can do. 867 00:52:21,950 --> 00:52:24,700 Awful lot of smoke. 868 00:52:24,700 --> 00:52:26,120 Awful lot of whiskey. 869 00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:28,830 And we went into a recording studio. 870 00:52:28,830 --> 00:52:33,580 She'd finish a scene, go back to the rear of the sound stage, 871 00:52:33,580 --> 00:52:35,330 where her two priests sat, 872 00:52:35,330 --> 00:52:38,790 and she would collapse into their arms in tears. 873 00:52:41,290 --> 00:52:42,750 She was saying lines like, 874 00:52:42,750 --> 00:52:46,410 "Your mother sucks cocks in hell, Karras." 875 00:52:46,410 --> 00:52:49,370 Every single line that you see in the film, 876 00:52:49,370 --> 00:52:51,120 Linda Blair had to say. 877 00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,250 It sounds a lot different when it's coming out of 878 00:52:53,250 --> 00:52:55,330 the mouth of a 12-year-old, though. 879 00:52:55,330 --> 00:52:57,620 How long are you planning to stay in Regan? 880 00:52:57,620 --> 00:53:01,040 Until she rots and lies stinking in the earth. 881 00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:04,580 She everything that Linda Blair said. 882 00:53:04,580 --> 00:53:07,700 Stick your cock up her ass, you motherfucking 883 00:53:07,700 --> 00:53:09,410 worthless cock sucker. 884 00:53:09,410 --> 00:53:12,000 Be silent! 885 00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:15,870 And sometimes she would simply open her mouth 886 00:53:15,870 --> 00:53:18,370 with a mic open like this. 887 00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:26,950 But out of her throat would come three or four different sounds 888 00:53:26,950 --> 00:53:30,950 because of the booze and the eggs and the smoke 889 00:53:30,950 --> 00:53:34,540 in the way that John Coltrane plays the saxophone, 890 00:53:34,540 --> 00:53:38,830 where you hear three or four notes at one time. 891 00:53:42,620 --> 00:53:46,620 I had not used the name Mercedes McCambridge 892 00:53:46,620 --> 00:53:50,540 since I saw her in a movie called "Giant", and again, 893 00:53:50,540 --> 00:53:53,660 it was an inspiration, a gift from God. 894 00:53:53,660 --> 00:53:56,290 Images stick in my mind's eye. 895 00:53:56,290 --> 00:53:59,660 I'll see something, and it'll like go into 896 00:53:59,660 --> 00:54:04,410 a mental file, and occasionally I'll have use for it. 897 00:54:04,410 --> 00:54:07,250 Most of my films are realistic 898 00:54:07,250 --> 00:54:10,750 because I've never been able to tap into the surreal. 899 00:54:10,750 --> 00:54:13,700 But the surreal is what I admire the most. 900 00:54:27,620 --> 00:54:35,330 Magritte is, to me, you know, the greatest surrealist. 901 00:54:40,540 --> 00:54:43,160 The first thing we filmed with Max von Sydow 902 00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:46,750 was in Georgetown, where he arrives. 903 00:54:55,450 --> 00:55:01,410 That shot came from a painting by René Magritte. 904 00:55:01,410 --> 00:55:04,500 It's called "The Empire of Light." 905 00:55:04,500 --> 00:55:08,660 There's a street very similar to Prospect Street 906 00:55:08,660 --> 00:55:10,870 in Georgetown. 907 00:55:10,870 --> 00:55:15,040 It's a day light sky over a night time street, 908 00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:18,410 and this painting had a profound effect on me, 909 00:55:18,410 --> 00:55:23,040 and I decided to put a figure in it. 910 00:55:23,910 --> 00:55:26,330 Von Sydow, the priest. 911 00:55:26,330 --> 00:55:30,750 And have the light from the girl's bedroom shining 912 00:55:30,750 --> 00:55:37,000 on him, which gave it the surreal feeling 913 00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:38,660 that the Magritte painting had. 914 00:55:38,660 --> 00:55:44,040 It's remained forever the iconic image of "The Exorcist." 915 00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:47,450 I love the paintings of Caravaggio, 916 00:55:47,450 --> 00:55:49,540 you know, which are mostly figures 917 00:55:49,540 --> 00:55:55,000 set against a completely black background, dramatically lit. 918 00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:58,250 Many of them are biblical scenes. 919 00:55:58,250 --> 00:56:01,540 Most biblical paintings of the Renaissance 920 00:56:01,540 --> 00:56:04,290 will lay out everything in the background. 921 00:56:04,290 --> 00:56:08,330 Caravaggio didn't bother to try to recreate 922 00:56:08,330 --> 00:56:12,410 any of the scenes from the Holy Land. 923 00:56:12,410 --> 00:56:17,000 He just put the figures very powerfully in the foreground. 924 00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:22,290 His paintings are strong, emotional, hard edged. 925 00:56:22,290 --> 00:56:25,620 They force you to look at the figures. 926 00:56:25,620 --> 00:56:30,450 And they're almost like Cartier-Bresson's photographs, 927 00:56:30,450 --> 00:56:34,750 moments of truth that he selected within these events 928 00:56:34,750 --> 00:56:37,040 to highlight and isolate. 929 00:56:37,040 --> 00:56:39,500 And so it's the way in which he did these things 930 00:56:39,500 --> 00:56:43,200 that I've often been able to recreate to some extent, 931 00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:44,910 not to his extent. 932 00:56:44,910 --> 00:56:47,120 The light coming from one side, 933 00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:49,160 powerful foreground figures, 934 00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:52,250 and then either out of focus or black background. 935 00:56:52,250 --> 00:56:55,080 I will do that often unconsciously. 936 00:56:55,080 --> 00:57:00,080 And I know it's related to my love of Caravaggio's 937 00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:02,160 incredible figures. 938 00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:05,950 Rembrandt's portraits have influenced cinematographers 939 00:57:05,950 --> 00:57:10,660 and directors forever, since the beginning of film. 940 00:57:10,660 --> 00:57:14,910 What he did basically was take one source light, 941 00:57:14,910 --> 00:57:18,450 so there's a very prominent and powerful light 942 00:57:18,450 --> 00:57:21,410 coming on a figure from one source, 943 00:57:21,410 --> 00:57:23,160 and the rest of the light on the face 944 00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:27,830 is a kind of a soft bounce light from another surface 945 00:57:27,830 --> 00:57:31,660 that is not as strong as the hot source. 946 00:57:31,660 --> 00:57:34,950 And occasionally there'll be a bit of back light, 947 00:57:34,950 --> 00:57:36,410 but it's not emphasized. 948 00:57:36,410 --> 00:57:38,870 And that's the idea of the way I've tried 949 00:57:38,870 --> 00:57:41,500 to shoot faces and portraits. 950 00:57:41,500 --> 00:57:48,500 Wherever I could control the light within interiors, 951 00:57:48,500 --> 00:57:51,450 we shot it that way. 952 00:57:51,450 --> 00:57:55,830 Rembrandt basically created a style of lighting 953 00:57:55,830 --> 00:57:59,700 that still exists and is still relevant. 954 00:57:59,700 --> 00:58:02,000 I would go so far as to say you could almost 955 00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:07,250 throw everything else out, even "The Mona Lisa." 956 00:58:07,250 --> 00:58:12,290 I've also been influenced by 17th century Dutch paintings, 957 00:58:12,290 --> 00:58:16,290 in particular Vermeer. 958 00:58:16,290 --> 00:58:19,040 The most powerful painting I've ever seen 959 00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:22,910 is Vermeer's "View of Delft." 960 00:58:22,910 --> 00:58:24,660 It's just magnificent. 961 00:58:24,660 --> 00:58:28,620 It's one of his few landscapes, 962 00:58:28,620 --> 00:58:31,500 and it's just a group of women on the shore 963 00:58:31,500 --> 00:58:34,370 who are doing their daily shopping 964 00:58:34,370 --> 00:58:37,660 and now they're talking to one another. 965 00:58:37,660 --> 00:58:43,290 In the background is the city of Delft, 966 00:58:43,290 --> 00:58:47,040 which premieres slightly rearranged in his picture, 967 00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:52,000 as El Greco rearranged the view of Toledo that he painted. 968 00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:54,660 And there's a shaft of light 969 00:58:54,660 --> 00:58:56,410 that hits the corner of a building, 970 00:58:56,410 --> 00:58:59,500 a little yellow spot on the painting. 971 00:58:59,500 --> 00:59:02,660 And the painting takes you absolutely back to 972 00:59:02,660 --> 00:59:06,370 17th century Delft. 973 00:59:06,370 --> 00:59:09,950 You're there, you can almost hear the conversations 974 00:59:09,950 --> 00:59:11,500 if you give yourself to it. 975 00:59:11,500 --> 00:59:14,040 Oh, it's such an unexpected little thing. 976 00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:19,870 I find that so simple and yet so profoundly moving. 977 00:59:19,870 --> 00:59:27,120 It's not just a dab of reality at all. 978 00:59:27,120 --> 00:59:30,580 It's a little grace note. 979 00:59:31,660 --> 00:59:35,080 I certainly attempted to have 980 00:59:35,080 --> 00:59:39,910 little grace notes in "The Exorcist." 981 00:59:39,910 --> 00:59:42,160 There's a shot in there that's one of the most 982 00:59:42,160 --> 00:59:46,660 beautiful shots I've ever been involved with. 983 00:59:49,250 --> 00:59:56,540 It's a shot of von Sydow walking through a bazaar. 984 00:59:56,540 --> 01:00:01,370 There were holes in the ceiling where the sun poured in. 985 01:00:01,370 --> 01:00:04,700 And I just thought, "This is so beautiful," 986 01:00:04,700 --> 01:00:08,790 that I had von Sydow walk through there. 987 01:00:10,250 --> 01:00:15,080 The grace notes are what you remember about any experience, 988 01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:18,910 a person that you've met, 989 01:00:18,910 --> 01:00:22,450 the things that we love about the people we love, 990 01:00:22,450 --> 01:00:26,080 or a moment in a novel or in a movie. 991 01:00:26,080 --> 01:00:30,910 "Citizen Kane" is filled with grace notes. 992 01:00:30,910 --> 01:00:33,040 Filled with grace notes. 993 01:00:37,540 --> 01:00:40,950 Rosebud. 994 01:00:47,000 --> 01:00:50,200 The story told by Mr. Bernstein 995 01:00:50,200 --> 01:00:55,620 to the reporter about how he could remember 996 01:00:55,620 --> 01:00:57,080 seeing a woman. 997 01:00:57,080 --> 01:01:00,330 One day back in 1896, I was crossing over 998 01:01:00,330 --> 01:01:02,700 to Jersey on the ferry. 999 01:01:02,700 --> 01:01:04,080 And as we pulled out, 1000 01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:06,000 there was another ferry pulling in. 1001 01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:09,370 And on it, there was a girl waiting to get off. 1002 01:01:09,370 --> 01:01:11,290 A white dress she had on. 1003 01:01:11,290 --> 01:01:14,200 And she was carrying a white parasol. 1004 01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:16,410 And I only saw her for one second. 1005 01:01:16,410 --> 01:01:19,160 She didn't see me at all. 1006 01:01:19,160 --> 01:01:22,790 But I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since 1007 01:01:22,790 --> 01:01:25,620 that I haven't thought of that girl. 1008 01:01:25,620 --> 01:01:30,750 That's a grace note that tells you something profound 1009 01:01:30,750 --> 01:01:32,290 about the human experience. 1010 01:01:32,290 --> 01:01:34,160 We all have such things, 1011 01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:39,040 and they're much more important than the larger events. 1012 01:01:40,370 --> 01:01:45,500 When Ellen Burstyn walks home from the movie within the movie 1013 01:01:45,500 --> 01:01:52,200 that she's shooting, you see two nuns walking, 1014 01:01:52,200 --> 01:01:55,660 and their wind just takes their habits 1015 01:01:55,660 --> 01:01:59,540 and blows them in kind of slow motion, 1016 01:01:59,540 --> 01:02:02,000 and she notices that moment. 1017 01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:07,160 She notices some children running by in Halloween costume, 1018 01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:10,540 which is a kind of quiet precursor 1019 01:02:10,540 --> 01:02:15,700 to what's to come -- children in disguise. 1020 01:02:15,700 --> 01:02:18,750 There's nothing in those scenes that move the film 1021 01:02:18,750 --> 01:02:23,040 one inch forward, but they're grace notes 1022 01:02:23,040 --> 01:02:27,410 that I tried to add to the whole experience. 1023 01:02:27,410 --> 01:02:30,080 A routine I have when I go to Chicago is 1024 01:02:30,080 --> 01:02:32,450 I'll walk down the street to the Art Institute 1025 01:02:32,450 --> 01:02:36,290 and spend an hour or two looking at the same paintings 1026 01:02:36,290 --> 01:02:38,000 over and over again. 1027 01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:40,750 To go back and look at these paintings is like 1028 01:02:40,750 --> 01:02:43,200 visiting old friends. 1029 01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:46,830 The Monet collection is unsurpassed, 1030 01:02:46,830 --> 01:02:50,580 especially "Morning on the Seine near Giverny", 1031 01:02:50,580 --> 01:02:53,250 which is probably, if I have such a thing, 1032 01:02:53,250 --> 01:02:56,160 it would be my favorite painting in the world. 1033 01:02:58,950 --> 01:03:03,290 And it's nothing but a very soft collage, 1034 01:03:03,290 --> 01:03:05,290 whites, blues, grays, 1035 01:03:05,290 --> 01:03:10,620 just harmoniously together, nothing loud. 1036 01:03:10,620 --> 01:03:15,080 Everything in the painting is soft, almost imperceptible. 1037 01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:18,830 It's a pure, quiet abstract. 1038 01:03:18,830 --> 01:03:24,200 It's like Ravel's music or Debussy's music on a canvas, 1039 01:03:24,200 --> 01:03:28,660 especially the "Quartet in F" by Maurice Ravel. 1040 01:03:28,660 --> 01:03:33,830 So there is a symbiosis for me between art and music. 1041 01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:38,540 There are great quiet sound effects 1042 01:03:38,540 --> 01:03:41,580 all over the movie, and I didn't want the score 1043 01:03:41,580 --> 01:03:44,790 to drown them out, so I didn't want a loud score 1044 01:03:44,790 --> 01:03:48,450 or a rhythmic score or a boisterous score. 1045 01:03:48,450 --> 01:03:52,160 For the most part, I don't like to cue the audience 1046 01:03:52,160 --> 01:03:54,500 on how they're supposed to feel. 1047 01:03:54,500 --> 01:03:57,620 I like them to find that out for themselves. 1048 01:03:57,620 --> 01:04:01,120 There are exceptions to that, like "Psycho", 1049 01:04:01,120 --> 01:04:05,080 where the score tells you exactly how to feel 1050 01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:07,910 at all times, and it's great. 1051 01:04:23,750 --> 01:04:25,540 When I finished editing the film, 1052 01:04:25,540 --> 01:04:31,410 I went to the great composer Bernard Herrmann, 1053 01:04:31,410 --> 01:04:33,250 who was living in London then. 1054 01:04:33,250 --> 01:04:36,870 He had had a score rejected by Alfred Hitchcock 1055 01:04:36,870 --> 01:04:40,540 and Herrmann left America and moved to England, 1056 01:04:40,540 --> 01:04:42,290 became an expatriate. 1057 01:04:55,000 --> 01:04:57,870 Tell the cookie she should put that down. 1058 01:04:57,870 --> 01:05:01,700 I screened the rough cut of "The Exorcist" 1059 01:05:01,700 --> 01:05:03,250 for Bernard Herrmann. 1060 01:05:03,250 --> 01:05:05,790 He came out after the screening, and he said, 1061 01:05:05,790 --> 01:05:11,290 "Well, I think I can save this piece of shit 1062 01:05:11,290 --> 01:05:14,370 if you leave it with me, and I'll mail you a score." 1063 01:05:14,370 --> 01:05:18,160 Get rid of that first scene in the desert out there, 1064 01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:20,620 wherever the fuck you shot that. 1065 01:05:20,620 --> 01:05:21,870 You don't need that. 1066 01:05:21,870 --> 01:05:24,080 It doesn't mean a goddamn thing." 1067 01:05:24,080 --> 01:05:27,160 And by now, I'm a little upset. 1068 01:05:27,160 --> 01:05:31,700 And I said, "Can I ask you, what do you have in mind? 1069 01:05:31,700 --> 01:05:33,450 How would you score this?" 1070 01:05:33,450 --> 01:05:35,250 He said, "Well, there's a church 1071 01:05:35,250 --> 01:05:37,790 somewhere outside of greater London. 1072 01:05:37,790 --> 01:05:41,080 It's called St Giles Cripplegate. 1073 01:05:41,080 --> 01:05:43,330 And they have the greatest church organ 1074 01:05:43,330 --> 01:05:44,580 that I've ever heard. 1075 01:05:44,580 --> 01:05:46,540 The sound is magnificent." 1076 01:05:46,540 --> 01:05:49,500 And I said, "You want to use a church organ 1077 01:05:49,500 --> 01:05:51,450 in 'The Exorcist'?" 1078 01:05:51,450 --> 01:05:54,830 Do you have any idea why he wanted 1079 01:05:54,830 --> 01:05:56,330 a church organ? 1080 01:05:56,330 --> 01:05:58,120 Hell, no. 1081 01:05:58,120 --> 01:06:02,080 It seemed like a cliché to me, and I knew I was talking 1082 01:06:02,080 --> 01:06:04,450 to the greatest composer who ever lived. 1083 01:06:04,450 --> 01:06:06,540 I stood up and I said, 1084 01:06:06,540 --> 01:06:09,950 "Well, thank you for letting me meet an interesting person." 1085 01:06:09,950 --> 01:06:12,160 And I left. 1086 01:06:12,160 --> 01:06:14,700 I didn't give a shit if he was Bernard Herrmann 1087 01:06:14,700 --> 01:06:18,000 or Ludwig van Beethoven. 1088 01:06:18,000 --> 01:06:22,540 I was too close to that film to give it to anybody 1089 01:06:22,540 --> 01:06:26,410 to add as key an element as music. 1090 01:06:26,410 --> 01:06:33,370 This is one of the worst disappointments of my life. 1091 01:06:33,370 --> 01:06:35,500 So I then took the film back home, 1092 01:06:35,500 --> 01:06:39,660 and I started to use what we call temp score. 1093 01:06:39,660 --> 01:06:43,500 I put existing music that I had been listening to. 1094 01:06:43,500 --> 01:06:48,000 I was not looking to have the score drive the movie. 1095 01:06:48,000 --> 01:06:52,330 I was looking for a piece of music 1096 01:06:52,330 --> 01:06:56,660 that was like the cold hand on the back of a neck. 1097 01:06:56,660 --> 01:07:03,330 And so I was listening to music like Krzysztof Penderecki. 1098 01:07:03,330 --> 01:07:04,790 Polish composer. 1099 01:07:15,700 --> 01:07:21,370 Anton Webern, who wrote the quietest music ever written, 1100 01:07:21,370 --> 01:07:24,500 a piece called "Five Pieces for Orchestra", 1101 01:07:24,500 --> 01:07:28,000 in which the music never rises above this level. 1102 01:07:30,700 --> 01:07:34,540 When I touch your forehead, open your eyes. 1103 01:07:41,120 --> 01:07:43,410 He was a student of Schoenberg, 1104 01:07:43,410 --> 01:07:48,000 sort of created 12 tone music or serial music, 1105 01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:52,330 which is not melodic and often not even rhythmic. 1106 01:07:52,330 --> 01:07:55,750 I scored the film 1107 01:07:55,750 --> 01:08:01,120 primarily with recordings of those pieces of music, 1108 01:08:01,120 --> 01:08:06,330 and I then took the film with my choice of music 1109 01:08:06,330 --> 01:08:11,410 to a composer I had known called Lalo Schifrin, 1110 01:08:11,410 --> 01:08:15,330 and I said, "Lalo, I want the music to be a cold hand 1111 01:08:15,330 --> 01:08:16,910 on the back of your neck. 1112 01:08:16,910 --> 01:08:19,540 I don't want anything loud or noisy 1113 01:08:19,540 --> 01:08:24,790 except maybe in a couple of places just for accent. 1114 01:08:24,790 --> 01:08:28,660 Like where the little girl shows writing on her chest." 1115 01:08:45,120 --> 01:08:46,830 He said, "I got it, I've got it." 1116 01:08:46,830 --> 01:08:49,950 And I walk into the recording studio at Warner Bros., 1117 01:08:49,950 --> 01:08:55,120 and there's 80 or 90 musicians, and they're all electrified, 1118 01:08:55,120 --> 01:08:59,950 and he plays the first cue over the Iraqi desert. 1119 01:08:59,950 --> 01:09:05,000 And the music was blasting and blaring and screaming. 1120 01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:08,000 And I had all these wonderful sounds of the guys 1121 01:09:08,000 --> 01:09:13,290 digging from a distance and from medium and close up. 1122 01:09:13,290 --> 01:09:16,580 And the music wiped everything out. 1123 01:09:16,580 --> 01:09:19,660 It's a very complex and interesting score, 1124 01:09:19,660 --> 01:09:23,830 but it was loud and rhythmic and wrong. 1125 01:09:23,830 --> 01:09:26,540 And, um, I hated it! 1126 01:09:36,830 --> 01:09:40,660 I said, "Lalo, this stuff is wrong. 1127 01:09:40,660 --> 01:09:42,120 Can you change it?" 1128 01:09:42,120 --> 01:09:45,200 And he said, "No, I can't change it." 1129 01:09:45,200 --> 01:09:48,080 So I said, "It's over, the session's over." 1130 01:09:48,080 --> 01:09:49,540 And he was a good friend of mine, 1131 01:09:49,540 --> 01:09:54,290 and we haven't spoken since. 1132 01:09:54,830 --> 01:09:58,200 The music director of Warner Bros. took the tracks 1133 01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:04,200 that I selected off 33 1/3 LPs and had them re-recorded 1134 01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:07,700 in London by a pick up orchestra. 1135 01:10:07,700 --> 01:10:09,450 That's what's in the film. 1136 01:10:09,450 --> 01:10:13,540 I still wanted something that sounded like or vaguely 1137 01:10:13,540 --> 01:10:17,700 like Brahms' "Lullaby", and it goes something like this. 1138 01:10:31,910 --> 01:10:36,250 I would listen to one piece after another. 1139 01:10:36,250 --> 01:10:40,660 Needle drop out, needle drop, two seconds, out. 1140 01:10:40,660 --> 01:10:42,830 10 seconds, out. 1141 01:10:42,830 --> 01:10:47,080 Hundreds of pieces and up comes something called 1142 01:10:47,080 --> 01:10:50,790 "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield. 1143 01:10:50,790 --> 01:10:53,750 There's no label on it. It was handwritten on a label. 1144 01:11:23,500 --> 01:11:27,790 It's not that unusual to have a score done like that. 1145 01:11:27,790 --> 01:11:31,790 You have the opening and incidental music of "2001." 1146 01:11:31,790 --> 01:11:36,410 "Thus Spake Zarathustra" 1147 01:11:36,410 --> 01:11:39,000 was conducted by Herbert von Karajan 1148 01:11:39,000 --> 01:11:41,700 with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. 1149 01:11:59,250 --> 01:12:02,080 Those were existing recordings that Kubrick used 1150 01:12:02,080 --> 01:12:06,000 after he had commissioned a score by Alex North 1151 01:12:06,000 --> 01:12:07,580 and rejected. 1152 01:12:07,580 --> 01:12:10,750 And the score didn't match up to the temp track, 1153 01:12:10,750 --> 01:12:12,910 as was the case with me. 1154 01:12:32,700 --> 01:12:36,040 All of those things, the paintings and the music, 1155 01:12:36,040 --> 01:12:41,080 went a long way in influencing how I made this film. 1156 01:12:43,370 --> 01:12:48,250 They all sort of creep into your imagination, 1157 01:12:48,250 --> 01:12:52,830 which feeds your ideas for a film. 1158 01:12:54,450 --> 01:12:58,540 I couldn't be a film director if I was a skeptic. 1159 01:12:58,540 --> 01:13:00,790 I did not approach "The Exorcist" 1160 01:13:00,790 --> 01:13:04,200 as a nonbeliever or a cynic. 1161 01:13:04,200 --> 01:13:06,500 I approached it as a believer. 1162 01:13:06,500 --> 01:13:14,950 And to direct the film like that, I had to separate myself 1163 01:13:14,950 --> 01:13:19,700 and my own emotions from the act itself 1164 01:13:19,700 --> 01:13:25,000 and take the actors into a mental environment 1165 01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:28,580 where they could separate themselves from 1166 01:13:28,580 --> 01:13:30,580 what was being portrayed. 1167 01:13:30,580 --> 01:13:34,250 Blatty and I never talked about a horror film 1168 01:13:34,250 --> 01:13:37,790 or effects in a horror film. 1169 01:13:37,790 --> 01:13:41,410 To me, it's more of a chamber piece than spectacle. 1170 01:13:41,410 --> 01:13:46,080 Most of the stuff takes place in one room, 1171 01:13:46,080 --> 01:13:48,540 in the little girl's bedroom. 1172 01:13:48,540 --> 01:13:51,660 We set out to tell this story 1173 01:13:51,660 --> 01:13:56,290 that deals with the mystery of faith and good and evil, 1174 01:13:56,290 --> 01:14:02,080 both extreme sacrifice and goodness and love. 1175 01:14:02,080 --> 01:14:04,540 Jesus Christ, won't somebody help me?! 1176 01:14:04,540 --> 01:14:06,450 No, see, you don't understand. Your daughter -- 1177 01:14:06,450 --> 01:14:09,000 Could you help her? Just help her! 1178 01:14:13,790 --> 01:14:19,200 As I sit here now and talk about this film, 1179 01:14:19,200 --> 01:14:23,700 probably in the mind's eye of the people watching this, 1180 01:14:23,700 --> 01:14:26,910 they're wondering, do I believe that there is such a thing 1181 01:14:26,910 --> 01:14:28,750 as demonic possession? 1182 01:14:28,750 --> 01:14:32,620 I have no idea. It's one of the mysteries. 1183 01:14:32,620 --> 01:14:34,660 Do you have any religious beliefs? 1184 01:14:34,660 --> 01:14:38,000 - No. - What about your daughter? 1185 01:14:38,000 --> 01:14:39,910 No. Why? 1186 01:14:39,910 --> 01:14:43,120 You ever heard of exorcism? 1187 01:14:43,120 --> 01:14:48,620 Now, I filmed what purports to be an actual possession 1188 01:14:48,620 --> 01:14:51,330 and exorcism by the Vatican exorcist, 1189 01:14:51,330 --> 01:14:53,290 Father Gabriele Amorth. 1190 01:14:53,290 --> 01:14:58,080 What I saw was extremely harrowing and convincing. 1191 01:14:58,080 --> 01:15:02,080 But do I know what this was? No, I don't. 1192 01:15:02,080 --> 01:15:03,540 There are people who say, 1193 01:15:03,540 --> 01:15:06,450 "Well, I don't buy into any of this stuff. 1194 01:15:06,450 --> 01:15:10,580 I don't believe in possession. I don't believe in the devil." 1195 01:15:10,580 --> 01:15:14,580 But they're watching it, you know? 1196 01:15:14,580 --> 01:15:18,910 The truth is none of us know anything, Alexander. 1197 01:15:18,910 --> 01:15:20,540 We don't know anything. 1198 01:15:20,540 --> 01:15:23,080 From the greatest thinkers and philosophers 1199 01:15:23,080 --> 01:15:26,870 the world has ever known, from St. Augustine to 1200 01:15:26,870 --> 01:15:31,500 Stephen Hawking, we don't know anything. 1201 01:15:31,500 --> 01:15:33,250 I'm sorry.You're sorry?! 1202 01:15:33,250 --> 01:15:34,580 Jesus Christ! 1203 01:15:34,580 --> 01:15:36,370 88 doctors, and all you can tell me 1204 01:15:36,370 --> 01:15:39,580 with all of your bullshit is... 1205 01:15:41,290 --> 01:15:45,000 All we know is we had nothing to say about our birth, 1206 01:15:45,000 --> 01:15:49,370 we'll no doubt have nothing to say about the time or place 1207 01:15:49,370 --> 01:15:53,450 or means by which we die. 1208 01:15:53,450 --> 01:15:58,410 Life is so ambiguous, which is why my films are. 1209 01:16:04,160 --> 01:16:13,000 So much of our lives take place in our mind's eye 1210 01:16:13,000 --> 01:16:18,040 and later could become inseparable from reality. 1211 01:16:18,040 --> 01:16:21,410 Every one of us lives with a separate reality. 1212 01:16:24,040 --> 01:16:29,450 So I leave the question open for a long time in the film 1213 01:16:29,450 --> 01:16:34,790 as to, is a lot of this what's actually happening 1214 01:16:34,790 --> 01:16:43,040 in the real world, or is it the outcome of 1215 01:16:43,040 --> 01:16:47,500 an extremely unusual event 1216 01:16:47,500 --> 01:16:51,410 that takes place in a different way 1217 01:16:51,410 --> 01:16:54,080 to the different people involved? 1218 01:16:55,580 --> 01:16:57,750 Karras is the only character 1219 01:16:57,750 --> 01:17:01,200 who has seen and heard that derelict earlier. 1220 01:17:03,200 --> 01:17:07,200 Father, could you help an old altar boy? 1221 01:17:07,200 --> 01:17:09,790 I'm a Catholic. 1222 01:17:13,410 --> 01:17:16,580 One of the reasons that people could be affected 1223 01:17:16,580 --> 01:17:21,330 by that brief scene in the subway is the fact 1224 01:17:21,330 --> 01:17:27,200 that the voice of the derelict comes up later in the room 1225 01:17:27,200 --> 01:17:29,290 from Regan's mouth. 1226 01:17:29,290 --> 01:17:32,120 As he's walking away from her bed, 1227 01:17:32,120 --> 01:17:35,200 he hears that derelict's voice. 1228 01:17:35,200 --> 01:17:40,160 Can you help an old altar boy, Father? 1229 01:17:40,160 --> 01:17:42,450 Or does he? 1230 01:17:42,450 --> 01:17:46,450 There's always the question. 1231 01:17:46,450 --> 01:17:49,450 In the same way that you have the medal 1232 01:17:49,450 --> 01:17:52,540 appearing in Karras' dream that was discovered 1233 01:17:52,540 --> 01:17:54,950 by Merrin in Iraq. 1234 01:17:54,950 --> 01:17:58,450 The idea of that scene is symbiosis, 1235 01:17:58,450 --> 01:18:01,410 the idea that people are going to be intricately involved 1236 01:18:01,410 --> 01:18:04,160 with one another at some point, 1237 01:18:04,160 --> 01:18:09,700 share images, share thoughts. 1238 01:18:09,700 --> 01:18:13,040 It's a St. Joseph medal that's found in the cave. 1239 01:18:21,040 --> 01:18:23,660 The question is, what is a St. Joseph medal 1240 01:18:23,660 --> 01:18:29,000 doing among all these artifacts from centuries before? 1241 01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:31,500 And that's a question I wanted to raise 1242 01:18:31,500 --> 01:18:34,290 in the way it's raised in "2001." 1243 01:18:34,290 --> 01:18:37,950 We don't know to this day what the obelisk is all about. 1244 01:18:37,950 --> 01:18:40,500 It appears at the dawn of man, 1245 01:18:40,500 --> 01:18:45,660 and then it appears on Jupiter in 2001. 1246 01:18:45,660 --> 01:18:48,830 And then in the finale of the film, 1247 01:18:48,830 --> 01:18:52,660 there's the obelisk again. 1248 01:18:52,660 --> 01:18:57,910 I thought it was genius using a talisman in film like that, 1249 01:18:57,910 --> 01:19:01,870 but that's the sled in "Citizen Kane." 1250 01:19:04,830 --> 01:19:07,950 What does all that stuff mean? 1251 01:19:07,950 --> 01:19:12,450 It's both obvious and indecipherable. 1252 01:19:15,250 --> 01:19:19,620 I added these other shots to the scene 1253 01:19:19,620 --> 01:19:22,910 that come out of Merrin's experience 1254 01:19:22,910 --> 01:19:26,040 and enter Karras' dream. 1255 01:19:26,040 --> 01:19:28,910 The descending medal, 1256 01:19:28,910 --> 01:19:32,200 the St. Joseph medal that was found in Iraq, 1257 01:19:32,200 --> 01:19:37,200 I added a barking dog running towards the camera, 1258 01:19:37,200 --> 01:19:40,620 which is reminiscent of the dogs in Iraq 1259 01:19:40,620 --> 01:19:44,040 that are barking around the statue of Pazuzu 1260 01:19:44,040 --> 01:19:46,540 when Merrin confronts it. 1261 01:19:46,540 --> 01:19:49,870 The clock in Iraq that only Merrin sees, 1262 01:19:49,870 --> 01:19:52,200 that Karras has never seen. 1263 01:19:52,200 --> 01:19:56,290 His mother emerging from a subway kiosk. 1264 01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:06,160 There's a constant motif of ascension in the film. 1265 01:20:07,080 --> 01:20:11,620 Which is certainly a reference to Christianity. 1266 01:20:11,620 --> 01:20:13,750 Very subliminal. 1267 01:20:13,750 --> 01:20:17,160 If I hadn't mentioned it, you might not notice it. 1268 01:20:21,750 --> 01:20:25,790 And she's screaming out at him, "Dimi," 1269 01:20:25,790 --> 01:20:27,040 which is what she called him. 1270 01:20:27,040 --> 01:20:28,910 His name was Damien. 1271 01:20:28,910 --> 01:20:32,750 You don't hear her voice. 1272 01:20:32,750 --> 01:20:38,790 And he is waving at her, and he's shouting, "Mama, Mama." 1273 01:20:38,790 --> 01:20:40,830 But you don't hear his voice, 1274 01:20:40,830 --> 01:20:42,080 They're two separate cuts. 1275 01:20:42,080 --> 01:20:44,830 They're never in the same frame together. 1276 01:20:44,830 --> 01:20:48,410 He sees his own mother as she's descending 1277 01:20:48,410 --> 01:20:54,080 into a subway station, which is telling him the possibility 1278 01:20:54,080 --> 01:20:56,870 that she's descending into hell. 1279 01:20:56,870 --> 01:21:01,450 Clearly a reference to the idea that he was losing his mother 1280 01:21:01,450 --> 01:21:03,750 and couldn't prevent, couldn't stop it. 1281 01:21:03,750 --> 01:21:07,870 Mama, it's Dimi, Mama. 1282 01:21:10,500 --> 01:21:12,410 Dimi. 1283 01:21:12,410 --> 01:21:15,120 Why would you do this to me, Dimi? 1284 01:21:15,120 --> 01:21:17,080 Why? 1285 01:21:19,830 --> 01:21:22,120 Come on, I'm going to take you out of here, Mama. 1286 01:21:22,120 --> 01:21:23,660 Mama, I'm going to take you home. 1287 01:21:25,370 --> 01:21:26,830 I'm gonna take you out of here tonight, Mama. 1288 01:21:26,830 --> 01:21:28,660 Mama, everything's gonna be all right. 1289 01:21:28,660 --> 01:21:30,950 Mama, I'm gonna take you home. 1290 01:21:30,950 --> 01:21:33,450 Mama, I'm gonna take you home! 1291 01:21:33,450 --> 01:21:38,450 That idea is the source of his guilt. 1292 01:21:39,200 --> 01:21:41,080 Oh, Christ. 1293 01:21:41,080 --> 01:21:42,790 I should have been there. I wasn't there. 1294 01:21:42,790 --> 01:21:44,040 I should have been there. 1295 01:21:44,040 --> 01:21:45,620 There was nothing you could do. 1296 01:21:45,620 --> 01:21:49,410 His guilt that he devoted his life to the priesthood 1297 01:21:49,410 --> 01:21:52,750 and not to his mother's health or well-being. 1298 01:21:52,750 --> 01:21:54,580 - You killed your mother! - On this your servant Regan -- 1299 01:21:54,580 --> 01:21:56,120 You left her alone to die! 1300 01:21:56,120 --> 01:21:57,660 - Shut up! - She'll never forgive you! 1301 01:21:59,160 --> 01:22:00,660 That's the principal source of his guilt, 1302 01:22:00,660 --> 01:22:03,950 so that when we meet him in the film, 1303 01:22:03,950 --> 01:22:07,870 he is suffering this guilt and is losing his faith. 1304 01:22:07,870 --> 01:22:10,250 I have felt that in my life about my mother. 1305 01:22:10,250 --> 01:22:15,040 One of the things that bonded Blatty and me 1306 01:22:15,040 --> 01:22:19,370 was a love of our mothers. 1307 01:22:19,370 --> 01:22:24,330 Bill has a tremendous -- 1308 01:22:24,330 --> 01:22:28,910 had a tremendous love and sense of loss 1309 01:22:28,910 --> 01:22:30,950 about his mother, 1310 01:22:30,950 --> 01:22:35,370 to whom he owes a great deal of his success. 1311 01:22:35,370 --> 01:22:40,410 And I still have a tremendous sense of loss about my mother. 1312 01:22:40,410 --> 01:22:44,370 And that's one of the things that bonded us over this film 1313 01:22:44,370 --> 01:22:47,660 and its overall concept. 1314 01:22:47,660 --> 01:22:50,500 Karras is the target of the demon, 1315 01:22:50,500 --> 01:22:52,540 not the little girl. 1316 01:22:55,870 --> 01:22:58,160 You're not my mother! 1317 01:22:58,160 --> 01:22:59,410 Don't listen. 1318 01:22:59,410 --> 01:23:00,910 Why, Dimi? 1319 01:23:02,160 --> 01:23:03,700 Damien. 1320 01:23:03,700 --> 01:23:06,200 - Dimi, please. - Damien. 1321 01:23:08,410 --> 01:23:11,000 Get out. 1322 01:23:11,000 --> 01:23:16,080 The demon moves right in and is trying to show Karras 1323 01:23:16,080 --> 01:23:21,620 that his faith is worthless, useless, ineffective. 1324 01:23:21,620 --> 01:23:26,540 That's the purpose of the entire possession. 1325 01:23:26,540 --> 01:23:32,160 And this is an act by the devil to show the young priest 1326 01:23:32,160 --> 01:23:37,950 that human beings are disgusting pieces of filth at bottom. 1327 01:23:37,950 --> 01:23:41,250 Even a young, innocent child is nothing 1328 01:23:41,250 --> 01:23:45,950 but a disgusting piece of filth, which is what the devil 1329 01:23:45,950 --> 01:23:49,870 wants us to think about each other. 1330 01:23:49,870 --> 01:23:53,870 Why this girl? Doesn't make sense. 1331 01:24:02,370 --> 01:24:05,160 I think the point is to make us despair. 1332 01:24:08,450 --> 01:24:12,160 To see ourselves as... 1333 01:24:12,160 --> 01:24:14,250 animal and ugly. 1334 01:24:17,450 --> 01:24:21,540 To reject the possibility that God could love us. 1335 01:24:21,540 --> 01:24:23,200 Open the door! 1336 01:24:23,200 --> 01:24:25,950 Do you know what she did? 1337 01:24:25,950 --> 01:24:28,250 Your cunting daughter. 1338 01:24:29,910 --> 01:24:31,870 Hitler believed that. 1339 01:24:48,200 --> 01:24:49,950 Stalin believed that. 1340 01:24:49,950 --> 01:24:54,160 Stalin killed 20 million of his own people 1341 01:24:54,160 --> 01:24:56,660 'cause he believed they were worthless. 1342 01:24:58,160 --> 01:25:00,450 How long are you planning to stay in Regan? 1343 01:25:00,450 --> 01:25:03,370 Until she rots and lies stinking in the earth. 1344 01:25:03,370 --> 01:25:09,370 Here's a wonderful scene between Karras and the priest 1345 01:25:09,370 --> 01:25:13,620 played by an actual priest named Father Birmingham. 1346 01:25:13,620 --> 01:25:15,620 I can't cut it anymore. 1347 01:25:20,370 --> 01:25:22,910 I need out. I'm unfit. 1348 01:25:26,160 --> 01:25:28,450 I think I've lost my faith, Tom. 1349 01:25:28,450 --> 01:25:32,790 That scene is cross-cut with what's happening to Regan. 1350 01:25:32,790 --> 01:25:34,750 He doesn't even call his daughter on her birthday, 1351 01:25:34,750 --> 01:25:36,160 for Christ's sake. 1352 01:25:36,160 --> 01:25:37,700 Maybe the circuit is busy. 1353 01:25:37,700 --> 01:25:39,660 Oh, circuits, my ass. He doesn't give a shit. 1354 01:25:39,660 --> 01:25:43,160 And you see these two disparate forces 1355 01:25:43,160 --> 01:25:48,540 slowly moving toward one another as though magnetically. 1356 01:25:48,540 --> 01:25:54,660 The little girl who is being victimized by the separation 1357 01:25:54,660 --> 01:25:58,410 of her parents and the anguish of the mother. 1358 01:25:58,410 --> 01:26:03,000 And you see the priest, who is losing his faith, 1359 01:26:03,000 --> 01:26:07,250 who is called upon to try and help the little girl. 1360 01:26:07,250 --> 01:26:10,580 These three characters are all going to come together 1361 01:26:10,580 --> 01:26:16,410 and mesh from separate worlds drawn together by fate, 1362 01:26:16,410 --> 01:26:18,160 and that's what it was designed to do, 1363 01:26:18,160 --> 01:26:25,410 and it was dictated to me by -- from another place. 1364 01:26:25,410 --> 01:26:30,910 I believe that we all have such inexpressible, 1365 01:26:30,910 --> 01:26:35,790 unexplainable dreams that may come from somewhere else, 1366 01:26:35,790 --> 01:26:39,080 that sometimes manifest themselves as déjà vu. 1367 01:26:39,080 --> 01:26:43,830 There are so many images and moments in life 1368 01:26:43,830 --> 01:26:50,830 that exist in some time warp or in some other place 1369 01:26:50,830 --> 01:26:56,290 that are randomly selected by somebody else. 1370 01:26:56,290 --> 01:26:59,910 We don't just dream about stuff that's happened 1371 01:26:59,910 --> 01:27:02,080 or is happening to us. 1372 01:27:02,080 --> 01:27:04,290 We dream about things from elsewhere 1373 01:27:04,290 --> 01:27:05,870 and where are they from? 1374 01:27:05,870 --> 01:27:09,160 And that is the most important discovery I made 1375 01:27:09,160 --> 01:27:12,750 as a filmmaker, that I could take 1376 01:27:12,750 --> 01:27:15,830 something from the life of one character 1377 01:27:15,830 --> 01:27:19,370 and put it into the dream life of another. 1378 01:27:19,370 --> 01:27:21,500 Well, suppose you have a thought. 1379 01:27:21,500 --> 01:27:24,330 And suppose the thought is about someone you're in tune with. 1380 01:27:24,330 --> 01:27:25,950 And then across thousands of miles, 1381 01:27:25,950 --> 01:27:27,830 that person knows what you're thinking about 1382 01:27:27,830 --> 01:27:30,870 and answers you, and it's all mental. 1383 01:27:30,870 --> 01:27:36,660 I'm not that attracted to ambiguity, but I do love it 1384 01:27:36,660 --> 01:27:41,620 when an audience has their own interpretation of a film 1385 01:27:41,620 --> 01:27:44,160 that I've made or that someone else has made. 1386 01:27:44,160 --> 01:27:47,950 And I've always believed that what you bring to a film, 1387 01:27:47,950 --> 01:27:51,660 especially like "The Exorcist", what you bring to it 1388 01:27:51,660 --> 01:27:54,410 is what you are going to take away from it. 1389 01:27:54,410 --> 01:27:57,830 The end did not have to be definitive, 1390 01:27:57,830 --> 01:28:00,540 but it had to be satisfying. 1391 01:28:00,540 --> 01:28:05,500 Many people look at the ending of the film as ambiguous. 1392 01:28:05,500 --> 01:28:10,120 Many people think that the the demon won, 1393 01:28:10,120 --> 01:28:13,870 that Karras and Merrin are dead as a result 1394 01:28:13,870 --> 01:28:17,080 of the possession and exorcism. 1395 01:28:17,080 --> 01:28:19,080 That's not how I approached the film, 1396 01:28:19,080 --> 01:28:20,870 and that isn't my belief. 1397 01:28:33,830 --> 01:28:35,660 No! 1398 01:28:39,080 --> 01:28:44,450 There's a wonderful lyric by Bob Dylan -- 1399 01:28:44,450 --> 01:28:48,160 "While preachers preach of evil fates, 1400 01:28:48,160 --> 01:28:52,160 teachers teach that knowledge waits. 1401 01:28:52,160 --> 01:28:57,040 But goodness stands outside the gates. 1402 01:28:57,040 --> 01:29:03,080 And sometimes even the President of the United States 1403 01:29:03,080 --> 01:29:06,790 must have to stand naked. 1404 01:29:06,790 --> 01:29:09,540 And if my thought dreams could be seen, 1405 01:29:09,540 --> 01:29:12,580 they'd probably put my head in a guillotine, 1406 01:29:12,580 --> 01:29:17,200 but it's all right, ma, I'm only dyin'." 1407 01:29:18,790 --> 01:29:22,870 All of that is at play in this last moment 1408 01:29:22,870 --> 01:29:25,370 of Karras' death. 1409 01:29:25,370 --> 01:29:31,120 Father Karras gives up his life in his mind... 1410 01:29:33,500 --> 01:29:38,500 ...for the life of this child that he's never known at all. 1411 01:29:38,500 --> 01:29:41,410 He knew only the possessed girl, 1412 01:29:41,410 --> 01:29:45,700 and there's a great feeling of sacrifice 1413 01:29:45,700 --> 01:29:50,580 that takes place in that moment, much like Sydney Carton 1414 01:29:50,580 --> 01:29:53,580 in the end of "A Tale of Two Cities." 1415 01:29:53,580 --> 01:29:55,870 It's a far, far better thing I do 1416 01:29:55,870 --> 01:29:58,040 than I have ever done. 1417 01:29:58,040 --> 01:30:04,660 It's a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known. 1418 01:30:04,660 --> 01:30:09,000 The idea of demonic possession and exorcism 1419 01:30:09,000 --> 01:30:14,080 is the idea that the priest calls upon Jesus Christ 1420 01:30:14,080 --> 01:30:18,410 through this ritual to exorcise the demon. 1421 01:30:18,410 --> 01:30:20,540 And the ending of "The Exorcist" 1422 01:30:20,540 --> 01:30:23,620 contradicts what I've just told you. 1423 01:30:23,620 --> 01:30:27,120 It's heard by Chris and Sharon 1424 01:30:27,120 --> 01:30:29,370 in another room in this novel. 1425 01:30:29,370 --> 01:30:32,330 Blatty wrote this entire paragraph 1426 01:30:32,330 --> 01:30:36,160 in order to not deal with the manner 1427 01:30:36,160 --> 01:30:38,370 in which Karras commits suicide. 1428 01:30:38,370 --> 01:30:40,870 We can't cut away. 1429 01:30:40,870 --> 01:30:44,370 We don't cut away from them during the exorcism. 1430 01:30:44,370 --> 01:30:47,540 There's a break in it where we see Chris sitting, 1431 01:30:47,540 --> 01:30:49,120 knitting something. 1432 01:30:49,120 --> 01:30:52,160 But during the exorcism, there could be no cutaways. 1433 01:30:52,160 --> 01:30:55,120 And I said, "Bill, what happened there? 1434 01:30:55,120 --> 01:30:59,160 He went out the window, obviously. How? 1435 01:30:59,160 --> 01:31:00,450 Was he possessed?" 1436 01:31:00,450 --> 01:31:05,700 "No," Bill said. "He wasn't possessed." 1437 01:31:05,700 --> 01:31:09,000 No, he made the conscious decision 1438 01:31:09,000 --> 01:31:11,500 to take himself out the window 1439 01:31:11,500 --> 01:31:15,910 and killing himself with the demon inside him. 1440 01:31:15,910 --> 01:31:19,160 But you're saying to me you want the demon to be gone 1441 01:31:19,160 --> 01:31:20,660 when he goes out the window? 1442 01:31:20,660 --> 01:31:24,200 I said, "But, Bill, that's suicide. 1443 01:31:24,200 --> 01:31:27,620 It's a sin in the Catholic Church." 1444 01:31:27,620 --> 01:31:30,080 Suicide is a sin. 1445 01:31:30,080 --> 01:31:34,660 It was confusing then, it's confusing now. 1446 01:31:34,660 --> 01:31:38,500 First of all, I find it improbable that a character 1447 01:31:38,500 --> 01:31:42,160 could call upon the devil to enter him or her. 1448 01:31:42,160 --> 01:31:46,080 The devil does what the devil wants to do. 1449 01:31:46,080 --> 01:31:47,330 I'm Damien Karras. 1450 01:31:47,330 --> 01:31:48,750 And I'm the devil. 1451 01:31:48,750 --> 01:31:51,580 Now kindly undo these straps. 1452 01:31:51,580 --> 01:31:54,450 If you're the devil, why not make those straps disappear? 1453 01:31:54,450 --> 01:31:57,790 That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras. 1454 01:32:05,870 --> 01:32:07,370 Did you do that? 1455 01:32:07,370 --> 01:32:11,080 Ah-uhm... 1456 01:32:14,620 --> 01:32:15,870 Do it again. 1457 01:32:15,870 --> 01:32:18,700 - In time. - No, now. 1458 01:32:18,700 --> 01:32:20,830 In time. 1459 01:32:20,830 --> 01:32:23,620 If you look at the scene and analyze it, 1460 01:32:23,620 --> 01:32:26,950 the demon enters Karras 1461 01:32:26,950 --> 01:32:30,790 because Karras invites it to come in, 1462 01:32:30,790 --> 01:32:33,410 and he's beating up this little girl, 1463 01:32:33,410 --> 01:32:35,160 which is an evil act. 1464 01:32:35,160 --> 01:32:37,830 You specifically see that he says... 1465 01:32:37,830 --> 01:32:39,450 Come into me! 1466 01:32:39,450 --> 01:32:42,950 Goddamn you, take me! 1467 01:32:42,950 --> 01:32:45,120 Take me! 1468 01:32:45,120 --> 01:32:49,750 Merrin would never do what Karras does, had he lived. 1469 01:32:49,750 --> 01:32:53,200 Grab the demon and say, "Take me, come in to me." 1470 01:32:53,200 --> 01:32:56,910 That was not in Merrin's wheelhouse. 1471 01:32:56,910 --> 01:32:59,120 He's got his hands around her throat, 1472 01:32:59,120 --> 01:33:03,290 as Blatty suggests in the novel, and she rips 1473 01:33:03,290 --> 01:33:05,950 the St. Joseph medal off of his neck. 1474 01:33:05,950 --> 01:33:08,910 Karras looks out the windows, 1475 01:33:08,910 --> 01:33:11,450 which are open, and the curtains are blowing. 1476 01:33:11,450 --> 01:33:14,250 He sees the face of his mother. 1477 01:33:14,250 --> 01:33:16,790 It's a two or three frame cut, 1478 01:33:16,790 --> 01:33:20,250 which is not in the book, which Blatty questioned, 1479 01:33:20,250 --> 01:33:24,660 but ultimately went along with, with the idea 1480 01:33:24,660 --> 01:33:30,080 that perhaps he thinks he's going to join his mother 1481 01:33:30,080 --> 01:33:31,950 in the afterlife. 1482 01:33:31,950 --> 01:33:35,540 And at that moment, you see for a split second 1483 01:33:35,540 --> 01:33:39,830 his features change and become demonic 1484 01:33:39,830 --> 01:33:44,450 and sees his hands about to go around the little girl's neck 1485 01:33:44,450 --> 01:33:46,870 to strangle her to death, 1486 01:33:46,870 --> 01:33:49,750 which is probably the demonic impulse. 1487 01:33:49,750 --> 01:33:52,370 And then they unchange. 1488 01:33:52,370 --> 01:33:54,000 The demon is not in him, 1489 01:33:54,000 --> 01:33:56,790 and specifically at Blatty's request. 1490 01:33:56,790 --> 01:34:01,540 And most people don't see or even get that 1491 01:34:01,540 --> 01:34:05,040 we go back to Karras as Karras. 1492 01:34:05,040 --> 01:34:12,790 I would have kept the demon features on Karras throughout, 1493 01:34:12,790 --> 01:34:18,700 and Bill said, "No, you have to go back to Karras' own features 1494 01:34:18,700 --> 01:34:21,910 in the act of yelling 'No' so that he makes 1495 01:34:21,910 --> 01:34:24,540 the conscious decision to do it. 1496 01:34:24,540 --> 01:34:27,700 Otherwise, it's the demon that has triumphed." 1497 01:34:27,700 --> 01:34:32,080 But it isn't even clear to me as I sit here 1498 01:34:32,080 --> 01:34:34,750 why in the hell that happens. 1499 01:34:34,750 --> 01:34:38,370 I defy anybody watching this to tell me 1500 01:34:38,370 --> 01:34:40,080 what they make of that scene, 1501 01:34:40,080 --> 01:34:42,370 if they really look at it and study it. 1502 01:34:42,370 --> 01:34:46,500 Why the demon decides to pay attention to Karras, 1503 01:34:46,500 --> 01:34:50,290 leave the little girl and go into him is a question. 1504 01:34:50,290 --> 01:34:54,330 But then I believe that the entire possession 1505 01:34:54,330 --> 01:34:59,000 of the little girl is directed at Karras' weakness 1506 01:34:59,000 --> 01:35:03,000 and potential loss of faith. 1507 01:35:03,000 --> 01:35:06,870 Are we to say that he regained his faith 1508 01:35:06,870 --> 01:35:10,080 in that final moment with the demon? 1509 01:35:10,080 --> 01:35:13,620 That's what Blatty is trying to say. 1510 01:35:13,620 --> 01:35:17,540 He confesses his sins in the moment of his death 1511 01:35:17,540 --> 01:35:19,620 to his friend Father Dyer, 1512 01:35:19,620 --> 01:35:23,000 and is thus forgiven in the Catholic faith. 1513 01:35:23,000 --> 01:35:25,620 But it is a sin. 1514 01:35:25,620 --> 01:35:29,580 I think if there's a weakness in "The Exorcist", it's that. 1515 01:35:29,580 --> 01:35:31,790 I had no alternative, 1516 01:35:31,790 --> 01:35:35,080 so I shot it the way he explained it to me. 1517 01:35:35,080 --> 01:35:38,580 The moment is a compromise. 1518 01:35:38,580 --> 01:35:43,540 It's not often as a director that I've had to film something 1519 01:35:43,540 --> 01:35:45,910 that I didn't completely understand. 1520 01:35:45,910 --> 01:35:49,500 In fact, but that's the only instance I can give you. 1521 01:35:49,500 --> 01:35:52,500 To me, it's a flaw. 1522 01:35:52,500 --> 01:35:57,410 It's like scars in fine leather. 1523 01:35:57,410 --> 01:36:02,410 Bill, who I love and respect and love like a brother, 1524 01:36:02,410 --> 01:36:05,000 and he gave me this magnificent work 1525 01:36:05,000 --> 01:36:08,000 that he wrote to realize as a film, 1526 01:36:08,000 --> 01:36:11,200 but he was never able to come to terms 1527 01:36:11,200 --> 01:36:14,700 with that penultimate moment in "The Exorcist", 1528 01:36:14,700 --> 01:36:16,160 and neither was I. 1529 01:36:16,160 --> 01:36:19,830 I can't defend that scene. 1530 01:36:19,830 --> 01:36:21,660 Doesn't appear to have been a problem 1531 01:36:21,660 --> 01:36:25,580 for the millions of people who've seen the film. 1532 01:36:25,580 --> 01:36:28,950 They accept what we showed. 1533 01:36:28,950 --> 01:36:34,450 It asks for a total leap of faith 1534 01:36:34,450 --> 01:36:36,620 on the part of the audience. 1535 01:36:43,910 --> 01:36:49,330 I went to Kyoto many years ago when "The Exorcist" opened. 1536 01:36:51,200 --> 01:36:55,500 When you come in to Kyoto, it's just another industrial city. 1537 01:36:55,500 --> 01:36:58,500 It looks like Long Beach, California. 1538 01:36:58,500 --> 01:37:01,410 There's nothing of any note until you get to 1539 01:37:01,410 --> 01:37:06,660 the Walled City, which contains 11th century 1540 01:37:06,660 --> 01:37:11,500 and even earlier palaces and homes. 1541 01:37:11,500 --> 01:37:19,160 And it's like a time capsule of centuries ago. 1542 01:37:19,160 --> 01:37:23,370 And people had told me that you must see the Zen garden. 1543 01:37:23,370 --> 01:37:28,120 Well, what the hell, I thought, was the Zen garden? 1544 01:37:28,120 --> 01:37:32,660 I go there, and there's a piece of land, 1545 01:37:32,660 --> 01:37:37,410 and it's a sea of combed sand. 1546 01:37:37,410 --> 01:37:42,200 And on it are several rocks. 1547 01:37:42,200 --> 01:37:49,700 Each of the rocks is placed somewhere on this sea of sand. 1548 01:37:49,700 --> 01:37:54,040 And there's some benches around it where people can sit down, 1549 01:37:54,040 --> 01:37:59,120 and they're there to contemplate the Zen garden. 1550 01:37:59,120 --> 01:38:00,950 And I sat down. 1551 01:38:00,950 --> 01:38:04,580 There were maybe only 20 people there. 1552 01:38:04,580 --> 01:38:07,000 They were very quiet. 1553 01:38:07,000 --> 01:38:10,500 And I thought, "What is this? 1554 01:38:10,500 --> 01:38:16,000 It's a bunch of rocks placed on a sea of combed sand." 1555 01:38:16,000 --> 01:38:21,620 And now, if you give yourself to it, this is what happened. 1556 01:38:23,660 --> 01:38:25,410 I'm looking at this thing 1557 01:38:25,410 --> 01:38:29,700 and trying to figure out what is the attraction. 1558 01:38:29,700 --> 01:38:31,450 Why is it so famous? 1559 01:38:31,450 --> 01:38:37,080 Nobody knows when those rocks were put there or by whom. 1560 01:38:37,080 --> 01:38:41,450 So that begins to occupy your mind. 1561 01:38:41,450 --> 01:38:44,830 The next thing you realize is these rocks 1562 01:38:44,830 --> 01:38:50,200 are like separate continents that will never come together. 1563 01:38:50,200 --> 01:38:54,950 They will always live separately like that. 1564 01:38:54,950 --> 01:38:58,870 Like the continents of Earth. 1565 01:38:58,870 --> 01:39:05,750 And then you begin to realize they're also like people. 1566 01:39:05,750 --> 01:39:09,120 Like families living alone. 1567 01:39:09,120 --> 01:39:13,160 And then you start to realize 1568 01:39:13,160 --> 01:39:18,750 that this is human nature, that we are all here alone. 1569 01:39:18,750 --> 01:39:23,500 No matter how close we are to family or friends, 1570 01:39:23,500 --> 01:39:27,000 we are in this world alone. 1571 01:39:27,000 --> 01:39:29,500 And I wasn't there for -- 1572 01:39:29,500 --> 01:39:33,000 it's happening to me now just talking about it. 1573 01:39:33,000 --> 01:39:39,080 I wasn't there for 15 minutes before I started to cry. 1574 01:39:39,080 --> 01:39:42,660 The tears started to roll down my cheeks. 1575 01:39:42,660 --> 01:39:47,950 I was so profoundly moved by this simple image 1576 01:39:47,950 --> 01:39:52,330 that indicated the separateness 1577 01:39:52,330 --> 01:39:56,370 with which all of us live from each other. 1578 01:39:58,950 --> 01:40:02,910 It has moved me to this day. 1579 01:40:04,450 --> 01:40:08,160 I'll never forget that experience of Kyoto. 1580 01:40:08,160 --> 01:40:12,580 And I'm anxious to have it again. 1581 01:40:12,580 --> 01:40:15,000 It was probably over 40 years ago 1582 01:40:15,000 --> 01:40:17,540 that I've been there, but there's not a day goes by 1583 01:40:17,540 --> 01:40:21,290 that I don't have images of that experience. 1584 01:40:23,660 --> 01:40:27,040 You know, I've been all over the world, 1585 01:40:27,040 --> 01:40:30,790 and the grace note for me is the little Zen garden, 1586 01:40:30,790 --> 01:40:34,040 a garden of nothing but combed sand and stone.