Tektonikus: “Your Honor, I object!”
The Court: “To What?”
Tektonikus: “This is nothing more than libel and slander being directed against my client. And they’re saying mean things about him too!”
The Court: “I see.”
Attorney 2: “Your Honor! We have incontrovertible proof that the defendant was present at the scene! And we also have evidence that can’t be disproven!”
Tektonikus: “What proof?”
Attorney 2: “Photographic evidence! We also have a picture.”
Tektonikus: “Who took this picture?”
Attorney 2: “It’s from a movie.”
Tektonikus: “What movie?
Attorney 2: “Well, it won’t be made for another 8 years. But our picture comes from a Jesuit priest.”
Tektonikus: “That’s just great! This trial proves just how reliable a Cleric can be!”
Attorney 2: “He’s also an archaeologist.”
Tektonikus: “An archaeologist! Perhaps he can…
The Court: “Don’t start with your wise cracks about the garbage dump under Mrs. Wright’s house…I mean, under the preschool.”
Tektonikus: “Far be it from me to make wise cracks, Your Honor.”
The Court: “There’s no call for disrespect!”
Tektonikus: “No call? I know all about this movie that won’t be made for another 8 years. I also know that this movie will be completely misunderstood in every way. And there is something else.
The Court: “What’s that?”
Tektonikus: “The movie will have a bunch of Clerics in it. But one of them may not be what he seems to be. So you see, the evidence against my client is spurious!”
The Court: “There’s only one way to solve this. Bailiff, call the defendant to the stand.”
Bailiff: “Would Mr. Pazuzu please take the stand!”
The Court: “And remember…no projectile vomiting.”
I was going to name this essay: “Sympathy for Pazuzu.” That was before I decided that such a name as that might sound a bit silly. But it’s not. The Rolling Stones wrote a great song called Sympathy for the Devil.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
The song, which is written in the first person, describes the Guess-My-Name and Guess-My-Game guy as being the moving force behind moments of great upheaval in human history: the Bolshevik Revolution; the unleashing of Hitler’s Diabolical Military Might; the assassination of John F Kennedy; 100 years of fighting over “the gods they made,” and etc. But we get a strange feeling that we know who the Guess-My-Name guy is at the beginning:
And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
There is, perhaps, a tad bit of misunderstanding about the actions and motivations of the Hellish Pontius Pilate in the Canonical Story; well, not the actual Canonical Story, but rather the Canonical Story that is made up of what people think they read…think they see…think they hear. Pilate was the Roman Prefect of Judaea. When Christ was brought to him by the religious authorities, Pilate recognized that Jesus was not conspiring against the Roman Authority. The root cause of the charges were religious in nature, and Pilate did what any Roman Prefect would have done…stay out of it as long as there were no elements of political rebellion. In fact, Pilate goes to great length to avoidpassing a final judgement against Christ. Pilate sends him to Herod Antipas, figuring that a local authority would handle this essentially religious dispute. Pilate may have been quite confused by the decision of Antipas to uphold the decision that he himself had delivered. It was only upon the threats of the crowd that Pilate decided he must act. But knowing that the crowd was somewhat eclectic, with some supporting Jesus, and others demanding his death, he then offered to pardon Jesus. The worst part of the crowd prevailed. And so Pilate sought to avoid any personal guilt by washing his hands of the matter. Hey! It doesn't work that way! Pilate wasn’t a bad guy? Yes, perhaps. But he was a politician, and in many ways all politicians end up being bad guys. Guess-My-Name? Guess-My-Game? Ah, yes! The game of politicians is the same.
Of course, if you were an ill-defined group of religious extremists, whether you call yourself Fundamentalists…or…Evangelicals…or even Aunt Mable’s Snake-Handling for Jesus kooky cult, the 60’s was a scary time. So in the 1970s, you do what religious folks did not really contemplate before that time…you become politicians. But there is a slight problem:
Give to Caesar the things that belong to him, but give to God the things that are His.
The Most Inconvenient of Men! The one who gets in the way of everything. I saw a website proclaiming that Jesus was a rebel. True? Yes! I’m sure I disagree with most of the rest of the stuff, but Jesus was a rebel indeed. And yet…he is still a rebel. And his followers are rebels. Jesus did not pose a threat to the Political Establishment, and a key politician in that establishment, whose advisors no doubt filled him in about who Jesus really was, recognized this as so. But! This Great Pronouncement is bold and exclusive. There are no things that belong to Caesar and God. You must choose! The Political Establishment or Jesus the Rebel. Augustine maintained that there were two realms…the City of Man and the City of God. The City of Man is home to those who care about this world…and so the politics of this world are a key part of their existence. And! You cannot live in both! You must choose between the City of Man and the City of God…between Caesar and the Living God. These are mutually exclusive things, and so to live in the City of Man, you must continually make a “deal with the Devil,” over and over again. And those on the Religious Right are caught in the World of Caesar…out of evil will come good?
“Lord, Lord! We supported your enemies in the belief that good would come from it!”
I quote myself. But! Such a statement will not go over well with the One Who Rules the City of God. Augustine formulated the definitive view of the Great Dualism…the Cosmic War between the forces of God, and the forces of the Devil. But “The Devil” is not a name. The Rolling Stones finally tell us just who this Guy-My-Name Guy really is:
Just call me Lucifer
And so we see the Great Mistake frequently made about Helal ben-Shohar…the Shining One, Son of the Dawn. And! We know that Lucifer was a man…a biblical Icarus who attempted to ascend into Heaven; the megalomaniacal Nimrod sought to build his Tower. Icarus fell to earth, God put an end to the Nimrodian Tower Construction Project. And so when the Shining One entered the Great Earthly Sun, convinced that he would soon follow the Sun into Heaven…nothing happened. His kingdom collapsed and the people of this Great Empire were scattered across the world. The more Religiously Sublime group ended up at Eridu. They built a simple house for the Great Aquifer. There was no anthropomorphic statue of the One who Gives Fresh Water; the water table caused the fresh water to rise up out of the ground…very handy in the desert. If Helal ben-Shohar was the first mortal to declare himself God, then perhaps he inspired the creation of man-looking statues that represented the gods. But Fresh Water isn’t a god and there was no image of it. It was an Elemental, and that was good enough. And for those who think that they can keep one foot in the City of God and the other foot in the City of Man; those who think that they can have the things of Caesar and the things of God…be careful about your motivations:
"You cannot worship God and Mammon"
So be careful about supporting things that ruin the lives of others just so you can have a couple more quarters jingling in your pocket.
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul to waste
So said the Guess-My-Name guy who was wrongly called Lucifer.
But sympathy for Pazuzu…surely you jest! I do not. He told me that he was innocent. Innocent? The One who Tormented Regan MacNeill? He insisted that he had nothing to do with it.
A liar indeed! But what would you expect from a guy like Pazuzu? I said that he figured prominently at the beginning of the movie. He agreed, but insisted that it wasn’t his fault; it was Lankester Merrin’s fault. He was the old priest…and an archaeologist to boot. Hey, Father Merrin! Perhaps we could send you to dig around in the Diabolical Garbage Dump under the McMartin Preschool. Surely you would spend a few minutes in the Subterranean Inner Sanctum. And if the Old Father descended into the Infernal Basement under 3850 East New York Street, I bet he could do better than finding a few pieces of wood, some tubing, a pair of shorts, and an IRON POKER FURNACE BRANDING IRON THAT WAS REALLY A STEEL EYE-HOOK. And so Pazuzu blames Merrin. True, he found a trinket in the sand that was the head of Pazuzu. And then we saw Pazuzu’s great, and rather pornographic, statue. That wasn’t Pazuzu’s fault! Perhaps Merrin, a Collector of Trinkets, should have put Pazuzu’s head back where he found it.
But surely the Reganite Demon was Pazuzu! In a previous post, I certainly indicated my opinion was exactly that. I also indicated that Captain Howdy and Pazuzu were the same entity. Pazuzu absolutely denied that he is one and the same as Captain Howdy. Pazuzu is a minor deity from antiquity. Actually, he was a minor deity from the Neo-Assyrian empire. And that is a long way from Africa. Now I would point out that the small pendant shown in the photo above is different from the statue that Merrin sees afterwards:
So if you compare the faces, they don't match. The face on the pendant does match the following:
Ok, so the face on the pendant doesn’t match the face on the statue, it does match the face on the bronze statuette shown above. And notice the difference in the size of the phallus. The statue is ridiculous, and I have searched for statues of Pazuzu. There is a slight problem on that subject. The figure of Pazuzu and its connection to the movie has generated a myriad of replica statues of all kinds that can be purchased from numerous websites. But there appear to be statuettes of Pazuzu with a face similar to Merrin's Big Statue. Actually, they are statuettes. These are little statues. I would appreciate it if anyone can provide me with a picture of a Pazuzu statue that is anything close to the size of the one that was constructed for the movie. Is that significant? Yes, it is. Why? Because if there is no existing statue of Pazuzu that is anywhere close to the size of the statue in the movie, then there is a problem with the opening scenes of the movie that feature Merrin. So if the statue is imaginary, and the face doesn't even match the Pazuzu pendant, and a mysterious St. Joseph medal is also found in the same stratum as that of the Pazuzu pendant, then there is something else going on with the beginning of the movie. I now venture into a field beyond my non-existent expertise. But we do know that there was something amiss with the archaeological site at the beginning of the movie...a St. Joseph medal was found where it shouldn't be. I will show these shots from the movie, with the disclaimer that I am not an archaeologist. But we are given a view of the things that are on the table in the archaeologist's office. That is the scene where Merrin looks at the clock, and sees the pendulum stop. I show this:
This is very Assyrian. We will be told later in the movie that Merrin's archaeological expedition was working at Nineveh, which was the capital of Ancient Assyria. But I found this interesting too:
I think this is interesting because it is not Assyrian. And this too I noticed:
This is not Assyrian. Now I am of the opinion that with this movie, things that the camera shows and pauses on, or shows close-up, are significant. So this I find intriguing:
This is a close-up shot of the notebook of Merrin's colleague at the archaeological site. I'm sure I must be wrong! But this shot is obviously important, and the two drawings on the page of the notebook that we can see are very strange. If they denote a rough sketch of strata at the site, the rounded protuberances are odd. Another odd thing:
The pendulum of the clock on the wall behind Merrin stops for a moment. Merrin notices this, and walks over to look at the clock. It then begins again. So is it simply an old clock that doesn't always work properly? Perhaps it was poorly made. Perhaps it was just dug up along with a very strange and eclectic bunch of things that don't all seem to go together. No! We can tell from the effect it has on Merrin that it is significant. So did God stop the clock? Did "King Pallus" Pazuzu stop the clock? Was this a strange message from an African demon that it is time to have another Religious Battle? But the clock is important in a much bigger way. Let's see:
Ok...it's the clock that stopped momentarily. And something else from the archaeological site:
These are two dogs fighting near the giant Pazuzu statue, just as Merrin is gazing at it. So why are the clock and dogs of any interest? Well look at this clock:
Same clock...right? Well, this image of the clock appears in a dream...Father Karras' alcohol-induced dream that, chronologically, happens after Chris MacNeill's party. So how can Merrin see this clock in Iraq, and Karras see it in a dream in Georgetown? It's the same clock. On the subject of Karras' dream, note this:
Ok...a dog. Wait! This unexplained dog appears in Karras's dream, while two dogs fighting appear near the impossibly big Pazuzu statue that Merrin sees at the beginning of the movie? How does Karras's dream start?
Karras's dream opens with a St. Joseph medallion falling to the ground. The dream ends with this:
And so Karras's dreams ends with the St. Joseph medal landing on the ground. That's where Merrin found it in the desert. And when Regan, as Karras tries to kill her at the end of the exorcism, tears the medal from Karras's neck, Sharon will be the one who finds it in Regan's room. So the beginning of the film shares at least 3 things in common with Karras's dream:
1. The same clock
2. A dog
3. The medal
Based on the parallels, and given the odd nature of the items at the beginning of the movie, and the fact that the three shared items appear, on Karras's side, in a dream...one might be tempted to conclude that the beginning of the movie is also a dream. Wow...that can't be...but it would sure be cool if it was. And given the fact that it is the same clock, and the same medal, if both are dreams, then both are dreamed by the same person! Please, as usual, I go too far!
Nonetheless, the implications of the huge phallus on the non-existent Pazuzu statue seen in Merrin's dream at the beginning of the movie, or, at any rate, somebody's maybe-dream, go well with my overall interpretation of the movie.
Pazuzu is often described as a “demon.” However, this description when applied to divine figures in antiquity is highly problematic. It does not denote a “demon” in the sense we think of, the Christian tradition providing a belief in a myriad of such beings. As a “demon” from ancient Assyria, the term "demon" is used because he is a figure that brings bad things. Some bad things. In particular, he is a wind deity..the southwest wind in particular, which was associated with famine and locusts. And bringing those things isn’t very nice! But! Ancient deities can be very difficult to understand correctly. This is due in part to the fact that they made sense in a radically different context by people who thought in a radically different way than we do. They are also the product of hundreds, if not thousands, of years of development. Over time, they attract elements to them that don’t always seem to make sense. Well, to us. So Athena, the patron deity of Athens, is the goddess of wisdom. That makes sense, seeing how Athens became the focal point of the Greek Philosophical Movement. But she was also a war goddess, and a virgin goddess to boot. Many other examples of a strange collection of attributes associated with a divine figure can be cited. And! A deity can be a malevolent figure in one instance, and a beneficial figure in another. So too with Pazuzu. Notice in the picture of the Pazuzu head that it was clearly meant to be worn around the neck. Why wear a pendant of a demon? Well, he wasn’t a demon. You could blame famine and locusts on him, making him malevolent. But! He was also the sworn enemy of Lamashtu. Lamashtu’s “game” was to plague women during childbirth, steal children, gnaw on their bones, suck their blood, among other horrid things. So wait! Ancient Assyrians wore a pendant of Pazuzu in the belief that in so doing, he would drive away a female demon named Lamashtu, who really did do terrible things? So who’s worse? The guy who sometimes brings famine and locusts, negative things to be sure, or the gal who gnaws on babies and drinks their blood?
And:
Lamashtu! Someone uglier that Pazuzu! So! Pazuzu was a beneficial protective deity! He was no demon, and although farmers weren’t keen on him, those same farmers, when their wives had given birth, flocked to Pazuzu to protect their babies…and children. Wasn’t Regan a child? So if, in the movie, Pazuzu took possession of Regan, then he basically “stole” her. But isn’t that what Lamashtu does? And isn’t it Pazuzu who wards off Lamashtu, thereby protecting the child? Remember the horrid facial condition we see with Possessed Regan…it looks far more like she was being attacked by Lamashtu, then she was being attacked by Pazuzu. In fact, the actual presence of the actual Pazuzu would have protected Regan. Isn’t that a strange thing! But that’s the reason that Pazuzu was worn as a pendant…which is shown in the movie.
So a malevolent figure can also be a savior, and it is particularly relevant that it is CHILDREN who are PROTECTED by Pazuzu.
*****************************
Tektonikus: Your Honor, my client really isn’t such a bad guy
Attorney Number Two: Your Honor I object! Look what horrible things he did to Regan!
Tektonikus: Not true! Like I said, he wasn’t even there. And besides!
The Court: Besides what?
Tektonikus: There was no famine or plague of locusts in Georgetown in 1973.
The Court: That's true.
Attorney 2: How is that relevant?
Tektonikus: Well, my client has been known to dabble in those things…which he admits he shouldn’t!
The Court: I see. Well, he’s not on trial for those things.
Tektonikus: And you know, Your Honor, it’s really quite strange.
The Court: What is?
Tektonikus: Well, it sounds a lot like it was Lamashtu who was thumping around in Regan’s attic; not my client.
The Court: I suppose that’s true.
Tektonikus: So you see, the best thing in the world for Regan MacNeill would have been the presence of my client. He would have made short work of Lamashtu!
The Court: I’m dropping the charges against Mr. Pazuzu…he may go.
The Bailiff: Your Honor, should I call Lamashtu to the stand?
The Court: Ah…well, I think it would be best if we didn’t.
*****************************
When Merrin is looking at the goodies he found in the sand, he handled the pendant of the BENEFICIAL Pazuzu, and the St. Joseph medal.
It is of course a great mystery as to how the St. Joseph medal ended up in the same stratum as Pazuzu's head at a dig-site in Iraq; well, unless of course my crazy contemplations referenced above are true, and the beginning of the film is just a dream...then no St. Joseph medal was ever found at an archaeological dig at the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh. But I shall now discuss the strange juxtaposing of the two medallions. Both of these pendants were worn for protection. So it is odd that Merrin’s colleague said:
Evil against Evil
What a strange thing to say. Pazuzu is evil…and St. Joseph is evil? Why isn’t it…Good vs. Evil? Actually, as I have just indicated, as a pendant, Pazuzu is a protector, and we all know that St. Joseph is a protector too. So he should have said:
Good and Good
Protector and Protector
We all know that a, and I believe…the…St. Joseph medal that belonged to Karras, and which Regan tears from his neck at the end of the movie, represents a powerful saint within the Catholic Church. So this evil vs. evil line is rather difficult to understand. Could it be that the reference is not to the divine figures on both medals, but the wearer? We know that both Regan and Father Dyer believed that Karras may have been guilty of a mortal sin. Regan said... Ego te Absolvo, the opening lines of the Prayer of Absolution, the same prayer Father Dyer said as Karras, having thrown himself out of Regan’s window, was dying at the bottom of the staircase just as Burke Dennings had. The detective believed that a “sick priest” desecrated the statue of Mary in the church, and that he was also the person who had murdered Burke Dennings in Regan’s room. And, of course, Karras ends up dying the same way, except in his case, it was suicide. He committed suicide believing that he was saving Regan? Or was he saving himself? But if it was Karras that had been in Regan’s bedroom on the evening that Dennings was murdered, the story changes dramatically. Although it does bear thinking about how Regan was not healed until Karras was dead. But depending upon what mortal sin Karras was guilty of, perhaps we could end up with evil vs. evil.
But I'm confused...surely we can prove that Pazuzu was involved! How? I identified a scene that I thought, and still think, is the best one in the movie; the One That Looks Like a Diabolical Rock Concert:
And so Pazuzu appeared…well, his statue…in a key part of the movie. It is here that I find myself realizing that I am guilty of being somewhat of a fool. As a member of the audience watching the movie, my role is a passive one, more or less. I sit and watch a reality…some kind of reality; the Artificial Reality of the story. But there is a pitfall. I am the Perceiver. The story must be watched and heard. Where the pitfall lies is knowing just through whose eyes I am watching…through whose ears I am hearing. If true, then the appearance of the Pazuzu statue, and thus Pazuzu himself, within the Artificial Reality of the movie…perhaps when I see Pazuzu in my favorite scene, I am seeing through the eyes of Lankester, the Old Priest. In other words, the Venerable Father is putting the events in which he participates into a context that he understands. He had been haunted by the strange trinket and the Statue in the Desert. He had been haunted by an anonymous demon that he cast out of a boy in Africa. With whom am I locked in Religious Combat? Just who is this demon? Regan’s mother didn’t know who he was. But! Regan supposedly told the Young Priest that the demon was the Devil. For him, this suggested that Regan’s situation was not demonic possession. He echoes, though he proceeded me, a view I took in another post that believing that you are so important on a Great Cosmic Level that you merit the personal attention of the Prince of Darkness is one of the highest Delusions of Grandeur possible. And Father Karras said the same thing. Still, no one accused the demon of being Pazuzu…except Father Lankester, albeit quite subtly, who had an hallucination involving the statue that haunted him...while he was dying…when people often have visions. If so, then Pazuzu is telling the truth…he had nothing to do with any of it. And! Father Merrin was dead wrong! As an archaeologist digging up Assyrian artifacts in Iraq, I would expect him to know that Pazuzu is actually a protector of children, not a threat to them, as Lamashtu was. He should have done his research before he began digging. Or had he done his homework and knew all these things too?
As a figure in the story, Merrin is a bit difficult to understand, by which I mean it’s a bit difficult to understand what purpose he really served. We know he exorcised a demon from a boy in Africa, and that it took a month. That seems like a long time. “According to Catholic understanding, several weekly exorcisms over many years are sometimes required to expel a deeply entrenched demon.” Ridiculous. What do you do over such a long period of time? Read the same ritual text over and over again? And again and again? And again? How many times do you throw magical water on the guy? Maybe it’s a question of endurance…keep at it long enough and the demon will leave just because he’s sick of hearing the same thing without end. Merrin was recommended because of his African experience. Those who recommended him knew that he wasn’t healthy. The implication in the movie was that this wouldn’t take long, not that Merrin was moving next door to begin a long, drawn-out ordeal.
Merrin leaves his archaeological dig on very short notice. He finds the lucky Pazuzu pendant. He finds the lucky St. Joseph pendant.
It's clearly very important to him. He sees the strange Arabic clock, and sees the pendulum stop. He announces that he has something he has to do. What? A final show-down with Pazuzu? Why would a second show-down be the last? Pazuzu can’t die…he can go on and on doing what Pazuzu would, for moral reasons, never do…afflict a child. But when Karras, who staunchly believed that Regan was mentally ill, finally decides that a exorcism is merited, he tells his boss that he would like to perform it. His boss talks to another boss who recommends that Merrin also be involved. Where was he at the time? Living in Woodstock…writing a book. So it would seem that despite all the drama clinging to the declaration that he had to leave Iraq because he had some ominous thing to go do, it turns out that that ominous thing to go do was to do what archaeologists frequently do when their done digging in the dirt…write a book. In my mind, these two elements don’t match. Not to mention the fact that, within hypothetical possibilities in the Artificial Reality, Karras may have been given permission to do the exorcism on his own. That would have left Merrin free to finish his book.
I would also note that Merrin’s involvement, in the end, was quite meaningless. He didn’t cast out Regan’s supposed demon…instead…he died. So with the mystique surrounding the Old Father Who Chomps on Nitroglycerin, he isn’t really instrumental in anything. Of course, if Regan were actually mentally ill, he wouldn’t have been anyway.
That said, we do encounter an apparent being in four parts of the movie. We see only his face. And, in what is really quite cool, we see a single frame of his face that we see for only for a split second. In his first appearance, it seems as though Regan sees him. She is awaiting medical tests, and seems to enter a strange trance, which she does do elsewhere:
And what face flashes before for a split second?
Wow! Surely that’s a demon! I never said he was good-looking. But did Regan see this face? In scenes featuring the Young Cleric, one that involves a strange dream he had of his dead mother, and the other involving the last few minutes before he commits suicide, the face flashes on the screen again. Did the Cleric see this face? I think that neither the Young Cleric, nor Regan, did. I think that it’s we who are supposed to see the face. I can prove that! There is a scene when Regan’s mother returns home. The lights in the house are flickering, something that had happened in an earlier scene. Then we see this:
Regan’s mother does not see this face…obviously. And it’s obvious that it is we who see this face…we are supposed to see this face. It is we who are to know that this is the face of a Metaphorical Demon…a Demonic Anthropomorphism of something Truly Demonic. And! This shot is highly important. Why? Because Regan’s mother has failed to see it. And that is a large part of the problem. What he represents is the true evil in the movie…at least in my incorrect interpretation of it. I will discuss my interpretation of all things Exorcist. But with a caveat. I make no reference to the book, and ignore any and all attempts by others to explain things in the movie in light of the book. A movie should always be an insular experience. If I have to go do research to understand your movie, then seeing your movie was a waste of my time. Not to mention, leaving me with a few less quarters to jingle in my pocket as I make my way to the City of Man. The face shown above is something that I will call The Entity. Oh…The Entity is a thoroughly male one. Is it Pazuzu’s face? We’ve already seen Pazuzu’s face:
Well, that was one of the faces of Pazuzu, and one that is very much different than the face of Pazuzu that was on the Good Luck Charm. Seeing how I made the appropriate disclaimers about the Very Rated-R Nature of this essay, I do not apologize for the lower part of the Pazuzu statue. In fact…it is very important. It tells us what Pazuzu is really all about. And the ridiculous and over-the-top phallus of the statue is essential to understanding a key element of the Exorcist. Well, in my thoroughly incompetent reading of it. Pazuzu is Pazuzu, and he will not appear on Sesame Street. He better not. Still, Pazuzu does put in a better appearance than Zeus:
Greek male statues are usually rather humble in anatomy. That, I believe, is because of the fact that, although anatomically-correct representation was important in the Greek world, the point of the statue was not to make a sexual statement. Don’t get me wrong, Zeus got around. But the essential nature of the King of the Gods went well beyond an obsession with sex. The statue of Pazuzu gets no further than it. And it is exaggerated to such an extent that there is something almost demonic about it. But this totally selfish male conception of sexual expression…well…Regan said it best when she first seems to be taken over by the demon:
“The sow is mine!”
I will discuss the highly-significant context in which this declaration is made, seeing how, when read in light of the even larger context, clearly points to where The Entity is to be located, later on. A sow is an adult, female pig. And for us, pigs are food. And sows are used for…breeding. Well, until they are finally killed. And here, Regan is totally dehumanized and essentially described as fit for nothing other than breeding. Well, actually, the breeding aspect, perhaps being a purely agricultural one, is not the real significance. Perhaps the sexual activity inherit in it is all that matters in this context. Could there be anything more Demonic than that? And there is no question that some things are dehumanizing in the extreme.
How much of the movie am I really seeing through someone else’s eyes; hearing through someone else’s ears? As I said earlier, I began to get the feeling that much of the movie…particularly scenes that feature Regan and her so-called demonic possession, is seen through the eyes of others…particularly the two priests. In the case of Father Karras…he is haunted by guilt about the fate of his mother.
To this we add his crisis of faith, and the statements he made that he wanted out of his priestly job because he was not fit for it. I agree with him. But I add that I think that he was also in the midst of a psychotic breakdown. At one point during the exorcism, Karras and Merrick had left the bedroom. Then Karras entered the bedroom yet again. And he saw this:
I must admit that I completely repent of earlier statements I made about the Exorcist being a terrible movie. In some ways, it has become my favorite movie. But as for this scene…it’s not just brilliantly shot; it’s not just incredibly emotive; it’s importance can’t be overstated. This is the only instance of Diabolical Regan actually changing into someone else. Except she didn’t. Regan spent much of her time in restraints holding her down to the bed. When Karras first met Regan, the Entity said that it was the Devil, and asked the Father to undo the straps. Karras rightly told the Entity that if it were the Devil, then it could undo the straps without his help. How true is this! For the Psychiatrist Priest, this indicated that the Entity wasn’t the Devil. Why wouldn’t the Devil release himself?
“That would be too vulgar a display of power.”
That’s an odd answer, given just how vulgar it had been behaving thus far. This being the case, it could not have suddenly been able to appear as Karras’ mother. Note that Merrin was not present when Karras had this hallucination. The Entity repeatedly spoke to Karras in the voice of his mother, blaming him for her fate. Regan also showed Karras a parlor trick:
Notice the drawer of the nightstand. As Regan and Karras speak, the drawer suddenly opens. Karras asks Regan to do it again. “In time,” she insists. In another scene, she sends a chair across the room to prevent anyone getting in to help her mother. Then she sends a large dresser across the room, aiming it at her mother. Now...the best we can do is a lame little trick with a drawer? And now, the Devil can’t undo the straps? So the Devil is not able to free himself from the kind of restraints used in Psychiatric Facility? In the final moments of the movie, Regan actually breaks the straps:
Wow! Look at the result!
Cool shot. The straps break, and Regan levitates. She then floats back down to the bed, and Karras seeks to restrain her. He ends up getting walloped in the process. So why now can Regan break the straps? The demon? He couldn't do it before. I suspect that the straps holding Regan to her bed were weak, and she was constantly pulling on them. And then, they finally snapped. But following this, Karras leaves the room. When he returns, the Old Priest is dead, and he sees this:
Second best shot in the movie. A very relaxed and calm Regan looks down at the now deceased Merrin. Who killed him? No one. Merrin has been dying since the beginning of the movie. We are subsequently told that it was the protracted exorcism he performed decades ago that left him chomping on nitroglycerin pills. The point is specifically made for us:
This scene is from the café at the very beginning of the movie. And:
Merrin temporary leaves Regan’s bedroom to take his pills. So no one killed Merrin. His bad heart did. So it is unclear why Regan refused to undo the straps when Karras first met her. But her apparent inability to do so until they we've been weakend enough highlights the fact, at that moment at least, that this is no supernatural entity that asks Karras to undo the restraints. And one may make a further comment on the death of Merrin. If the movie builds up to a final showdown between Merrin and Pazuzu, or between Merrin and the demon he faced in Africa, then a slight problem emerges...Merrin lost. Merrin died, and the Reganite Demon sat at the end of the bed staring at him. And! Karras was about to lose! Actually, he won and lost, and then won again. To get The Entity out of Regan, he had to tell it to enter him. He then threw himself out of the window. But by so doing, he was finally absolved of the guilt for his mother's fate; a guilt that drove him insane. So one may feel justified in questioning whether Merrin was really that important at all.
There is an interesting parallel involving Karras’ mother and the Reganite Entity. What is that? First, there is a gap in the story. At a key point. We know that his elderly mother lived alone, and in a poor neighborhood. She refused to leave her home despite her son’s urgings. Then! He gets a call from his uncle that brings Karras hurrying back to see his mother. What is that? She is in a Psychiatric Ward. But we are not given the story behind this. He finds her among very mentally disturbed patients. Similarly, the movie does not provide the key story underlying the death of the Man Pushed Out of the Window. I will say much about that later. But the next parallel- we see her, now mentally disturbed, restrained to the bed. And this is exactly how we find the Mentally Disturbed Regan…restrained to a bed. Notice Regan’s room!
And:
So Regan has quite a nice room for a kid. But that will change dramatically:
Everything is padded…why? Her room looks like a padded room that would exist in a psychiatric ward. The padded room and restraints are used to hold disturbed individuals who are a threat to…themselves. Is Regan really at home, or is she where one would expect her to be…in a psychiatric ward? An interesting question. Icky picture warning. Karras meets Regan:
Don’t look where you eye wants to go. Notice the big thing in front of you. It is called a nasal cannula, and is used to help deliver oxygen to someone in a hospital. This is important. When Karras arrives at the house, he begins walking upstairs. We can hear very abnormal sounding breathing patterns...namely, Regan's breathing is very labored. That, of course, mandates a nasal cannula. It can also be said that during Karras' second visit, and then during the exorcism ritual, Regan does not have an active nasal cannula. And it is the question of Regan's breathing patterns that help to explain another feature of Supposedly Possessed Regan...her bluish color. I am not aware of this as being a symptom of exorcism, or at the very least, it is readily explainable. In acute anxiety states, disordered breathing patterns are common and can be very debilitating. The medical term for the bluish color is...cyanosis, which occurs when the blood is not getting the usual amount of oxygen. The disrupted breathing patterns can be purely psychosomatically driven, although in Regan's case, I suspect that she is contributing to her breathing problems. It is theoretically possible that she is actively seeking to make her physical manifestation to be perceived as horrid. She has developed the delusion that she is possessed, but this may also serve a defensive purpose.
Notice too the gash on the neck…one is tempted to conclude that the terrible cuts on her face and neck are self-inflicted…the cut on the neck could suggest a suicide attempt.
Look at the night stand:
Now:
Notice the IV Drip in the above shot. Another shot of it:
It is, essentially, this:
Ah, I see. Notice Regan’s arm:
Yes, the IV drip. The arms look something like:
The IV Drip in Regan’s room may be a Banana Bag, which provides various vitamins and minerals, or one that is providing re-hydration. It should be remembered that Regan’s condition includes continual vomiting. And vomiting leads to dehydration very quickly. The element of vomiting is..yes, I know! Disgusting. Sure. And I am no vomitologist! But it is also easy to misunderstand. I’ve never understood why being possessed by a demon should lead to so much nausea and vomiting. Pazuzu has a tummy ache? In fact, and be forewarned, I’m going to show a few shots…but no, not the projectile vomiting scene, since that particular element is actually intended by Regan as deflection from the fact that she was not able to answer a simple question put to her by Karras.
And:
Again:
And, around the mouth:
The nightstand again…lower part. The plastic pan and towels:
I would venture to suggest that the pan and towels suggest that someone is regularly cleaning Regan’s face and chest because of the vomit. As a horror element, the vomiting comes up short. There is the scene involving projectile vomiting, and then there is the scene when Regan spits some into Father Merrin’s face. But otherwise, chronic vomiting is evidence that it isn’t being used as a shock element. It’s just there. Why would a demon cause chronic vomiting? I say…it wouldn’t. Something along these lines is more convincing...Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, something that was first observed in children. Regan is 12 years old. There are many causes of CVS, but it is well-known to have a co-morbidity with certain psychiatric conditions, including anxiety and depression. That is the case here. And not intending to be disgusting, the green color of the vomit is significant. Green vomit is actually green because it contains...bile. Bile is produced in the liver, and then stored in the gallbladder. Everyone has experienced vomiting-up bile. The most common cause of this is...demonic possession! Sorry. No, the most common cause is vomiting on an empty stomach; which is commonly called "dry heaving." The act of vomiting is intended to bring something up, and when there is nothing in the stomach, the body turns to bile. The color of Regan's vomit is, or so I think, though I'm sure that I'm more wrong than I think I'm right...yes, it is disgusting, which heightens the overall effect of Regan's physical appearance, but may also be meant to suggest that Regan...is not eating. And rather than eat, she prefers to vomit bile. Her acute stress may be keeping her from eating, or she may be contributing to it in another way. She seems to have no objection to having bile-vomit on her face and on her chest and nightgown. The smell alone would be nauseating...no pun intended. This would contribute to continual vomiting, as we all know that if you are nauseated, smelling vomit will elicit sudden vomiting of your own. Again, this is an element that may be intended by Regan to also heighten the horridness of her physical condition, probably as a defense against what caused her psychotic break in the first place; in other words, if she is unbearable in appearance and disgustingly smelly...I wouldn't let her breathe on you...which is a dramatic contrast to the very physically attractive girl that she really is, then it would go a long way in avoiding certain types of situations from arising like those that precipitated her psychotic break. Well, that is assuming that she has actually had a psychotic break. It could well be that the demon-possessing angle...I am the Devil...is actually an act on Regan's part, rather than an actual psychotic delusion. This act could serve a very vital purpose given her situation. Being the Devil, or simply being possessed by a demon, and as Karras told Regan's mother, there is a big difference between the two, if she can get people to believe it, gives her a lot of personal power. It will, of course, engender fear in others, and so a helpless 12 year old girl whose helplessness may well have been used against her, becomes more powerful than all the adults around her. And given those adults, I can hardly blame her.
There is an interesting possible parallel as far as Regan’s upper chest frequently showing signs of vomit. Before the situation got so much worse, Regan underwent a barrage of medical tests. The doctors were of a one-track-mind in looking for a lesion on Regan’s temporal lobe. That despite the fact that one of these doctors, and one whom Regan will lash out at violently, admitted that Regan showed signs of Depression. Their hunt for the Enigmatic Temporal Lobe Lesion came to nothing. But at one point, Regan had a catheter placed in her neck:
So we see blanket put on her upper chest, and the bodily fluid on it. Compare this shot the above “vomit shots” and it is somewhat interesting.
I show another picture, since it is the beginning of another element of Sick Regan:
Notice her lips…they are dry and cracking.
Important to note…Regan is still in her medical tests stage. However, Burke Dennings is now dead. Still, the lips are getting worse. And! We see the beginning of the facial cuts that will become very much worse as time goes on. And:
We are still not in demon-possession mode yet. The condition of the lips is extreme, and it will endure through the movie. There is no doubt in my mind, for what that's worth, that she is gnawing at them...pretty seriously. This type of behavior is a not uncommon habit that develops as a means of stress release. As such it is indicative of severe anxiety, and the condition of Regan's lips, noting that there would be considerable pain involved, suggests that she is experiencing a dangerously high level of stress. In addition, in this scene Regan appears to be muttering; silently...to herself. This mandates immediate hospitalization and observation. The cuts on the face are…self-inflicted. That she reached a point of extreme self-cutting is clear…objectionable picture alert being declared now.
