Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit educational center in the United States, issued a circular to its students in the fall of 1972: “Extras wanted for The Exorcist. Saturday October 14. Marriott Motel-Key Bridge. 1.00-2.00 pm. Monroe Suite. 3rd Floor. Tennis players are also wanted. Condition: that they play well.” 300 students ended up as extras in a film whose impact on popular culture was unthinkable at the time. In reality, no one in Hollywood seemed very convinced of the fate of a story about diabolical possession. It premiered on December 26, 1973 and, 50 years later, The Exorcist It remains at the top of the most disturbing horror films and in the category of the wildest mother-daughter dramas.
The traces of The Exorcist, directed by the recently deceased William Friedkin, are still very much alive in Georgetown. The cinematographic iconography of the capital of the United States is overshadowed by the omnipresence of the Capitol and the White House, but in Washington, and specifically in this bourgeois neighborhood, there are also traces of celluloid: on these streets, near the popular restaurant where JFK declared to Jackie, the characters of All the president's men (1976), Alan J. Pakula's Watergate film; Here was the favorite pub of the friends of a classic eighties teenager, St. Elmo, meeting point (1985), by Joel Schumacher. But the only stairs that can compete with those of the Lincoln Memorial are the gloomy 75 steps that connect 36th Street and Prospect to M Street below. A commemorative plaque placed in 2015 remembers that these are “the iconic stairs of The Exorcist”… through which Father Karras rushed “to his death.”
Last Saturday, a dull night in Georgetown, almost a dozen onlookers gathered at the place. Peruvian Willy Revilla has been in the city for 21 years and every time a family member comes to visit him he stops by here. “Before, the blows that the character of Father Karras gave himself were marked on the steps, but they have been erased over time. Now he is more neglected,” he says. The staircase is a good attraction for athletes who want to exercise their legs and for fans who still paint words and symbols that refer to the movie between steps.
The staircase is impressive, but not only because of its steep height. There is something remote and dark about her. In the panoramic view that Georgetown presents in the film, it already looms menacingly. Like when the movie-loving detective played by Lee J. Cobb carefully examines it and only finds an object of biblical archeology. Narrow and hidden, it looks like it could take you to hell. And perhaps that's why, when going up or down it, everyone holds on tightly to the railing.
Antonio Ayala, a Salvadoran who has been here for 23 years, has come with his cousin, Cecilia Fernández. “I have been traumatized by this movie since I was eight years old,” she says. “When I saw it I spent some time sleeping with the Bible on my chest and the light on.” At the top, where metal railings are now nailed, you can see the windows of the house where Chris MacNeil and his daughter Regan, played by Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair, lived. “I worked on installing the new windows. The current owners changed them,” says Ayala. The metal fence that surrounded the house has also been replaced by a wooden one and a few meters away, in another house on Prospect Street, there are two giant sculptures that reproduce the machines from the saga. Transformers, two giants that a neighbor placed during the pandemic until they became another tourist attraction that outrages some residents of this distinguished neighborhood.
When The Exorcist It began filming in 1972, Georgetown students were no strangers to the story. The film recreated the novel of the same name written by a former student, William Peter Blatty, who in 1949, a year before graduating, collected information about the alleged exorcism of a 14-year-old boy in nearby Cottage City, Maryland. The details of that real event have been questioned in recent times when the version of someone who spoke with the parish priest William Bowdern became known, who downplayed the paranormal intensity of the event, amplified in his opinion by his two assistants and by the suggestion itself. of the. According to him, the most striking thing was a flying consecrated host. The rest: spitting, the child repeating the Latin word “dominus” and, yes, some wounds on the child's skin in which at times you could read the word hell in English, “Hell.”
Blatty posted The Exorcist in 1971. He wrote the novel upon discovering in The seed of the devil (1968), by Roman Polanski, the keys to his own demonic story. The boy in the real story, who had fled with his family to St. Louis, ended up transformed in fiction into a girl two years younger than him, Regan MacNeil, the daughter of a famous Hollywood actress who for a few months moved with her mother and her entourage to a Georgetown house for the filming of her new movie.
Shortly after publishing his best-seller, Blatty was already on board as screenwriter and producer of a horror film destined to break all records. And his development was surrounded by accidents and tensions, many between Friedkin, an agnostic Jew who cared little about theological reading, and Blatty, a Catholic who did care about religious debate. The director settled the matter with “this is not an advertisement for the Church” and, years later, in 2000, Blatty would release The Exorcist III failed attempt to contribute his Catholic imagery to the genre. It was not the only sequel. The last one, the almost comical one The exorcist: believer, directed by David Gordon Green and released a couple of months ago, it is a good example of everything that has gone worse in Hollywood.
The Exorcist It was released in only 24 theaters throughout the United States, the Warner studios had very little faith in it and the cast seemed lackluster to them. The stature of two performers like Ellen Burstyn or Max von Sydow was not enough in his eyes. Linda Blair was an unknown and Jason Miller, Father Karras, was a playwright without much experience as an actor. Until the extreme reactions of the public began to put the focus on the film. They vomited, there were faintings and in some rooms a permanent assistance service was chosen. Critics were divided, and so was the Church. The image of a girl masturbating with a crucifix was not, what is said, very Catholic. Meanwhile, the audience grew.
The black legend surrounds the filming. A fire destroyed the set several times and delayed the start for weeks. The budget doubled. An experienced carpenter working on a set lost the fingers of one hand and actor Jack MacGowan, who played Burke Dennings (the first victim of the evil Georgetown staircase), died in his sleep shortly after finishing his participation in the film.
But the myth of The Exorcist has not harmed the work, which remains a fascinating and terrifying film. Now the vomit of pea puree or the dirty satanic words in a girl's mouth don't matter, they are an icon of popular culture sustained by ancestral fears, but also by the drama of a single mother faced with the crazy personality changes of a prepubescent daughter. A relationship tinged with absence and guilt, in which a woman immersed in her career ends up converted overnight into a mother of courage against all the men in Washington, a symbol of power, who are incapable of helping her. And then there is Father Karras, that James Dean in a cassock and a crisis of faith crossing New York like in that Dennis Stock photograph. A young, attractive and tormented priest rushing down the devil's staircase.
All the culture that goes with you awaits you here.
Subscribe
Babelia
The literary news analyzed by the best critics in our weekly newsletter
RECEIVE IT
#Stairway #devil #years #39The #Exorcist39