NRO Weekend, September 16-17, 2000
The Exorcist, Unplugged
An interview with author William Peter Blatty.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez-----------------lopezk@ix.netcom.com

illiam Peter Blatty is author of the novel The Exorcist, as well as the screenplay for the 1973 movie. He was in New York this week doing promotional work for the occasion of the Sept. 22 re-release of The Exorcist, which features an additional 12 minutes of footage. Said Blatty in this far-ranging interview, "I personally started out thinking that the demon was the classic fallen angel. I'm not so inclined to believe that anymore. I don't know what it is, but it is intelligent, and it is disarming. And it behaves very poorly."

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Where did the idea for a re-release come from?

William Peter Blatty: I have wanted this version from the beginning. I have fought for it for 27 years. Except for the enhancements that have been added because we are now in the 21st century — this is the movie William Friedkin [the director] would have given us yesterday — other than that, this is what he showed me. I saw it — I swear to you — at 666 6th Avenue, to which, at the time, I attached no significance whatever. And I thought it had the chance of being called a masterpiece, I really did. It was 12-13 minutes longer than the version that was released. Friedkin went back to the studio in Burbank, and under whatever influences that were exerted upon him, he cut it down to two hours. He told me that he didn't think it was a hit and that no audience would pay for more than two hours.

Over the years, I have tried hard. I almost got the studio to go ahead and allow me to do it on my own, but that came to an end when I realized I can't do this on my own without calling Friedkin. It was not happening. So I called him and I said, "Billy, I'm about to do this. You should be doing this. Would you do it, please?" And he agreed. But no sooner had the movie and all the editing equipment arrived at his home, than he called a head of production and said, "Why are we doing this? I like the picture just the way it is."

Lopez: What changed his mind?

Blatty: Somehow, about a year ago, I was able to drag him into an editing room where we had collected every bit of excised footage for which we had track and sound and sat and watched it. And in the darkened room, time and again, I hear him murmur, "That's great." "That's great." "I don't remember shooting that." And when we left the building he gave me a hug and said, "After 26 years, I finally understand what you were trying to do with this movie." Now he is its champion. He called me one night to say yet again, This is an infinitely superior version. It should have been this way in the first place. There's just one thing, Bill, that I don't understand. And that's, why didn't you have me killed?"

He adores this version. He just is crazy about it. We were both wondering how would it have done if it had gone out that way. It's hard to imagine a greater success than it was, but my sense is that it would have done even better. It would have accessed a wider, more mature audience because it would have had a moral center. And the moral center allows you to not despise yourself for enjoying the shock that you are seeing on the screen. It's just a better movie. It's complete. It's more satisfying.

Lopez: From the vantage point of the screenwriter and the author of the novel, was the first version a bad movie in any way?

Blatty: No, it was a great movie. It moved the emotions. It was deeply disturbing. Some reviewer for a Santa Monica newspaper once wrote about another of my pictures that "It is disturbing, and that is the purpose of art, to disturb, to move the sensibilities, to give you a perspective." It was a great movie, but it was incomplete. It was half a movie. It went from shock to shock to shock, once it got started. It left you numb and reeling at the end. But it also left you wondering, What the hell happened? Friedkin and I, the day before we shot the Karras-out-the-window sequence — the only time we really collaborated doing the shooting, besides on the screenplay — was on how the shot should be put together so that there was no misunderstanding from the audience about what was happening, that it was Karras taking the demon out the window, as the demon was about to strangle the little girl.

Cut to about a month after the release of the movie. I am invited to dinner at the home of the president of Warner, Frank Wells, God rest his soul, now passed away, a lovely man. Frank and I were in his den having a drink, while our wives were in the kitchen, and I started to complain about the stupidity of the average audience of The Exorcist, for misapprehending what happened in that scene. And I went through the whole thing with him. We choreographed it shot for shot so that the leanest intelligence in the audience couldn't misinterpret what happened. But they do. They think the demon took care of Karras and the whole movie is a downer. And there was a silence. Frank put his drink down. He was an honest man. He said, Bill, that's what I thought happened. My only explanation over the years that satisfies me is that by then the audience has been numbed. They're not thinking anymore.

Anyway, that's why I've always wanted the original ending of the novel — because even though it doesn't explain anything, it gives you a feeling everything's okay. It gets to you viscerally, saying, it's all right.

Lopez: Do you think that the original, for the people who didn't have access to your explanations, glorified evil?

Blatty: That's a silly interpretation. How does it glorify evil?

Lopez: Because at the end they see Fr. Karras's eyes and think the demon won.

Continue to Page 2 of
The Excorist, Unplugged.