After the demon is released in Iraq, the setting of The Exorcist moves to Washington. There the narrative progresses in an extended series of cross-cuts, alternating between scenes of Chris McNeil’s and Father Karas’s lives. What are some of the effects of that editing? What does the alternation emphasize about the characters? How does it set up the film’s later action, when the movie star and the Priest finally meet and agree to try an exorcism?
12 thoughts on “The Exorcist”
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The dual narrative between Chris McNeil and Father Karras’ life highlights their separate but parallel struggles. The effects alternate between Chris’s life, where she is dealing with her daughter Regan’s disturbing behavior, and Father Karras’ crisis of faith and family grief due to his mother’s death. The film creates an emotional link between the two as the both are in a state where the audience can feel how exhausted they are. This editing reveals the isolation and psychological turmoil each character faces. When they meet, they both understand the other is going through something that is draining them. This editing not only foreshadows the final exorcism but underscores the psychological and emotional stakes, making the supernatural threat feel deeply personal especially in scenes where the demon speaks out and targets their fears and wounds.
The cross-cutting creates a pattern that matches the growing tension of the possession. Even though they come from different backgrounds, they both deal with problems they can’t control or fully understand. By switching back and forth between Chris’s desperate search for help for her daughter and Damien’s deepening faith crisis and guilt about his mother’s death, the editing makes the sense of danger feel even stronger, as if the danger is slowly approaching. This builds suspense, as each scene shift adds to the tension from the last one.
The alternation also connect the Damien and chris through the theme of motherhood. Chris, as a single mother, is shown constantly fighting to save her daughter. Her entire life becomes about protecting and healing Reagen. This shows a strong, natural urge to keep her child safe no matter what. Father Karras, though not a parent, is tied into this theme of motherhood through his relationship with his own mother. His story focuses on his guilt and sadness after her death, feeling responsible because he wasn’t there to prevent her from dying alone. His mother’s sickness and death greatly affect him. By switching scenes between Chris and Damien, the director shows how they are connected by their roles as caregivers and the pain they feel from their failures. Both are shown as very caring people, devoted to their ‘children’—Chris to Regan, and Damien to his mother. This connection shows that motherhood, with its care(Damien), sacrifice(Chris) , become the bond of them.
I think the overall story of having the demon in Iraq was what made the movie go from just another scary movie, to something that has become iconic over time. I think having that backstory not only gave an explanation, but brought something had more depth and uniqueness to the film. The small cuts that are also woven throughout tease the audience in a way, bringing the curiosity out of the viewer. It brought more backstory than just it being a “demon” and made the film feel more overall scary.
The alternation between Chris and Karas’ worked to clarify this distance (and later coming together) between the “mother” and “father” figures of the film. We see an absence of a “father” figure in the McNeil’s life, whereas Karas’ is devoted to his mother (whom he later loses) and does not have a family of his own. This juxtaposition is then supported by the switching settings between both of their lives; it works to suggest the need and ultimate connection that unites the two characters. Together, creating a whole family unit they are able to “defeat” the demon who was released in Iraq. Both characters face many holes and absent desires, which are able to be somewhat dealt with and fulfilled by their union where they in a way save one another. I’m hesitant to commit to this savior complex because we see Karas die, however maybe that is the only place for him to go? He already wanted to leave the church, he blames himself and his choices for his mothers death and so what is left for him.
Both Karras and Chris are very similar in some of their viewpoints, conflicts, and problems that they are going through in life, yet they live in very different worlds. Both Karras and Chris are forced to grapple with religion, Karras believing that he has lost his faith and that Chris at first not even being able to fathom that her beloved daughter needs an exorcism. In a way, at a certain point in the film, they are both not religious, though the irony is much deeper for Karras with his identity as a priest. They both have a bad experience with hospitals and healthcare. For Chris, doctors chalk her daughter’s erratic behavior up to a brain lesion or psychiatric issues, putting her daughter through intensive and invasive tests to find nothing. Even though the doctors are essentially useless, she is able to find the best medical care around. For Karras, his mother is in a public asylum, as he is unable to afford keeping her in a better facility. Karras is a struggling priest while Chris is a famous movie star with hired help. She is able to tackle her problems with the support of many, while Karras is often seen alone or with few others. He is often left alone with his problems, while Chris is able to depend on those around her to help her in any way they can.
The cuts between the characters’ lives highlight the contrast in their experiences. For instance, some of Chris’s scenes appear dreamlike, with bright colors, while Father Kara’s scenes are duller and more serious in tone, especially in his interactions with other characters. The characters’ lives could not be more opposite from each other. Chris is a movie star with a daughter she loves dearly, while Father Kara has a mother from whom he is separated, despite his efforts to be relocated so he can care for her. Chris is not religious and has the financial means to afford the numerous tests her daughter requires, whereas Father Kara struggles to make a living and is forced to keep his mother in an asylum after her accident. These contrasts set the stage for their eventual meeting, as both Chris and Father Kara struggle with personal crises—Chris with her daughter’s possession, fearing she has lost her, and Father Kara with the recent loss of his mother.
William Friedkin uses an extended series of cross-cuts between Chris McNeil’s and Father Karras’s lives to parallel their individual experiences of conflict. In addition to highlighting external differences between McNeil and Karra – such as socioeconomic status and lifestyle – this style of editing draws attention to the emotional and psychological struggles that ultimately connect them. While the film conveys McNeil’s difficulty in navigating the disturbing and supernatural changes in her daughter, it also reveals Karra’s strained relationship with his faith following his mother’s death. By highlighting their demons – literally for McNeil and metaphorically for Karras – the film demonstrates that despite their unique circumstances, the two are united by their shared feelings of desperation and hopelessness. Ultimately, this editing choice prepares the audience for the moment McNeil reaches out to Karras, making the exorcism an essential and inevitable scene. At the end of the movie, during the exorcism, both characters experience healing from their trauma – while McNeil finds hope in saving her daughter, Karra confronts his doubts and reaffirms his faith.
The simultaneous character stories highlight the parallels between Karras and Chris. Specifically, their juxtaposed positions with motherhood and their uncertainty of a once stable world. Karras’ mother recently died, and was a bad influence upon him. Regan’s mother, however, finds no limit to care for her daughter. Besides this, Karras had a life being a priest, which had recently been shaken. Similarly, Chris’ life was being upended as well, with her daughter being possessed.
The cross-cutting between Chris’s and Father Karras’s narratives highlights the transformation of two characters as they adopt each other’s beliefs. Chris, initially a skeptic of religion, starts to doubt her faith in practical medicine after meeting with ineffective doctors and she slowly starts to open her mind to the possibility of supernatural causes. On the other hand, Father Karas struggles with his own faith, especially seen with his relationship with his mother, who strongly disapproved of his choice to become a priest rather than a psychiatrist. The alternation emphasizes each character’s development as they step into the others’ roles where the skeptic becomes the believer and the believer becomes the skeptic. This transformation ultimately sets up the film’s later action when the two characters meet where the two characters reaffirm each others’ beliefs. Father Karas, now committed to saving her daughter through an exorcism, solidifies Chris’ belief of some supernatural force, while Chris’ need for a priest restores Father Karas’ sense of purpose and commitment to his faith. In a way, the two characters end up saving each other.
The alternating between Chris McNeill and Father Karas’ lives weaves the two storylines together by showing the audience a key similarity in their lives. The similarity that stood out to me most was the different battle with demons each character was experiencing. Chris’ daughter had literally become possessed by a demon, and she was facing the physical form of horror and evil embodied in her daughter. By having her daughter be possessed by a demon, Chris’ personal life was thrown into chaos and she had to fight off the demon to get her child back making it a deeply personal experience. In contest to this, Father Karas was faced with emotional and mental demons of his torment over not being there for his mother. I think this duality of demons led perfectly to the meeting point where Father Karas took it upon himself to help rid Regan on the demon. The audience further sees Father Karas handling his demons when the demon inside of Regan begins to mention things about his mother and take on his mother’s voice. The climax of the movie where Father Karas sacrifices himself to save Regan felt like his way of being able to release himself from the agony of feeling like he let his mother down ridding both characters of the demons that had been haunting them.
The cross-cutting between Karras’s and MacNeil’s lives demonstrate a parallel godlessness in culture that their unity later upends. The characters are in some ways foils of each other, as the cross-cuts demonstrate: MacNeil is divorced, while Karras is a devout family man. MacNeil is an actress (a role probably frowned upon by the church), while Karras is a priest. MacNeil is helpless; Karras has the answers. However, the cross-cuts draw similarities between the two just as they illuminate their differences: although Karras is religious and MacNeil is not and has never been, Karras is having a crisis of faith at the same time as MacNeil, who has a crisis of faith in medicine. I think this parallel crisis is meant to elevate Christianity to the level of the medical field in the mind of the viewers– at this point in the 1970s, I can only imagine that science and medicine have mostly surpassed religion in terms of explanations for the world, and “The Exorcist” attempts to level the two ideologies. Religion, of course, beats out science in the end, after both MacNeil and Karras determine that it’s worth believing in something to protect what’s most important: vulnerable women. The other parallel between MacNeil and Karras is that they are caretakers for vulnerable women. We see both of them betrayed by the medical field and turn to something else in order to save them. In this way, the film is stating: nothing can save our children like God can. “The Exorcist” speaks directly to adults in MacNeil’s and Karras’s generation, empathizing with their institutional struggles and proclaiming that religion will be their salvation, even if they are already far gone (divorced, drinking, having lost their faith).
Maybe at this point in time the idea of exorcising in movies has become a cliche, or maybe it was an obvious choice in the movie at the time given the movies name. It was more or less obvious what was going to occur in the movie after Chris’s daughter contracts the devil’s spirit. Knowing this the inevitable meeting of Father Kara and Chris/ Chris’s daughter brought suspense. When will their paths cross? How? It’s similar to movie cliches that start with the ending or middle of the movie. In this situation it no longer becomes a mystery of what will happen, but rather how. The alternations emphasize the differences between Father Karras internal spiritual doubts and Chris Macneils religious/faith need. The ending of actually preforming the exorcism relieves the audience’s suspense of what they believe should occur given the title and overtime resolves the conflict that Father Karras originally had about his spiritual beliefs as exorcism proved to be the only solution.