A different notable addition is a dialogue between the film’s exorcists, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) and Father Karras (Jason Miller) whilst they sit on the stairs outside the house Regan’s space in the third act. In this deep breath, they debate why the possession is really developing (in the initial, the gentlemen just sit briefly in silence). According to Mark Kermode’s BFI Film Classics: The Exorcist, Blatty was notably incensed that Friedkin cut this scene, indicating it was the religious and theological main of the movie.
Among the greatest dissimilarities however is the just one that still left Blatty most unsatisfied: Friedkin lower a coda in the theatrical lower exactly where Father Dyer (genuine-life priest William O’Malley) and detective William Kinderman (Lee J. Cobb) bond around their shared affection for flicks and the now-lifeless Father Karras, a supposedly uplifting epilogue that, in Blatty’s view, indicated that superior experienced clearly triumphed more than evil and that Karras’ spirit lived on within just these two mens’ newfound friendship. In accordance to Kermode, Friedkin recalled (just before reinstating it, of training course), “I shot that ending and it was no fucking superior at all.”
Once more, though all these scenes are intriguing historically, they don’t have an affect on the cloth of the film much by their absence from the authentic model. But there is 1 temporary shot that Friedkin altered that, to our thinking, transformed the character arc of Regan’s mom, Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), and therefore adjusted the thematic conclusion of the picture by itself.
It happens right at the conclude. In the original edition, Regan and Chris go away their Georgetown property and get in the auto to head to the airport. Father Dyer stands exterior the gate, waving as they go. The motor vehicle stops and Chris phone calls to the priest. He arrives to the window, and Chris palms him a St. Joseph medallion, identified in Regan’s home, that belonged to Karras and was pulled off his neck by the demon. Dyer wraps his fist all-around it, then we reduce to the vehicle driving absent with Regan on the lookout out the rear window.
In the 2000 slice, however, Dyer holds the medallion in his hand for a moment, then gently palms it back to Chris, expressing, “I feel you should preserve it”–and she does.
The rationale this is so vital, and why this scene alterations every little thing, is that Chris MacNeil is introduced during the film as an individual who does not consider in faith or God. Requested by physicians if she has any religious beliefs, her remedy is a definitive “no.” She displays small awareness of the rites of the Catholic Church. When the very same doctors recommend that she appear into an exorcism, she says with extra than a little disdain in her voice, “You’re telling me that I should take my daughter to a witch health practitioner?”
