The Exorcist (1973)

Dir. William Friedkin

Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow

The Exorcist is the first film I can remember watching that lists in its credits three religious consultants and the same number of scientific consultants. But that is only fitting. One of the themes touched on in The Exorcist is the difference between science and faith – as well as the overlap between them.

Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is an actress, shooting a film at Washington’s Georgetown University. For the duration of the shoot she and her twelve-year-old daughter Regan (Linda Blair) have moved into a nearby house. Regan starts to enter trance-like states, speaking involuntarily and suffering seizures. Chris desperately takes her daughter to see doctors and specialists, psychiatrists and hypnotists. No identifiable ailment can be found; meanwhile Regan’s affliction gets worse. Her bed bucks, she speaks in a horrific otherworldly voice, the temperature in her bedroom drops. Her mother is forced to restrain her. In desperation she contacts Father Damian Karras (Jason Miller) and pleads with him to perform an exorcism. His superiors decide to bring in the venerable Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow) instead, who recognises that he is dealing with an old enemy of his, the demon Pazuzu.

The world of the rational is shown through the doctors that the MacNeils first deal with. This ‘rationality’ involves subjecting Regan to excruciating medical testing. Only after their search for a ‘somatic’ explanation for her ailments fails – and they witness the possessed Regan – do they suggest that a psychiatric remedy should be sort. The psychiatric specialists are less empirical, and it is one of their number (played by Peter Masterson from The Stepford Wives) who first suggests that they should consider – purely to shock Regan out of her delusions – a rite of exorcism. He describes it as “a stylized ritual in which the rabbi or the priest try to drive out the so-called invading spirit. It’s been pretty much discredited these days except by the Catholics who keep it in the closet as a sort of an embarrassment, but it has worked. Although not for the reasons they think, of course. It’s purely a force of suggestion. The victim’s belief in possession is what helped cause it, so in that same way a belief in the power of exorcism can make it disappear.” This leads to Father Karras, who is a priest but also a psychiatrist. He states at one point that he fears he has lost his faith. Finally on the spectrum we come to Father Merrin. His faith in God – and in His demonic opposition – is resolute. On each step the atheist Chris is forced to go further and further away from science and more towards faith. At the same time the audience travels with her; despite knowing that I was watching a horror movie, despite the foreshadowings of Pazuzu from the film’s opening at an Iraqi archaeological site, and despite the fact that the exorcism scenes are so famous I found myself wondering at first whether an ‘exorcism’ could in fact be diagnosed or explained scientifically.

No time for levity:
Fathers Merrin and Karras battle for Regan's soul

Yet at the same time science and faith overlap. The doctors repeat over and over again like a mantra that Regan must be suffering from a lesion on her temporal lobe, even when investigations fail to produce any evidence for this. Meanwhile the priests approach the exorcism scientifically. Karras conducts an investigation to see whether the case meets the requirements for an exorcism – taping his conversations with Regan and trying a ‘trick’ involving fake holy water. Merrin knows precisely what is needed for the ritual. He essentially gives Karras a shopping list of necessary items and his exorcism follows a prescribed procedure.

These days the film is regarded as a classic – notably it was the first horror movie to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Perhaps because of this I expected to be left disappointed. It is a victim of its success. When the film was first released Warner Bros refused to allow photographs of the possessed Regan to be reproduced. This was wise. From my vantage point in 2012 the swollen-faced child, levitating off the bed, growling obscenities, has become a familiar image. There was a danger that the “Your mother cooks socks in Hull!” and pea soup pastiches (pea soup was actually used on set for Regan’s ectoplasmic vomiting) would leave the entire thing looking just a little bit silly. The direction of William Friedkin, and in particular the pacing of the film, saves it from this fate. The film takes its time to get where it wants to go, allowing a sense of dread to emerge as rational explanations are ruled out and Regan’s symptoms get worse and worse. Father Merrin does not even arrive in Georgetown until ninety minutes into the film. The priests get their back story, Merrin in the sandstorms of Iraq and Karras laden with guilt over the death of his mother. These provide the routes that allow Pazuzu to attack them. And plus there are plenty of jumps and scares and quite a few horrific images and scenes to contend with along the way. There are a couple of moments that spoil the show: the willingness of Detective Kinderman (Lee J. Cobb) to assume that a snapped neck on a body that has fallen down 74 stairs is clear evidence of black magic for example, or Jack MacGowran’s fey, drunken, German-hating director. But overall The Exorcist  works for both the horror of the demonic possession and also for the human reactions of those around it.

What have I learnt about Washington, D.C.?

D.C. has more than just politics. It has residential areas – rather grand residential areas to be honest – too. Georgetown and its university are set away from the hubbub of the political world. Having said that, all the great and the good are neighbours here. Chris’s party hosts actors alongside priests and astronauts, and she receives an invitation to dinner at the White House. The people who live here really are the top of the social elite.

Can we go there?

Georgetown, where the film is set, is easily reachable from central D.C. and you can find a number of the movie's key locations. When I was staying in Washington in 2010 we had an evening out in Georgetown – I recall that we walked past the Watergate Complex en route. Georgetown has a fun, prosperous air, with plenty of eateries and shops along its main corridor, M Street. Or you can drop down to the towpaths alongside the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Both these locations are shown in the film. Chris first meets Father Karras on a footbridge over the canal. The MacNeil residence was just up from M Street, at 3600 Prospect Street, near the junction of 36^th Street NW. Opposite at the junction of 36^th and Prospect Streets is the stairway down. It is officially called ‘the Hitchcock Steps’, but is more popularly known these days as  "the Exorcist Steps". Unfortunately I was unable to find them when I visited (I didn’t want Rebecca to know what I was looking for). A false wing was built on the MacNeil’s home to bring it closer to the top of the steps. Other scenes were shot at Georgetown University, which was indeed founded by the Jesuits. The ‘film shoot’ scene took place outside Healy Hall, the archbishop’s office was actually that of the president of the university, and the defiled statue of the Virgin Mary was filmed in the Dahlgren Chapel there. A bar scene was shot in  The Tombs at 1226 36^thStreet; later the bar featured quite prominently in St Elmo’s Fire.

Interior scenes were filmed in New York. This enabled Regan’s bedroom to be refrigerated so that the actors’ breaths would steam. Further location filming took place even further away, in Iraq. I’m not sure whether I would recommend a visit there quite yet, but the archaeological dig took place at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of  Hatra, 180 miles northwest of Baghdad and 68 miles southwest of Mosul.

Overall Rating 3/5

All the President's Men (1976)

Dir. Alan J. Pakula

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jason Robards, Jack Warden

All the President’s Men is not so much about the corridors of power as it is about the darkened car parks of power. The office complexes of power. The suburban homes of power. For anyone who loves conspiracy theories, this film is a must see.

The film deals with a conspiracy and a cover-up. And it is, of course, a true story. Five men were arrested in the offices of the Democratic National Committee on the night of 17^th June 1972. This could have been put down to a simple bungled burglary and forgotten about. But rookie Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward smelt a rat. If the suspects had not made any phone calls then how did a high-powered lawyer know to get there to represent them? With his colleague Carl Bernstein they began to follow the trail. The trail led to individuals within CREEP (the Committee to RE-Elect the President – the ‘President’ being Richard Nixon of the Republican Party). Campaign funds were clandestinely used to pay the burglars (all ex-CIA assets). Those campaign funds were overseen by a group of powerful individuals, some inside the White House itself – including former Attorney General John Mitchell and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman. This money was used by a prolonged campaign to undermine Nixon’s Democratic Party opponents through dishonest, immoral and illegal means that involved elements of the FBI, CIA and Justice Department: “ratfucking”. Through diligent reporting and chasing down every lead they come across Woodward and Bernstein are able to print the truth. The film ends with the series of headlines that followed their scoop – guilty pleas, criminal charges and, finally, the resignation of President Nixon.

The other reason conspiracy nuts should see the film is to witness one very simple truth. “Forget the myths the media’s created about the White House”, Woodward’s contact Deep Throat (Hal Holbrooke – last seen as Ron in Into the Wild) says: “The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.” This was a major cover-up by people whose asses were directly on the line, and they couldn’t keep a lid on it. How likely is it that they could hide the existence of, say, extraterrestrial technology all these years then? And the irony is that Nixon didn’t have to go undermining his Democratic opposition; they were doing a good enough job of undermining themselves. In ’72 Nixon beat McGovern by a landslide. As Scott, the Post’s Foreign Editor comments: “Why would the Republicans do it? McGovern’s self-destructed just like Humphrey, Muskie, the bunch of them. I don’t believe this story. It doesn’t make sense”. What comes out, however, is that the Democratic candidates’ implosions may have been orchestrated by those close to a President who was at one point lagging in the polls behind Democratic front-runner Edmund Muskie. “A year before Nixon wasn’t slaughtering Muskie, he was running behind Muskie, before Muskie self-destructed.” “If he self-destructed…”

This strikes at the very heart of the American dream. Nixon later claimed that “If the President does it, that means it’s not illegal”. Au contraire. What the Watergate scandal exposed was an Executive that felt itself above the laws of the nation. By equating opposition to the President with treason against the state the Executive could morally justify lies, forgery, burglary, bugging, misuse of government funds and employees. The President is supposed to be the best of the United States. The Watergate scandal exploded that myth. If one of the central pillars of what makes America great in its peoples’ eyes is corrupt, how does that reflect on the rest? When the two reporters are walking up the road to visit Sloan (Stephen Collins) at home there is a comment made about the nice, neat little suburban streets: “It’s hard to believe something’s wrong with some of those little houses.” When the White House is sullied, all houses in the U.S.A are sullied too. People do not like it when their dreams are exploded. But Woodward and Bernstein’s crusade had to take place. “Nothing’s riding on this”, they are told by their fire-breathing editor Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards), “except the First Amendment to the Constitution, the freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country”.

The doubles playing between Woodward and Bernstein is captured beautifully by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. They may not particularly like each other, but they work together perfectly. The two actors memorised each others’ lines so that they could butt in and overlap each other seamlessly. They are perfectly in sync. In one scene Bernstein flings a cookie to the typing Woodward; Woodward catches it and deposits it, before resuming typing. That’s how in the groove they are with each other. Throughout the acting is naturalistic, with occasional interruptions like an aeroplane flying overhead. Some characters never appear on screen, only being heard down the receiver of a telephone. The ensemble cast play it like a documentary – which to a certain extent it is. The offices of the Washington Post were recreated on set and the stars hung around the real newsrooms to get a feel for the tempo of the place. This is despite the outlandish subject matter – dark deeds in high places, clandestine meetings in parking lots, “your lives may be in danger”… In fact, I would say that only once does the film stray from this naturalism, when Woodward is leaving a rendezvous with Deep Throat. He trots out down a darkened alleyway, the music builds, he whips around suddenly… and no one is there. As a means to heighten tension, very effective; as veracity, somewhat over-played in my viewpoint.

"Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again?"
Hoffman and Redford are cast against type...

The film only takes the story of Watergate so far. It takes it up to the point where Nixon is over-whelmingly re-elected to the Presidency, where Woodward and Bernstein can finally prove the link to Haldeman (“the second most important man in this country”), and where Bradley gives them the go-ahead to publish. The fall-out thereafter is covered by headlines on a teleprompter. But to cover the rest of the tale, the grand juries and indictments would have spun the movie out far too long, and would have veered away from the focus on the two reporters. All the President’s Men is over two hours long without this – though to be fair the story speeds along at a breathless pace. I would advise a certain level of familiarity with the events before sitting down to watch though, otherwise the roll-call of names and alphabet soup of acronyms can get pretty confusing. I had to search Wikipedia to find out what the ‘Canuck letter’ that torpedoed Muskie’s bid was – and who Muskie was, having never heard of him before. Suffice to say that the film is a great look at how dogged determination, forensic thoroughness and just a light sprinkling of hunches and bullshitting can turn a seemingly unpromising little event into the world’s most famous journalistic scoop.

What have I learnt about D.C.?

It has an awful lot of icky concrete architecture. Actually, to be honest I already knew that, as Washington is the first place on this cinematic odyssey where I have actually been in real life. With so much emphasis here on unconstitutional actions it reminded me somewhat of Walter Bagehot’s comments about the British (or, actually ‘English’) constitution. He talked about the constitution being “dignified and efficient”: the dignified bits (such as the monarchy or the House of Lords) are not very efficient, and the efficient bits (such as the Commons committees) are certainly not dignified! Here we have the trappings of a dignified government – the beautiful Mall with its eye-catching Washington Monument, the majestic dome of the Capitol rising beyond the trees, the pristine frontage of the White House. And in the background is the efficient world which really runs the country: anonymous sources in garages at midnight, deniable assets burgling offices after dark, press releases and “non-denial denials”, smears and innuendo. For the public at home the way things actually work and the way they want to think things work need to be kept separate lest the American political system fall into disrepute. Woodward and Bernstein link the two, and ever since the gloss has appeared a little chipped. Going to Washington I was awed by the grandeur of the monuments to American democracy, but its dark underbelly was always hovering at the corners of my eye-sight: expensive restaurants for the wining and dining of clients, security roadblocks and cameras reminding me of the surveillance state and power of the secret services, and the Watergate Complex itself, dirty, grey and cheap-looking.

Can we go there?

Oh, sure. The dignified aspects of Washington can be seen in the background of many shots – the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the White House. The only one that lets us have a good look at it, however, is the Library of Congress, where the reporters pore over lending requests. There is a lovely overhead shot that pulls away, leaving them seem small and insignificant in the grandeur of its reading room. It can be visited; if I found myself in Washington again I think I might follow in Woodward and Bernstein’s footprints (although they, admittedly, did not find what they were looking for here). There is the more sordid side to Washington too, as exemplified by the ugly Watergate Hotel. It really is a quite fantastically unaesthetic building. I was going to suggest that you might like to stay at the Watergate Hotel for the full experience: however, its website merely says that it is closed for renovations, and will reopen again in late 2009. Instead you could maybe try to lodge at the Hall at Virginia Avenue belonging to George Washington University opposite. Back in the day it was a Howard Johnson’s Motel and G. Gordon Libby used Room 419 as his look-out point (‘Base 1’).

Many of the scenes were filmed back on set at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California. As I mentioned above, the offices of the Washington Post were recreated as faithfully as possible, even down to the exact same makes of office furniture and the shipping across from the Post’s real offices of container loads of workplace detritus. Certain exterior scenes took place in California too. Donald Segretti’s apartment is in Marina del Rey. The Dade County Justice Building in Miami is actually Los Angeles City Hall. And the car park where Bob Woodward meets Deep Throat is actually belongs to ABC Television; it can be found at 2040 Avenue of the Stars, Century City.

Overall Rating: 3/5

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Dir. Frank Capra

Starring: Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold

Senator Joseph P. Kennedy disliked the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington intensely, arguing that it would damage America’s prestige in Europe. Coming from a self-serving dynastic patriarch who unsuccessfully tried to keep the USA out of the Second World War I regard that as a glowing tribute to Frank Capra’s 1939 look at American politics. The film was actually banned in those countries controlled by Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Stalin. I’m starting to like the sound of this movie even more…

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington shows the best of American democracy in the person of young, idealistic rookie senator Jefferson Smith (a tousled, boyish James Stewart). But it also shows the worst of American democracy in his fellow senators who are disinterested, easily led, or just plain corrupt. It is a film about graft, about political machines and puppet-masters, and about how good men who stand against either are targeted for destruction.

The film starts with the announcement of the death of a senator near the end of his term of office. When this occurs in the U.S. – unlike in the U.K. when a by-election would be called – the governor of the state that senator represents gets to appoint the replacement. In this case the governor is firmly in the pocket of political boss Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) – as was the deceased. Taylor wants a placeman appointed to support his graft scheme of building a dam at Willett Creek. The local citizens’ committee want a crusading reformer instead. Torn between these two conflicting demands the governor (at the urging of his huge family of Hollywood moppet children) appoints instead the leader of the Boy Rangers, Jefferson Smith. This wholesome all-American face is designed to placate the crowds while being easy enough to manage in support of the dam scheme.

And sure enough, Smith is over-awed by Washington and what it represents. He idealises his colleague Senator Joseph Harrison Paine (a perfectly modulated performance from Claude Raines), who was once firm friends with his father. Which is a pity, because the urbane Paine is also firmly in Taylor’s pocket and has included the dam scheme as part of an appropriations bill. To keep him out of trouble Paine suggests that Smith author a bill of his own; to the exasperation of his cynical and sassy secretary Saunders (Jean Arthur) Smith drafts it in one long evening, proposing that a national boys’ campsite be established in his home state with a governmental loan. It’s a popular and inoffensive plan except for one small detail – the location chosen for the campsite just happens to be Willett Creek, the same location as Taylor’s dam. When he refuses to drop his bill in favour of Taylor’s proposal (the pay-off being a guaranteed twenty years in the Senate) the machine moves to crush him, framing him as corrupt by claiming that he already owns the land in question. Paine at first tries to avoid attacking Smith, whom he likes, but Taylor insists that the senator do his bidding or else lose his support for a mooted presidential bid. Paine calls for Smith to be expelled from the Senate.

Meanwhile Saunders, the experienced and hard-bitten Washington veteran who admits she is only in the game because “I need the job and a new suit of clothes”, has started to see American politics through Jeff’s eyes, as a source of hope and idealism. She instructs him on how to play for time until they can refute the accusations and gather support in his home state. This means filibustering. As long as he can hold the floor of the Senate Chamber his expulsion cannot be put to the vote. Thus he embarks on a marathon session of speechifying, hoping that his Boy Rangers will be able to spread the truth more successfully than Taylor’s machine and newspapers.

The Bluffer's Guide to Washington: Smith (James Stewart)
& Saunders (Jean Arthur) - but who is learning from whom?

That the good guy wins has little to do with the American democratic system, which studiously turns its back on Jefferson. Nor has it much to do with the wisdom of the electorate – in the most crushing scene Paine brings in to the Senate mailbag after mailbag of post from electors, the very people Smith is relying on to support his cause; they unanimously call for his expulsion from the chamber (this is just as Taylor had predicted: “I’ll make public opinion out there within five hours! I’ve done it all my life.”) Instead Smith only wins because of a crisis of guilt on the behalf of Senator Paine who confesses all. Had he been a worse man, graft would have prevailed. But the film plays to that inbuilt shred of decency in all Americans. Paine sees in Smith his former best-friend when he was young and idealistic. Saunders has her love for D.C. reawakened by Smith’s admiration for all that it could and should represent (Jeff learns from Saunders the way politics really works, she learns from him how it should work). It is she who urges him to put up a fight rather than accept his fate in a stirring speech when she finds him downcast at the Lincoln Memorial: “Your friend Mr Lincoln had his Taylors and Paines. So did every other man who ever tried to lift his thought up off the ground. Odds against them didn’t stop those men. They were fools that way. All the good that ever came into this world came from fools with faith like that. You know that, Jeff. You can’t quit now. Not you. They aren’t all Taylors and Paines in Washington. That kind just throw big shadows, that’s all.” Even the press corps, as drunken and jaded a group of sharks as one could hope to meet, come to take up Jefferson’s cause (and not just for the story either). Capra’s film says that, yes, the Senate is composed of place-fillers, time-servers and hired men (unanimously men), but there is still something golden and special about American democracy, American democratic institutions and American democratic ideals. And an ounce of idealism – or naivety – can sweep out the graft and restore it to what it could be. All that needs to happen is that the American people believe. Smith argues that “this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light. They’re right here; you just have to see them again!” It is this message that stuck in the throats of the Hitlers, Stalins… and Kennedys.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington reminded me of the famous quote by Winston Churchill: “Democracy is a very bad way to runa country. But, it is better than all the alternatives.” As a rallying call to the side of democracy and against the tide of dictatorship that was by 1939 sweeping the world it was perfectly judged and perfectly timed. It restated the American belief that their political system was somehow charmed, somehow a torch held up before all the people of the world. In many ways it can be seen as a precursor to 1942’s classic Casablanca. Here Jean Arthur plays the Humphrey Bogart role, a world-weary cynic who comes to fight for what is right through love of someone who does believe in a better future. Indeed, it is notable that Arthur gets top-billing in the movie, over Stewart.  

What have I learnt about D.C.?

That it can be controlled. Political bosses and monopolous capitalists can ‘buy’ politicians, either with money or the support of their organisations and newspapers. Spinning public opinion they can control the electorate too. But they can be defeated by those who believe in right and decency. The monuments of the District speak to man's higher ideals.

Can we go there?

Why would one not want to? Arriving at Union Station Jefferson is so entranced with the golden dome of the Capitol gleaming in the sunlight that he takes an unauthorised bus tour of the city. He is forever running away to the Lincoln Memorial or George Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon. Though the latter is never shown the former has a starring role and for my money is home to the best scene, where Saunders talks him into fighting the forces leagued against him.

Most of the movie was filmed on set back in Hollywood however; those background shots of Washington, the Capitol building, the Lincoln Memorial and Union Station are rarities. The recreation of the Senate on set was faithfully done however, only a very little under the scale of the real thing.

Overall Rating: 3/5

Week 9: D.C. - the District of Columbia

"I used to wear dress blues,
 I used to get my cues
 From the dudes in D.C.
 With the wing-tip shoes..."
 - 'The Grave and the Constant',
 Fun Lovin' Criminals

D.C. (the District of Columbia) isn't a state. It is a mere geographical anomaly. It can't even elect senators. However America only has 50 states and there are 52 weeks in a year, so I thought I would include it. After all, how can you have a film list about the USA that ignores its capital?

D.C. is, to all extents and purposes, Washington. For Europeans the one immediately identifiable landmark in the District is, of course, the White House. For Americans it might actually be the great domed Capitol, home to the House of Representatives and the Senate. For anyone who has been there it must surely be the National Mall, the great swath of green running the length of the city dotted with monuments designed to remind one of America's greatness and founding principles - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Of course, that's all hooey. Let's remember our Gibbons: "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely". The cinema age has seen the US emerge from being a peripheral player on the world stage, to a great power, to one of only two superpowers, to the world's policeman. The players upon this stage hunger for national power, but international power comes with it. There is a reason the American president is described as "the most powerful man in the world". And where there is power there must also be corruption. While this might be no surprise amongst the decadent poseurs and closeted bureaucracies of the Old World, America is, of course, supposed to be different, to be better. So let's lift the lid off the tensions brewing within the Beltway and begin our search for corruption.

The three films for this week, all of which deal with corruption in some form or another, are:

• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
• All the President's Men (1976)
• The Exorcist (1973)