The Exorcist (1973) opens with the elderly Father Merrin at an archaeological dig in Iraq. He finds a small coinlike object which another archaeologist tells him is “not of the same period” of other stuff they’re finding (it’s never seen or mentioned again). Then he comes across a small figurine-head, the size of a golf ball, with a snarling, demonic face. This disturbs him for no adequately explained reason. Next scene he’s in the office of a local scholar, who says of the head, “evil against evil.” Then the clock stops, which seems to frighten Merrin. Next scene, Merrin confronts an ancient human-sized statue, out in the desert, of a four-winged god or demon with the paws of a wildcat and a face identical to the figurine-head found earlier.
All this is apparently unconnected to the rest of the story, except that Merrin is the priest who will later be called in to perform an exorcism in Washington, DC.
What is the point of this prologue? How does it relate to the rest of the story? Has digging up the figurine-head somehow liberated the demon it represents to go and possess a young girl on the other side or the world? Or is its discovery some kind of portent of what’s to come? Or what?
That’s it, pretty much. Merrin knew that the demon was released, and that he released it, when he saw the figurine. The book goes on a bit to explain that Merrin left the dig site because he knew his exorcism services would be needed soon.
This point is made much clearer in the book, btw. In the movie you’re left guessing “wtf was that about” until you see, towards the end of the exorcism, the silhoutte (sp!) of the demon above Regan’s bed.
BTW, I’m still watching the film and it just got to the point where the bishop and another priest are discussing who to appoint as exorcist. One of them mentions Father Merrin’s name, and the other says he thought Merrin was on a dig in Iraq, “near Nineveh.” So the artifact discovered in the prologue is probably Assyrian, as opposed to, say, Sumerian, Babylonian, or Persian.
I never got the impression that Merrin released the demon, but that the possesion of the girl was completely random. In fact, I think the book says as much, but it’s been several years since I’ve read it. I do remember, though, that the large demonic statue that we see at the end of the prologue is Pazuzu, the demon that possesses Regan.
I always thought it was #1 to establish the demon as ancient, and #2 and thus Regan’s possession was random (as has been mentioned) – she didn’t do anything to deserve Mr. Demon taking up residence in her body, which twists the knife a little bit for the priests, they’re fighting what seems to be a losing battle for an innocent.
Also, in a weird way, I felt like there’s also a #3 – by showing that the demon is both ancient and random, the author created a decent window for a sequel or a prequel … which now seems like it’s happening, although I believe Ira Levin didn’t do any of the writing for the current film.
Two meanings of the clock stopping in the Iraqi scholar’s office while Father Merrin is visiting:
Father Merrin’s time on this earth is almost up. He is living on borrowed time.
The demon, and thus evil, exists outside of time.
In contrast: Regan’s mother Chris MacNeil is an actress, a woman who takes on and acts out different personae upon command. She makes movies, in which time is cut up in fragments.
Winston: Hey, wait a minute. Hey hey hey hey hey. Hold it. Now are we actually gonna go before a federal judge and tell him that some moldy Babylonian god is going to drop in on Washington DC and start tearing up the city?
Egon: Assyrian, not Babylonian.
Peter: Yeah. Big difference.
Winston: No offense, guys, but I’ve gotta get my own lawyer.
Thanks for the catch! I’m particularly disgruntled because I checked the IMDB to look at the release date of the original film, and still didn’t notice Blatty vs. Levin. I’m going to chalk this up to the fact that I read both of these authors as an impressionable young person, under the covers with a flashlight, and seem to have sustained a horror-novel trauma.
Actually, that’s incorrect. In the book, Chris’s nanny/personal assistant (I can’t remember her name - Sharon?) gave Regan an Ouija board, which was the conduit that Pazuzu used to possess her. No Ouija board, no possession.
The “ONE TRUE RELIGION” dispels ALL idolatrous pagan demons.
IMHO, Director William Friedkin is a devout conservative when you get down to it (all his movies - “Exorcist”, and “Cruising” in particular) have arch-conservative overtones. Regan is possessed in part because she is being raised in a secular, proto-feminist environment – Chris is a single mother, (Regan’s father is not in the picture, and Regan’s next closest adult role model is Sharon, another woman), she’s an athiest, her role in Burke’s movie is that of a University teacher who sides with countercultural anti-establishment students, and she is unfamiliar with the basic tenets of catholicism (she doesn’t even know what an exorcism is).
I don’t know about the book (read it once a long time ago), but the prologue in the movie seems (to me anyway) to be setting the eeire tone for the film by depicting a “godless, savage” (i.e. MUSLIM) culture. The shot of the islamics on prayer rugs bowing down to Mecca always struck me as especially revealing of the director’s mindset. It’s as if he’s saying “Look! Those backward heathens are praying to a false god!”
The comment about “evil against evil” I always took to be foreshadowing Chris’s hope to cure Regan via modern (secular) medicine.
Why wouldn’t it? AFAIAA, demons aren’t denominational. They can be cast out by Catholics, Protestants, and other Xians simply by invoking Jesus…provided their belief is genuine and strong. This bit from the Acts of the Apostles illustrates what happens when the faith isn’t there.
Blatty might have had something like this in mind when he wrote the book. Perhaps the exorcism is difficult less because of the power of the demon than because of the weakness of the priests.
I didn’t get that at all from either the book or the movie. I saw Chris’s secularism as a plot device to help suspend disbelief. A snake-worshipping fundamentalist contacting an exorcist would be no great shakes, but something pretty damned (pardon the pun) dramatic would have to happen for you or I to consider it. Also, it heightens the creepiness in that no one is protected by innocence. You don’t have to believe in demons for one of them to possess you.
The is the first book that I remember reading that took the question seriously: “What if demons were real?” Satan as something other than a comic book character. (I read the Exorcist on a bus at night when I was 15, so you can imagine my state of mind when I was finished). It must have tapped into some sort of common aspect because of all the knock-offs that came after to cash in (aka “the Jaws effect”).
Well, as I said, this was my interpretation. But I don’t think it’s an accident that Regan is being raised by a single mother whose career is in the most secular profession of all (prostitution being an occasionally religious profession :)). The focal point for the drama is really Father Damian’s struggle with his faith, and whether or not it’s strong enough to repel the devil (or Pazuzu or whatever.) And the other major characters represent the extremes from which Damian feels he’s being torn - On one hand is Father Merrin, who is extremely devout and concerned with “how things are done in olden times” (he’s an archeologist), and on the other is Chris - the personification of the modern day woman.
If you haven’t already, you might like Ira Levin’s book ‘A Kiss Before Dying’. Forget the awful movie adaptation, the book is well worth a read. The main reason why it’s worth reading has something to do with a very ingenious aspect of the plotting and construction, but I can’t say more without giving too much away, so I won’t.
As to the OP - yep, the prologue signals in a rather oblique way that a source of evil has been unleashed, and Merrin knows it.