THE PRODUCERS: Exorcism of Emily Rose poses significant theological questions.
By Mike & Paula K. Parker
Equal parts horror movie and courtroom drama, “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” may be one of the most compelling, thought-provoking films I’ve seen in a long, long time.
“The Exorcism of Emily Rose” may be one of the most compelling, thought-provoking films I’ve seen in a long, long time. Equal parts horror movie and courtroom drama, “Emily Rose” was based loosely on the 1 story of Anneliese Michel, a German college student who died during an exorcism (authorized and administered by the Catholic church) in the early 1970’s. The priests involve with that exorcism were eventually arrested and tried for negligent homicide.
In the film version, watching Emily Rose’s descent into madness, or demonic possession, depending on your interpretation of the events presented, was indeed terrifying. That by itself would make this film a box office success, though easily dismissed as yet another in the long line of “Exorcist” knock-offs that have plagued Hollywood since William Peter Blatty shocked the world with what may be the world’s scariest film back in 1973. But “Emily Rose” really isn’t about the exorcism per se. The exorcism only serves as a foil for the greater story – the cosmic battle between Faith and The Facts.
I was recently invited to sit in on a roundtable discussion with Paul Harris Boardman, screenwriter and Scott Derrickson, co-writer/director of “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.” Their comments were…enlightening.
Roundtable: Do you have any idea how many exorcisms are actually performed?
Paul Boardman: I don’t know. But when we got into the research phase of doing the movie I was surprised at how much documentation is out there about real cases. I think it is not as strange and random as you might think.
Scott Derrickson: I think part of it, too, is how broad a net you cast in terms of defining it. What everybody considers as a traditional exorcism, the Catholic exorcism rite - they got to where they were doing that and sanctioning that less and less in recent times, and they are reluctant to talk about it. But there has been a growth of that happening in third world countries. There is a lot of it there. And I’m sure you are probably aware of the Protestant exorcism, or deliverance ritual, that is getting more widespread. So it could be a handful that are actually Catholic exorcisms, or it could be hundreds depending on how you look at it.
Roundtable: Can you talk about the research you did into this specific case, and how much of that made it into the film, and what liberties you took in the screenplay?
Boardman: I’ll try to be as clear about that as I can. The 1 story that the movie is based on is this: there was a girl who was recognized by the Catholic Church as being demon possessed. They authorized her exorcism, and after a series of exorcisms the girl died. The priests that were involved with the exorcism were arrested and put on trial for negligent homicide. The verdict in that case is essentially the same verdict that we have in the movie. Everything other than that should be considered fiction. The characters are fictitious. There was nothing else we felt protective of in terms of truth-value. We wanted to create the best characters, the best drama, the scariest sequences we could. Everything else should not be considered historical.
Derrickson: What excited us [about the original courtroom case] was to try to frame a movie within the courtroom. The courtroom is the perfect theatre for these ideas that speak culturally to these questions about faith and belief and skepticism. Once we got inspired by that, anything we could draw upon that felt 1 to the story we were trying to tell was fair game.
Roundtable: Did you read transcripts of exorcisms; listen to the tapes?
Boardman: Yeah. The whole process of writing and then making this movie was pretty enjoyable. I enjoy what I do. But the research phase was horrible. And the research phase was pretty intense. I probably read two dozen books on possession and exorcism. I viewed a lot of video tapes and listen to lots of audio tapes of actual exorcisms, and we drew on all of that for the movie. That was the part of the process that I will never do again – to get my head into that sort of space. I guess I am glad I know so much about it. It is good knowledge to have as a writer, and I also feel, for me as a Christian, it is good to have that knowledge. But I’ll never do that again.
Roundtable: Do you believe a person can be possessed?
Boardman: I do.
Roundtable: What about somebody who has been a devout person, such as the Emily Rose character?
Boardman: (laughs) This is a question I am only going to get asked at this table. But it is an important theological question that deserves an answer. I had to answer that question for myself in the process of working on this movie. And the manner in which I would answer it, and I am going to try to choose my words carefully to give my exact answer - I do not believe that a spirit-filled Christian can become demon possessed. However, what I will say is that for every one of those theological rules that we like to systematically create, there are often exceptions. For instance, I don’t believe that God will tell me to commit a sin, but He told Abraham to murder his son. I think that there are sometimes exceptions to the rule.
I was not particularly interested in that question in relation to this movie. I tried to construct a screenplay in such a way that it did not become a central question, because it is too hard a question to try to answer with a movie. It just is.
I think this movie is intended to stretch and provoke everyone who sees it, including Christians; including Believers. Because it did that to me. That’s one of the reasons why I thought it was a worthwhile story. When we got into the making of the movie I thought, there is a way of constructing this thing so that there is no easy way for anyone to wrap it up. I think that is the sign of a good picture if a movie can do that.
Derrickson: It’s not like “The Exorcist” where they go back to the typical explanation of the little girl playing with Captain Howdy and Ouija Boards and that sort of things. It is not as simple as that. I think this movie is much more about once Emily Rose is in the state that she is in, asking the questions of what does that mean. Trying to figure out how she got there is not explained. It is going to stretch our parameters. There are things we don’t know. Part of it is, that is not what the movie is really about. It is more about the choice she makes at the end.
Roundtable: Talk about the decision to not show Emily as a normal person, other than that one short scene.
Boardman: That was purely practical. We have one scene where she gets her college acceptance letter. This is really two complete movies – a complete courtroom story and it is a complete horror film. And to get these two movies down to the length of one movie there was a lot of stuff that had to go. To be honest, it was all about room.
Derrickson: But it wasn’t like there was a lot of scenes left on the cutting room floor. We had to shorthand a lot of things about character back story. And in some ways that’s just good storytelling. It was a big concern that the audience would only see her in this horrible state. But I think that Jennifer Carpenter (who plays Emily Rose) is both so terrifying in what she does physically throughout this movie that it makes it very credible. But she is very empathetic. My heart goes out to this girl, even though I see her almost from the beginning undergoing these terrible experiences.
Roundtable: I think it is effective that you didn’t go overboard with the special effects.
Boardman: That was a deliberate choice. When you make a movie with this subject matter you have to reckon with “The Exorcist” and what a popular film that was. I think that we both felt that we would get around that problem by making a much more realistic movie.
Roundtable: Was one of the reason this film was greenlighted because of Hollywood’s supposed new attitude toward religious issues?
Boardman: I can’t speak to why any film gets greenlighted, but it was greenlit the weekend after “The Passion” opened. (laughs) It was also happened to be the weekend the head of Screen Gems read the script. I was very fortunate, because Clint Culpepper, the head of Screen Gems is not scared of this material. He likes the fact that it has spiritual content and never made any attempt to back off of that.
Roundtable: Can you comment from a protestant point of view on making a film that has strong Roman Catholic resonances?
Boardman: I am a protestant, but I have an appreciation for Roman Catholicism. I think when a writer sits down to deal with a character, it doesn’t matter what that writer’s religious beliefs are, their duty is to be 1 to those characters, and to let the passions and interests and convictions of that character shine through. If you don’t do that, when you let your own theological convictions step into the way of what characters think and feel, you end up writing bad stuff.
Mike Parker: You’ve made a movie that really centers around questions; questions of faith; the ultimate question being, ‘Either God exists, or he does not.’
Boardman: Yes. You have just encapsulated my reason for wanting to make this movie. It has been tough for me to feel so passionate about my faith, and to care about it, to live my life in a religious community, and to be such a lover of cinema, and to have cinema be so void of good religious subject matter. At least in the modern era, the cinema treats religion almost the way sex was treated in the 1950s. If you just watched our movies you wouldn’t even know it was part of our culture.
What I wanted to do was write something that wasn’t propaganda, that wasn’t about trying to persuade people to think the way that I do, but recognize the fundamental importance of those essential questions. Does the spiritual realm exist? Is there a devil, and more importantly is there a God? And if so, what are the implications of that? I don’t care what you believe, those are questions to be reckoned with. I am very unabashed about the fact that I think that everybody has to reckon with those questions. Everybody has to answer those questions, and in some ways everyone lives their life based on what they believe about those questions.
Parker: You also made a compelling, frightening, and entertaining movie. What was your primary purpose?
Boardman: It was two fold. I see it like two rainbows on top of each other. The top rainbow, the overarching rainbow, was to make a scary, entertaining movie. People are plunking down their money to see be entertained. That’s what they are paying for. I didn’t want to dupe them, and give them something they didn’t pay for. That was my job. That’s what I was hired to do. The secondary intellectual and artistic intention was what we’ve just talked about.
* “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” is rated PG-13 by the MPAA “for thematic material including intense/frightening sequences and disturbing images.” This reviewer highly recommends parents see the film before deciding whether it is appropriate for their children.