The Exorcist Movie - Essay Example

The Exorcist Sur s It’ s already the 21st century and science is able to explain almost all phenomena which a few centuriesago were considered to be mysteries of nature and were under the power of religion. Religion was the main instrument to explain the phenomena that mankind was not able to understand. Even though nowadays religion has lost its previous influence, Bible still insists on the existence of a higher power which in its own way directs earthly life, its fate and destiny. And that is one of the reasons why scientists do not like to talk about obsession. A great number of facts, both in the Bible and mental hospital records, describe incomprehensible events, while professors make us understand that they see nothing worth discussing. Thus, in this work I am going to investigate the correlation between scientific and non-scientific explanations of the obsession, and will analyze how this disorder was portrayed in the movie “Exorcist” The plot of the film “Exorcist” (1973) describes a prosperous family of actress Chris MacNeil. A trouble suddenly comes to her place: her 14-year-old daughter is in the grip of an unknown disease. In the first stage lung symptoms resemble a mental disorder. Girl seriously goes through a divorce of parents and feels abandoned by beloved father, who even forgot to wish her a happy birthday. Thus she looks for understanding friends in the spirit world. Imaginary friend Captain Howdy is always ready to talk with the girl, unlike her always busy mother (Canby, 151). The course of treatment does not bring the desired results. Furthermore, the girls condition has deteriorated significantly; she began to behave more aggressive, rush on relatives. Thus, medics concluded, that the girl suffers from disorder of the frontal lobes of the brain. That was their diagnosis, but it could not explain the metamorphosis in the behavior and appearance of the child. Inexplicable for science and spontaneously moving furniture, unbearable odors, a mans voice speaking in an unknown language through the mouth of the girl, and sudden death prediction of her mothers friend and director Burke Denings. As a result, a council of eighty doctors recommends exorcism. On a background of a terrible tragedy in the family of MacNeil, director very professionally shows another life disaster - this time bad luck doomed to suffer a young priest famous psychiatrist, who seems to have completely lost faith after the death of his mother. Sure, he blames himself, because he not only failed to help her in difficult times, but even wasnt near during that terrible hour. He failed to support her both as a doctor and as a servant of the Lord. As we see, the actress, Chris MacNeil, and the priest, Lankester Merrin, are far from being in the best period of their life. But thats what makes them. They can help each other, but whether this aid bilaterally - that is the question. By agreeing to the rite of exorcism, the priest consciously signs his own death warrant, because the enemy does not know own weakness. His opponent does not know reproach and pity, he is fearless and powerful. So, it turns to be clear that in case of young Miss MacNeil we deal with trance and obsession, which are disorders that cause a temporary loss of sense of personal identity as well as a full awareness of the surroundings. Perhaps, her individual actions were controlled and provoked by another person (still, this person may be not even aware about such huge impact on other person’s life). The main causes of disorders are psychological trauma and mental stress, caused in case of MacNeil family, by quarrels and divorce. The main symptoms of obsession were the loss of a sense of personal identity and awareness of surroundings. Attention and consciousness of the girl were focused on one or two aspects of the immediate environment and often were limited by repeated set of movements, postures and expressions. All these symptoms accurately portray the obsession disorder of the girl. According to the ideas of behaviorism, the reasons of obsession, from which suffers the main hero of the film, are solely external. Obsession was firstly caused, and later controlled by various changes in the external environment. Religious behavior within behaviorism is understood as a set of reactions to certain stimuli, including religious education, family education and the pressure of the social environment. All this was surrounding the girl. What could help her is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and its tools to examine the thoughts, feelings and beliefs that lie behind her behavior, Generally, the disorder was portrayed accurately. According to DSM-IV, “possession trance involves replacement of the customary sense of personal identity by a new identity, attributed to the influence of a spirit, power, deity or other person and associated with stereotyped involuntary movements or amnesia”. In addition, all these alterations were chronic and involved conflict and her surrounding, which mean that possession was pathological. Still, several other symptoms could be shown in their development while describing Miss MacNeil’s obsession. One of them is the automatism - the emergence of emotions, movements, thoughts, images, ideas and other things without the will and desire of the patient. Secondly, it is dysphoria - maliciously anger condition, accompanied by extreme irritability and propensity for aggression. Finally, the girl in the film for sure should experience hallucinations (a form of mental disorder during which there is no real perception of the stimulus; person sees, hears or feels something that does not perceive the surrounding), delusions (false conclusions that are not grounded in reality and not amenable to logical dissuasion), depersonalization (a disorder of consciousness, subjective feeling changed their mental and physical properties), coprolalia (systematic blockage of speech, insane, abusive, obscene words, cynical expressions), persecutory delusions (delusional beliefs of the patient in the impact from the outside which cause him moral or physical harm) and Cotard delusion (delusions, accompanied by confidence in future tortures, prolonged and painfully cruel, which will be subject to both the patient and his family and friends) (Bourguignon, 16-27). Though such symptoms are common among those who suffer from obsession, film director didn’t show their progress. Nevertheless, it is rather interesting to find the scientific explanation for the things described in the film, as it would portray the obsession disorder more carefully. Modern medicine treats obsession as a special case of mental disorder. The so-called obsessed people experience classic symptoms of hysteria, mania, psychosis, Tourettes syndrome, epilepsy, schizophrenia or multiple personality. And the reason for such disorder turns to be rather rational. For instance, the story of "Achilles", described by a psychiatrist Pierre Janet, shows the life of a man who suffered from fake “obsession” because he felt his fault for cheating his wife. Thus, his psychological problems have been solved and he could return to the family as soon as he was excused by his wife (Andriopoulos, 71). While investigating the phenomena of women and possession trance, it was found out that another reason for possession disorder is experiencing of powerlessness, particularly among the women. In this case possession trance constitutes a psychodynamic response by providing means for the gratification of wished, which usually were unachievable. The performance of such possession demonstrates the total identification of the human individual with the possessing entity (Bourguignon, 563, 572). Thus, in reality, exorcism won’t help her. Even drugs, though they may be highly effective, do not worth neglecting to expose patients to the full array of treatments which may help her better (Quarterly, 44).It’s important to motivate people to change, but not just use psychiatric drugs. Still, it is rather logical that the film director uses the horror genre and mystic charge as the only possible way to explain the existence of something beyond science, medicine and other achievements of modern and postmodern era. The spokesmen for this point of view are such famous personalities as Alan Kardec and Emanuel Swedenborg. According to them, the souls of people who died of sudden death, and the soul of villains, who gained no peace because of their crimes are often not aware of their death and become wandering pilgrims of eternity. They attract people of a similar mind. The spirits share with them their lives and experiences (Kardec, 169). Thats what priest needs to find such “faith” after the loss of his mother, participating in the rite of exorcism. So everyone who watched this picture for sure would ask himself a question whether the "obsession" is an illusion or a fact. There were also some more symptoms shown in the film, which cannot be explained by science. They are spontaneously moving furniture, unbearable odors, a mans voice speaking in an unknown language through the mouth of the girl. It reminds us that mental illness and obsession is not always the same. If there are any psychopathological disorders (emotional disturbance, psychomotor agitation) the signs of violence are mandatory. And the fact that there was no obvious logical explanation for the phenomena of obsession in the film, made a successful horror story. To sum up I would like to say that despite all above-mentioned facts about the nature of obsession disorder and modern approaches to its curing I won’t recommend the film director to portray the disorder more accurately. Film is the work of art, and that is the most important. Though for me after my investigations became obvious some logical mistakes and inaccuracy in description of the disease, I would better enjoy a wonderful horror story as usual person who has no particular interest in psychiatry. References 1. Andriopoulos, Stefan. (2008) Possessed: Hypnotic Crimes, Corporate Fiction, and the Invention of Cinema. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. < https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=OFne7KpdmQoC&lpg=PA71&ots=vgNApXJbdz&dq=Pierre%20Janet%20Achilles&hl=uk&pg=PA71#v=onepage&q=Pierre%20Janet%20Achilles&f=false> 2. Barber, Charles. (2008) The Brain: A Mindless Obsession. The Wilson Quarterly, 32(1), 32-44. 3. Bourguignon, E.(1973) Religion, altered states of consciousness and social change. Columbus: Ohio State University Press., 3-38. 4. Bourguignon, E. (2004) Suffering and Healing, Subordination and Power: Women and Possession Trance. Ethos, 32(4), 557-574. 5. Canby, Vincent. (1974) The New York Times review reprinted in The Story Behind The Exorcist , written by Peter Travers and Stephanie Rieff, Signet Books: 150–152. 6. Kardec, Allan. The Spirit’s Book: Spiritualist Philosophy. Rio: FEDERAÇÃO BRASILEIRA. < http://www.allankardec.com/Allan_Kardec/Le_livre_des_esprits/lesp_us.pdf> 7. Ferracuti, Stefano & Sacco, Roberto.(1996) Dissociative Trance Disorder: Clinical and Rorschach Findings in Ten Persons Reporting Demon Possession and Treated by Exorcism. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66(3), 525-539 Read More