The Ninth Configuration

[clerkguy23]

I just saw this for this first time recentely and I was completely blown away. The directing, writing, photography, acting--all of it is wonderful. Stacy Keach and Scott Wilson give probably the best performances of their careers, not to mention the dialogue between the two of them is impecably written. I can't say enough good things about this movie.

Has anyone seen William Peter Blatty's Exorcist III? I always avoided it for obvious reasons but now I'm somewhat interested. I've read some good stuff about it.

[Split Infinitive]

I just saw this for this first time recentely and I was completely blown away. The directing, writing, photography, acting--all of it is wonderful. Stacy Keach and Scott Wilson give probably the best performances of their careers, not to mention the dialogue between the two of them is impecably written. I can't say enough good things about this movie.

Has anyone seen William Peter Blatty's Exorcist III? I always avoided it for obvious reasons but now I'm somewhat interested. I've read some good stuff about it.

I just finished watching it today (after three weeks of taking it in piecemeal), and I'm somewhat impressed that the film worked at all, considering how unclassifiable it is.  Definitely a film I want to revisit in the future, now that I know where it was all going.  I read just a few minutes ago that Cutshaw is the astronaut that Regan tells in The Exorcist, "You're going to die up there," and that Blatty considered this to be the true sequel to the Exorcist (as opposed to Exorcist II, I guess).  That makes a lot of sense, given that the film builds more and more into a theological treatise, albeit a somewhat unfocused one.  I still haven't decided if its freewheeling tone works entirely in its favor or not.  There is a lot to love about it, but I'm withholding that judgment until I ponder it some more. For the entire movie, I couldn't figure out where I'd seen the actor who played Cutshaw before.  He was amazing.  Then I watched the credits and realized that I'd recently watched him in Junebug, where he gave a performance that easily equalled Amy Adams, or even surpassed it (yet remains largely overlooked).  Jason Miller is a hoot in here.  Most of the actors have some great lines, but he really launches off his nut.  I do highly recommend the film.  I'm glad you brought it up. 

*SPOILERS*

What did you make of Kane's little barroom massacre near the end?  Did that undercut what he'd been preaching or does the film exempt his behavior because he was doing it to save Cutshaw?  (After all, it's not like the bikers weren't asking for it...)  Also, does Blatty take his premise a little too far with the inclusion of the St. Christopher medallion in the end?  The rest of the film has a "magic realism" vibe to it, but that's the only moment where the film steps outside the bounds of the natural into the supernal.  I think it worked for me, but I could see it being especially problematic... 

[clerkguy23]

What did you make of Kane's little barroom massacre near the end?  Did that undercut what he'd been preaching or does the film exempt his behavior because he was doing it to save Cutshaw?  (After all, it's not like the bikers weren't asking for it...)  Also, does Blatty take his premise a little too far with the inclusion of the St. Christopher medallion in the end?  The rest of the film has a "magic realism" vibe to it, but that's the only moment where the film steps outside the bounds of the natural into the supernal.  I think it worked for me, but I could see it being especially problematic...

I think the barroom scene at the end is completely justified in that Kane was/is a killer. It's the other extreme of how he acts in the rest of the movie and I think it works really well because of that. You're expecting him to save Cutshaw but you have no clue how devestating the damage will be. Other than that, I'm still not sure if the end worked for me. The more I think about it and after seeing it again the following day it felt really cheesy and predictable. I like that it's such a hopeful ending-I wasn't looking for it to be depressing-but I feel like they could have made it a little more subtle. Were there alternate endings? I feel like there must have been.

[Split Infinitive]

I think the barroom scene at the end is completely justified in that Kane was/is a killer. It's the other extreme of how he acts in the rest of the movie and I think it works really well because of that. You're expecting him to save Cutshaw but you have no clue how devestating the damage will be. Other than that, I'm still not sure if the end worked for me. The more I think about it and after seeing it again the following day it felt really cheesy and predictable. I like that it's such a hopeful ending-I wasn't looking for it to be depressing-but I feel like they could have made it a little more subtle. Were there alternate endings? I feel like there must have been.

There may very well have been alternate endings, but honestly, I've been getting more and more dissatisfied with knowing "what might have been."  I watched just enough of the little documentary on the DVD I watched to know that the version of The Ninth Configuration I saw is Blatty's definitive version.  For me, that's all I need to know.  For some reason, I've been finding that the deleted scenes often distract me from the film itself.  If the director comes out with a "director's cut" or something, then I'll give that a shot under the assumption that it will be closer to what he really wanted me to see, as opposed to the theatrical cut.

That said, I've been sliding more towards the point of view that you expressed about the optimism of the ending.  I also feared a relentless downer, but was pleasantly surprised.  What I thought Blatty was doing was leave Cutshaw standing in the doorway of the office at the end; maybe even just driving off.  But the medallion... I don't know.  I mean, he was cured.  It worked.  He seems to have found peace, maybe even with God.  Then he finds the medallion.  It's like putting a teaspoon of sugar on top of the cherry.  I couldn't have predicted that ending from the beginning, but after he came back out of the castle, I was pretty sure something like that was going to happen.  Then again... maybe it was full closure.  It made sense thematically, even if it was a bit cheesy...

The barroom brawl was consistent with Kane's character, but I guess it was just problematic, because Blatty seemed to be posing Kane as the obligatory Christ figure, and a fairly obvious component of Christ is the nonviolence.  Maybe Blatty was rolling the Christ of Galilee and the Christ of Judgment Day into one -- preaching forgiveness and peace, while dishing out vengeance to the unrepentant sinners to protect the innocent.  Then again, the fight was filmed to emphasize the horror of the violence -- it actually reminded me of a scene in Darkman where Liam Neeson flips out and breaks a carney's fingers (maybe Raimi took a cue from Blatty).  Kane doesn't come off as the hero in that scene, even though it was set up in such a way that his response was, in most respects, fully justified.  It was just hypocritical.