MovieChat Forums > The Exorcist (1973) Discussion > Why make Reagan's mom a movie star? Wha...

Why make Reagan's mom a movie star? What did that add to the plot?


Yes, I am aware that W.P. Blatty based the characters on Shirley MacLaine and her daughter, but what did the movie star angle bring to the story?

Yes, she had a circle of illustrious friends, but that could have been accomplished in a more suitable way for the Washington setting by having her be a politician. Anyway, all the parties and guests didn't add much beyond the scenes where Reagan acts unacceptably in front of the guests.

We didn't see anything specific to a movie star in the film other than the one film set scene. No gossip columnists pursuing the story of the strange things happening to the daughter of this big star, nothing. The drunk director could have been a senator or some other politico to match the DC setting.

For all they did with it, I don't see any reason for Reagan's mom to have been a public celebrity at all. She could have been just some regular single mom and perhaps her situation would have been even more relatable for the audience.

While I am on this topic, do you think that having the death of Burke Jennings (the drunk director) occur offscreen was a mistake? I admit I did not associate the head-twisting scene with his murder until fairly recently. I had just thought of it as Pazuzu wanting to do something hideous and shocking.

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Burstyn's character being a famous actress not only sets the stakes higher for her, but for us. That character has every resource available to her, but can't save her daughter no matter what choice she makes. The juxtaposition of having her bounced back and forth like a ping pong ball from the medical to the religious without any hope in sight WHILE being famous, rich, having servants and everything else at her fingertips makes her dilemma even more harrowing. Not only that, there is a level of shadenfreude (sp) with the audience: it's more "fun" to watch a privileged person scramble; if a single mom went through all this it would just be too bleak.

I love the offscreen killing of Dennings. Just imagining what he must have gone through is way more disturbing than anything onscreen. Just like Polanski did in Rosemary's Baby: we never see the baby. Our imaginations fill in the blanks and scare us more.

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Didn't Father Merrin take the same fall as the director,

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They seemed to want to set her character up as spoiled and rich, but not *so* spoiled and rich that she doesn't have a job at all and just hangs out at the house 24/7. At the same time, if she were, say, a successful business woman she probably wouldn't be spoiled enough. It seems having her be an actress was the happy medium .

As for why they wanted her to be spoiled and rich in the first place, recall that the demon aims to cause everyone to lose hope, and eventually have everyone give up on poor Regan (in this case have her institutionalized full-time in a mental facility), even her parents. Choosing to possess a girl with an absentee father and an overindulged mother is the demon stacking the odds in its favor.

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Keeping Burke's death off screen kept the focus on the drama elements of the movie and allowed the horror elements a more pronounced punch at the end.

For what it's worth, I consider The Exorcist a much better drama film than a horror film.

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