Heeeerrrre's Johnny! Based off the Stephen King novel, "The Shining" finds Kubrick at his scariest. At the Michigan, 7 p.m. R .TS michigandaily.com /arts TUESDAY MARCH 21, 2000 5 SClassic 'Exorcist' repossesses the silver screen Writer pleased by film renovations - By Aaron Rich Daily Arts Writer If there is one thing I hate most about money-hungry Hollywood executives and directors it would be that after mak- ing a successful y The Exorcist Grade: A At Showcase y sions are mostly never impress. movie (read: "The Abyss," "Natural Born Killers," "Star Wars") they see the opportuni- ty to profit further from the same film and release a "new director's cut," frequently including a new ending, new char- acters who had been cut out of the original or new twists in the mid- dle. The new ver- hype and generally bit miffed. What could they possibly do to change the story? I thought. How could they make it any better? I'll admit right now that my doubts were dead wrong. The new version of "The Exorcist" is essentially the same film that I have come to love with an additional II minutes - made up most- ly of two scenes and a few other singular shots - that were cut out of the original reels in order to make the film fit the 120 minute mold. These newly added shots do not change much of the story. Instead they embellish subtle aspects of the plot in order to smooth out previously rocky, if forgivable, transitions. The film revolves around young Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), a 12- year girl who is possessed by-a demon. As her predicament worsens and her mother runs out of neurological and psychological explanations, she turns to a Jesuit at Georgetown University, Father Karras (Jason Miller), who, along with an older, more experienced priest, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), performs the rite that the Catholic Church has apparently had in the closet for hundreds of years. In terms of new scenes, aside from s Courtesy of Warner Bros. Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) performs the exorcism on Regan (Linda Blair). two brief shots at the beginning and end that feel as though they could have been in the original, there are two major ones. One of Karras listening to an audio tape of Regan recorded before her possession and one of the girl getting a check up at the doctor's office as her demonic symptoms begin to appear. There are also many small surprises waiting to jump out at sea- soned fans, including a bizarre crab- walk down the stairs. Perhaps the greatest achievement of this version is the re-mastered digital audio track. What was already a film filled with striking sound effects and an eerie score is made more menacing and frightening. Small audio details, such as airplanes flying overhead and cacophonous voices from the pos- sessed girl underline the already- thrilling sights. Don't get me wrong, the original version of "The Exorcist" remains spectacular - the new additions do not affect that feeling. But the con- temporary cut works wonders touch- ing up small, old holes and support- ing the brilliant performances by Miller and von Sydow (neither of whom need much help). Unlike so many other new versions of old movies, this new version of "The Exorcist" simply enhances the film with footage from the original shoot rather than changing the story and adding newly shot footage. These pure additions are a welcome treat. By Aaron Rich Daily Arts Writer William Peter Blatty, the writer and producer of "The Exorcist;' told a story in a recent interview with The Michigan Daily about Pierre Bonnard, the French painter, who goes into, the Louvre to touch-up one of his paintings on the wall. "The Security guards come upon this old man sitting in front of a famous Bonnard painting with a brush and he's touching it up. And they ran and they grabbed him as he was a desecrator. And he shouts 'But I am Bonnard.' And he was - he decided he could make it bet- ter" Blatty said. In his analogy, William Friedkin, the director of the film, is the French artist who decided to fix up his masterpiece after it had already been accepted by the establishment, simply because he felt that he could "make it better." Blatty, too, felt that the film, which has been re-released with formerly unused footage inserted, could be helped by a bit of work. "This (new version) is the first cut Billy (Friedkin) showed me. It was the original script. I watched it (in 1973) on a movieola (projection machine) and it took my breath away. And then Billy went back to the Burbank studio and the next I knew these I I minutes had been cut out of it," Blatty said. He explained that Friedkin and the stu- dio felt that the original 133 minute cut was too long for most audiences, and that a more streamlined 122 minute cut would work better. "I think (the new version) is wonder- ful. I've been waiting so long for this to happen. I been trying to get Billy to do this for 20 years," Blatty said. The writer began his screenwriting career in comedy, writing such Blake Edwards classics as "A Shot in the Dark" and "Gunn." "But when the comedy dried up in Hollywood and I couldn't get a job writing anything serious, I though I'd try ("The Exorcist"). Blatty was originally inspired to write the story of possession when he read about a real exorcism in Maryland while an undergraduate at Georgetown University. "I thought 'My God, if this could be researched what a tremendous boost to wavering faith this could be,"' Blatty said. After publishing the book in 1971, Blatty got together with director William Friedkin, who had just finished "The French Connection," and single-handed- ly wrote and produced the film, which was originally released in 1973. He said that most of the writing came naturally, though some parts were harder than others to put down on paper. He mentions the explicit and disturbing expletives uttered by young Regan MacNeil, the protagonist 12-year-old girl who is possessed by a demon, were espe- cially difficult to write and listen to. "Throughout the years, I've always insisted that I didn't write any of (the obscene lines) - (the demon) made them up," Blatty laughed. "It really wasn't thrilling." "And through the years," Blatty contin- ued, "I've never heard those lines really clearly on the optical soundtrack (the tra- ditional method of cinema sound). The first time I heard it in digital this time, I cringed because I could really hear it and understand it - it's so in-your-face." A new-digital soundtrack is only one of the new additions to the original reels. In the wake of the original release, the film has seeped its way into the common vernacular, most recently in the Congressional confirmation hear- ings of Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991. When information about Thomas' alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill, the country learned about the now-infamous line by Thomas, "There's a pubic hair in my drink." In fact, this is originally Blatty's line from "The Exorcist." "I was watching the hearings that day and all of a sudden I hear 'The Exorcist.' I looked up and I see (Senator Orin) Hatch holding a copy of the book. I yelled out to my wife, 'You will not believe what I'm seeing. I nearly fell off my chair,"' said Blatty. This is an interesting comment from the man who has made viewers hide under their chairs in fear for 27 years. Suffice to say that when I heard that Warner Bros. was releasing a new cut of William Friedkin's "The Exorcist," a film that is all-too-frequently dismissed as a "simple horror flick" and not fully appreciated for its true greatness, I was a "Blau' a clear 'Vision' of an artistic life By Ad Melber For the Dailv On the cover of Ursula Hegi's "The Vision of Emma Blau" there is a soft- focus oval painting in a cubist style. As in most cubist work, the small, piece-meal items in the image combine to create a larger picture. This is an appropriate artistic style to blanket Hegi's novel, for as one moves through the meticulously 5 Grade: A- The Vision of Emma Blau Ursela Hegi Simon and Schuster detailed portraits of characters from three generations and two hemi- spheres, a greater vision of the beau- ty and faults of humanity rises. In this sense, Hegi is a cubist writer, always halting to add more history to a character's drive him from New York City to the small New Hampshire town of Winnipesaukee, where he resides for the rest of his life. In Winnipesaukee Stefan builds a fam- ily and a grand apartment complex on the town's lake. Natural tragedies make his family crumble around him quicker and more often than his beloved brick struc- ture, reinforcing the contrast between those achievements one can guarantee with persistence and those one can only be thankful for. The years wear on and the Blaus' tragedies fade, though the scars that they leave shape the fears, atti- tudes and relationships of every family member. As Hegi walks us through Stefan Blau's second and third genera- tions, the details and context provide a rich framework that lets readers care immensely about the characters. If there is a generation gap between Stefan and his children and grandchil- dren, it has more to do with personality than time. The greatest difference is his status as an immigrant and their place as native-born American -citizens. As one who dreamed and worked for that goal, Stefan appreciates it far more than they do. However it is more than an issue of earning one's home, but rather having one at all. For after all the years in New Hampshire, Stefan and his wife still feel alienated by American culture and pro- gressively less in touch with their German roots. They find that when they return to Burgdorf for a special occasion, their friends tell them they have an accent in German. This bothers his wife immensely, for she explains 'that means I have an accent in both languages now ... It marks me, instead of feeling con- nected to both countries, I belong to nei- ther one." Beyond the separations and differences that people impose on each other, there is a commonality of the human condition that Hegi alludes to throughout the text without ever explicitly asserting it. The closest she comes is while exploring the anti-German sentiments froi World War 11, when flegi casually mentions that Burgdorf was "a town no larger than the town of Winnipesaukee." This compari- son adds to what readers already know about the people in these two towns; they share the same hopes, fears, joys and tragedies, while differing in languages and customs. Like most of her themes, Hegi shows readers these details without prescribing a way to think about them, though the poignancy of a society focused on distinction rather than harmony is clear. One must look hard to find faults with this book. Readers may grow tired of Hegi's device of relating char- acters' actions to their family histories or her infusion of great meaning into seemingly insignificant events. But "The Vision of Emma Blau" is a tremendous work of modern fiction. It is a psychological character novel of family and time that should appeal to anyone interested in people. 1 fears, more context to a particular exchange, or more nuances to a set- ting without losing sight of the larger pic- ture she is painting. This picture begins in Burgdorf, Germany in 1894, where a young man named Stefan Blau dreams of America, both as a place and an idea. Hegi writes that "America had grafted itself into his mind so tenaciously that he had dreams of it every single night, dreams of an odd and magnificent landscape ... inhabited by buffaloes and by buildings so tall they pierced the clouds." Settling in New York City, Stefan finds he has much more control over his life and future than he ever thought possible. But as Stefan's control over the tangible elements of his life increases, problems beyond the human realm befall him, and Apply now at the Law Library *non-Law Students *Law Students 9..Students Apply in person: Room S-180 in the Law Library's under- ground addition, 8-noon and 1-5 Monday through Friday. AA/EOE Want to L " LOITJ I I L Ls t a t /I 1! ]*" over the lnternet?---think A number of Web sites now make it possible to locate and download music in a digital format called MPEG-1 layer 3, or MP3 sites (for example, napster.com). These sites allow people to select music files, transfer them over the Internet, and store and play them on a personal computer. While this may sound like a great idea, using the Internet for MP3 access may create serious problems for you and others who use computing resources at the University of Michigan. Before downloading electronic music files from MP3 Web sites, please consider the following: Transferring large music files may overload the network and degrade services All of us in the University community rely on the network to get our work done. Transferring large MP3 files can slow the network making it less responsive or even unavailable to you and to others. Q..uestions or to suuscr ive Laii i-uVVIu-xou.