EW CINEMATOGRAPHERS HAVE HAD SUCH A HIGH SUCCESS RATE AS FIVE-TIME OSCAR NOMINEE OWEN ROIZMAN. Along with The Exorcist, Roizman’s credits include The French Connection, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Stepford Wives, Network and Tootsie, plus various collaborations with directors as diverse as Woody Allen, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford and Lawrence Kasdan. Roizman, who’s featured prominently in the new documentary features on Warner Bros.’ Blu-ray release of The Exorcist details capturing evil at 24 frames-per-second.
Friedkin has described his filmmaking style from that period, which includes The Exorcist and The French Connection, as “induced documentary.” Is this accurate? As far as The Exorcist goes, we never talked about a documentary look. We just talked about making it look real, with the intent that if you keep it real – looking real, feeling real – it helps suck the audience in a little more, like they’re not just watching some hyped-up horror film, that they’re actually feeling a part of it.
What was the most difficult sequence to shoot? Well, the only effects that were difficult for me to photograph was anything that in- volved Linda [Blair] being on wires – when she’s floating up off of the bed during the exorcism and, of course, the old famous spider walk [re-introduced to the film in the 2000 re-release] which didn’t work at the time because we just couldn’t hide the wires well enough. Hiding the wires when she levitated was a challenge too, but fortunately I’d had some experience doing that from when I was shooting commer- cials, so I knew what to do – a couple of little tricks that I’d learned.
How about the most iconic image in the film: Father Merrin getting out of a cab in the fog and standing in front of the house, silhouetted in a shaft of light. That was the biggest challenge of the movie, no question about it. We came out there to shoot the scene and Billy had made a rough little sketch on a piece of paper. We discussed what he was looking for and he said, “Okay, see you later,” and took off. I took the shade that was on the window and just pulled it up and put a big light back in there and some smoke in the shot. It was pretty simple and straightforward. We got it lit up and he came back and said, “Wait, you can’t do that – we have to have the shade down.” I said, “Well, how can a beam of light come through the shade?” He said, “You figure it out.” So we actually had to wrap that night – didn’t even shoot it. Came back a second night and we took the frame of the window out, moved [the window and the shade] back about eight feet or something, put the light next to the shade and shone it out the win- dow. Then we lit the street in two directions and had the cab drive up. But when
you see that iconic image in stills, that was actually taken during a rehearsal – the still photographer jumped in and shot that picture.
Friedkin’s bad behaviour is legendary, with cast and crew reporting verbal and occasionally even physical abuse. Yet, they all seem to forgive him. How would you describe the atmosphere on set? He was never abusive to me, so I can’t, from a personal standpoint, relate to that. As far as forgiving him? He was a taskmaster and he drove people really hard and he insulted a lot of people. By and large, let’s face it, people forgive people in this business for one reason: they need to work. And there were times on The Exorcist – many times – when I just thought, “This isn’t worth it. “ But in my case, it was early in my career and I figured I could use another good credit. I couldn’t survive on just The French Connection. So I stuck it out, and was glad I did. I’m probably the only cinematographer who’s done two films with Billy!
Where do you rank The Exorcist among your films? If somebody thought that I was a flash in the pan after The French Connection – I never did hear that, but let’s say somebody did think that – then The Exor- cistwould have solidified things because it was a com- pletely different looking film, which I took great pride in. … The funny thing is, with Rue Morguemagazine being for horror fans, Billy never referred to The Exorcist as a horror film. He always referred to it as being about spirituality.
William Peter Blatty has called it a “supernatural detective story” and Linda Blair now describes it as a “theological thriller.” Well, I have to tell you, I always thought it was a horror film.
43RM
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