***EXCLUSIVE!*** - CALEB CARR TALKS 'EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING!'
Caleb Carr is a New York Times Best-selling author who has written the critically acclaimed novels THE ALIENIST (an absolutely fascinating historical thriller), THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS and KILLING TIME. What is not often known are his recent ventures into the world of film. Carr has been featured in our pages recently due to his involvement on EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING, where he penned the screenplay based on an original script by William Wisher, Jr.
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING has had a number of celebrated cinematic artists behind the camera, though not always in a harmonious relationship. Problems began when John Frankenheimer, one of the greatest directors in history, developed health problems that eventually led to his passing. Paul Schrader (CAT PEOPLE, AUTO-FOCUS, AFFLICTION) took over for the late John Frankenehimer. Some reports have said he clashed with Oscar-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (AMADEUS, THE LAST EMPORER, APOCALYPSE NOW, etc.).
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING has had a number of celebrated cinematic artists behind the camera, though not always in a harmonious relationship. Problems began when John Frankenheimer, one of the greatest directors in history, developed health problems that eventually led to his passing. Paul Schrader (CAT PEOPLE, AUTO-FOCUS, AFFLICTION) took over for the late John Frankenehimer. Some reports have said he clashed with Oscar-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (AMADEUS, THE LAST EMPORER, APOCALYPSE NOW, etc.).
It continued last month when Schrader fired off a claim to The Independent that Morgan Creek rejected his final cut, saying that wanted more vomit and gore (read about that here. He also claimed that the people at Morgan Creek never read the script before giving everyone the go-ahead. Reports circulated that Schrader was fired days later, but no one was able to get any concrete info (again, go here to get the skinny on that chapter).
Now, Caleb Carr has graciously answered many of our questions. He describes how the project came about, his view on how the project has progressed and clears the air on some of the confusion surrounding the recent controversy.
Save for a small blurb at the beginning, the following questions and answers appear in their entirety. Horror Express would like to give its most sincere thanks to Caleb Carr for taking the time to answer our questions.
HORROR EXPRESS: First, let's just get it out of the way. [ The New York Post's ] Page Six has reported that Paul Schrader was fired after turning in his final cut. We have a story up now, but frankly, Page Six is not always the most reliable source. Is this news true and if so, what is your reaction on what this entails for the future of the picture?CALEB CARR: ...While [ Page Six ] sometimes make mistakes, they are (like those that appear in most tabloids) errors of rumor, not of malice. And (again, like most tabloids), it is usually far more reliable than most people in the Entertainment business would like. All that said, I can confirm that Paul Schrader's connection with the film has been concluded, by mutual agreement. More details than that, I do not know. As for my reaction and the future of the film, I am heartened by the departure of a director who had apparently taken on the project not because he loved it, but for a paycheck and as a way to get (by his own public statement) "back" into the mainstream of commercial films (his previous solid lock on commercialism apparently having been that landmark of popular culture, CAT PEOPLE). Mr. Schrader has left us with a good amount of useable material which, when cut in with necessary reshoots, should make up a fine film; but in the future, I'd hope that he would have more respect for the work of others than to treat it as a tool with which to gain his private, unconnected, pragmatic goals.
HE: Going back to the beginning, how did you become involved in EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING?
CC: By finding it in the script storeroom at Morgan Creek. I was working on a polish job for another project, and stumbled on [ William ] Wisher's script. It had one of the best opening scenes I've ever read (which I kept, with some alterations), but the rest of it lacked anything new, and didn't recognize the strong shift in recent horror from the physical to the psychological; so it had to go. I begged Morgan Creek for almost two years to let me have a crack at rewriting it, and they finally agreed; but their enthusiasm only really took off after the re-release of the original. Contrary to popular belief, we were already well into work on the script at that time.
HE: Were you a big fan of William Peter Blatty's novels? Not just THE EXORCIST, but LEGION and THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (a.k.a. TWINKLE, TWINKLE KILLER KANE)?
CC: No. Blatty's province is the horror of evil; I, on the other hand, don't believe that what people like Blatty call "evil" actually exists. The quality of evil, like Satan himself, is far more nuanced - although his methods can be heavy-handed, at times, of course; but I think he starts out with the subtle and seductive.
HE: What approach did you want to take for the film?
CC: As I say, recognizing that we now have a public that is interested in nuanced, psychological horror, and that views the original film, for all its scary moments, as comedy in addition to horror: the buildup, the subtler moments. We now think of the green vomit and "Your mother sucks cocks in Hell" as being more SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE material than classic horror.
HE: When you wrote THE ALIENIST and THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS, a lot of historical research obviously went into it. How did that help on the EXORCIST script, and what kind of things did you have to dig into in order to make things convincing?
CC: I used the same research methods, applying them to exorcism; and what I found was quite surprising. There is a lot of hard, first-hand research from sensible people about experiences with exorcism and possession, and I had to really get into that and understand that dealing with possession is like dealing with any sudden, horrifying tragedy: you don't stand around saying, "This is impossible." You deal with it, and leave the wondering for later.
HE: Did you work closely with John Frankenheimer? What was that like?
CC: John and I worked very closely by phone for several weeks before his health caused his withdrawl from the project. He wanted so much to stay, and I believe would have killed himself doing so, if his family hadn't stopped him. That says it all about John (He died shortly after leaving.). He was true old school: enormous respect for writers, a wonderful style, a great raconteur, and charm that covered (as it does in all great directors) the ability to kill for his pictures. A man more unlike Paul Schrader could scarcely be imagined: and as movies lose the Frankenheimers of the world and are increasingly dominated by the Schraders, the Scorceses and younger versions of artsy pretention like Sofia Coppola (People actually take this woman seriously?!?), we see the slow (or not so slow) dissapearance of the film for grown-ups. The best work in Hollywood is being done in either children's movies or genre stuff, because drama has been taken over completely by film school geeks posing at intellectuals. In short, I and the world will miss John awfully. He could put two people in a small room, have them talk for ten minutes, and make it cinematically compelling; that, they don't seem to be able to teach in film school.
HE: How did his passing effect the direction the film took?CC: It didn't affect the script much; Schrader's "rewrite" consisted, literally, of taking out some key dialogue scenes that he thought we "excessive" (meaning he couldn't stage them), and adding a couple of walk-on characters in an effort to get himself a writing credit. But as for direction, I guess somewhere along the shoot, when Paul realized his movie was neither physically or psychologically terrifying, he started calling it an "adventure" movie. Now, I've written adventures, but this wasn't one of them. This was a psychological horror-drama, and re-labeling it couldn't hide the inability to master that genre.
HE: How did you get along with Schrader and if you've seen his final cut, what was your reaction to it?
CC: I'll explain my relationship to Paul this way: when he first called me to talk about the script, we were on the phone for over hours, during all of which times the words "nice job" or "I like the script" never escaped him. He just banged on endlessly about his work and how much he knew about God, the Devil, Good and Evil. I didn't think much of it, at the time - pretty typical modern director/"auteur" behavior, really. But in retrospect, after seeing his lifeless cut, it does irk me. But what really pisses me off is the way in which he treated other key members of the project; although I have to let them speak for themselves. Safe to say, however, that when you have one of the greatest living cinematographers [ Vittorio Storaro ] on a project, and he's come on because he loves the script, you might want to listen to him.
HE: Does Morgan Creek's vision of the film match up with what Schrader wanted? What about Frankenheimer or yourself?
CC: All this crap about Morgan Creek wanting a conventional horror movie is just that: crap made up by Schrader to cover his ass, or rather to cover his lackluster cut. The only moments of what seems cheap physical horror were actually Paul's inept shooting of more subtly horrific stuff; but Morgan Creek didn't want those scenes even cheaper, they wanted them refined. I had written the script in an office at the company, everybody there read it many times over. They knew what they wanted, and they knew Frankenheimer could give it to them. Schrader's selection as John's replacement was baffling to most of us, and justified on the grounds that his name would "sell foreign": the mantra of modern marketing. In this as so many cases, however, playing it safe proved in practice to be very dangerous.
HE: It's certainly been a dramatic production history. Has this effected any possible screen adaptations of your novels such as THE ALIENIST or KILLING TIME? If an adaptation is in the works, how would you like to see that handled?
CC: Both those projects have long and troubled histories of attempts to get them on the screen. Suffice it to say that most of Hollywood goes in thinking or learns to think of my writing as way too cerebral and talky to make good movies, and thinks of me as other than the writer who writes and then goes away and quietly lets his work be butchered. So, if those projects ever get done, I suspect it will be when I decide to direct them myself (I have a two-picture deal at Morgan Creek). But I don't know; I'd need to see one project I've undertaken in Hollywood as a write turn out well before I decide to torture myself in an all new way.
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