The use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound in The Exorcist
Exorcist is one of the most influential films of all time.
Someone may watch The Exorcist today and not realise that at the time of its release in 1973 it was the scariest, most horrifying and controversial film ever made. By today's standards, the exorcist is considered not as scary due to images and videos people see every day on their phones which we can attribute to social media, the rise of YouTube, the internet and Images of real-life crime and tabooed and more niche horror movies and genres.
However, the fact still remains that the use of sound and the soundtrack itself is still as haunting and fear-inducing as it was 49 years ago. From my own experience I had heard and was listening to tubular bells from the age of 10. I couldn’t quite put into words the feeling and the emotion that would take hold, but I just knew that from listening to the music on YouTube and the image that accompanies it was something made of nightmares.
The dark shadowy figure of a man in a hat, holding a briefcase, staring up at the room with the possessed Regan. Illuminated by nothing but a streetlamp and the title of the film hanging over the poster, ‘THE EXORCIST’ is shaded in dark purple.
If anyone reading this has seen the exorcist, you will be able to recall a particular scene in which the possessed girls head spins around 360 degrees. The sound of her bones cracking, the ease in what should be the impossible way her head spins right around as if it’s about to pop off, the head you are met with once the head finally spins round is a maniacal, evil being that has taken hold of this once sweet and innocent girl.
This sound was made with an old leather wallet being scrunched up while being held up to a microphone. You see, what fascinates me about foley and the use of sound in films is the way that the simplest of everyday items and objects can be used in such a way that it invokes fear and pulls out an emotion in you that you didn’t even know existed. An old leather wallet (if used correctly) can invoke fear into you.
I often wonder if foley artists are ever able to watch a film in the same way that the general public can. Do foley artists ever sit down to watch a film and lose themselves in a great horror movie or is it the case that they can’t because they know how certain sounds are produced?
If there’s is a noise say, for example, a faint whisper or a screech coming from a dark corridor that invokes fear into the audience and on-screen protagonists we know that something is about to jump out at us, is a foley artist able to separate themselves from the impending doom that’s about to take place or is it the fact that they know that the sound is coming from someone breathing down a microphone in a back studio at Warner Brothers and not a defenceless character too much to escape from?
The exorcist is one of my favourite films. Not just horror films but one of my favourite films in general. Whenever I watch it the soundtrack and the use of non-diegetic sound are some of my favourite in all of cinema. I would implore anyone who hasn’t seen it to watch it for the soundtrack and sound effects alone.
Jacob Price