William Friedkin: The Music of 'The Exorcist (1973)'

Excerpt from the from the Documentary Leap of Faith (2020)
No copyright infringement intended.
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John Bender on the Soundtrack of ''The Exorcist (1973)''

"Lalo Schifrin wrote and (thank God) recorded score for William Friedkin's THE EXORCIST. Schifrin's EXORCIST work is superb, on par with the complexities and perfections of contemporary classical music. Much has been written about THE EXORCIST and it's contentious musical history. Friedkin ultimately opted to do "that thing" that film music fans hate - a needle drop score. Of all the verbiage said and printed about this I believe it all can be boiled down to a concise and clarifying essence.
At some critical (and I'm sure agonizing) point during production Bill realized that the only answer to the dilemma of score for THE EXORCIST was going to be autonomous pre-recorded material. Why? Because of the utterly unique nature of the most frightening horror film ever made. THE EXORCIST breaks through the boundaries of film-as-art by transgressing the expected and familiar buffers that protect audiences from the most awful events a film can reproduce / represent. As THE EXORCIST thus depicts the most bizarre and untenable of all human experience - diabolical possession - it required surgical precision in order that score be applied in a manner that did not conflict with it's inconceivable content and very special directorial approach. What this means is that even our most gifted composers would not have been a perfect fit simply because - by the very act of writing original score - they would be personally commenting on the events of the narrative. Any act of personal commentary, no matter how impressive, would run contrary to the technique described above - i.e. the deliberate betrayal of the normal film-as-art methodologies.
You now proclaim: "But the music from recordings that Friedkin applied are artistic, personal commentary!" Yes, but none of the music heard in THE EXORCIST (or very little of it) was specifically or intentionally generated in response to the film. This distinction is all important. It effects the nature of the "point of contact" between the music and a viewer during any initial experience of the film. Allow me to explain: A viewer (listener) can discern, on a subconscious level, the specific nature of background score. The more astute film goer will subliminally detect if score is coming at them directly from the composer's mind - a mind-to-mind communication - and of course it usually is! But not in THE EXORCIST. We hear the music Bill carefully selected, but we "read" or sense it as a form of poetic addendum once removed. The music comes to the film as we do, as an outsider. In this way Friedkin avoided the distraction of an intense artistic personality or presence intruding into his "documentarian approach".
I will now state that Friedkin's conscripted EXORCIST score is a masterpiece - if we can agree that a needle drop score could ever warrant such a distinction. I think this one does. Bill's "artificially" applied score is perfect. Every note, phrase, orchestral and/or electronic utterance fits the film as an epidermis.
Two of the most essential and effective pieces Bill found and used are Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" and Hans Werner Henze's "Fantasia For Strings" aka "EXORCIST End Titles". Friedkin used "Tubular Bells" as the film's single musical expression of human dignity and spiritual enthusiasm, a cue that, with it's gentle ecclesiastical affectations could have been called "Autumn Leaves With Nuns". As for "Fantasia For Strings", it is an incredible work and I suggest buying the actual Henze composition on CD. Friedkin deftly uses it to maintain his grip on the audience even after the film has ended. As score for an End Titles scroll the "Fantasia" captivatingly encapsulates and recreates the general fabric of his fantastic narrative - the music becomes an emotional and philosophical river, rapidly flowing by and carrying with it the dramatic expenditures of Regan's ordeal.

- John Bender"
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