As a horror film, The Exorcism of Emily Rose hardly breaks new ground owing, as it does, a huge debt to William Friedkin’s superior The Exorcist for pretty much every chill or thrill that it offers. What makes it interesting, though hardly enjoyable, is the way in which it reflects the conflict between faith and science that currently dominates American politics on issues such as abortion, stem cell research and the teaching of evolution.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose is the story of the eponymous young girl (Carpenter) who dies under the care of a priest, Father Moore (Wilkinson), who believes he is helping her overcome possession by demonic forces. The story of this young girl’s possession is told in flashback as Father Moore stands trial, accused of causing Emily’s death through negligent homicide. He is defended by the agnostic, high-flying, lawyer Erin Bruner (Linney) who is under instruction from the priest’s superiors to prevent him from testifying and end the case quickly so as to minimise embarrassment to the church.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose has pretensions to ask “profound” questions. It pretends, as a courtroom drama, to take a neutral position about the relationship between science and faith – allowing each side to present their case. The prosecution lawyer (Scott) is carefully presented as a man of faith, but one who nobly believes in upholding the division between church and state as it is enshrined in the American constitution. He promotes rational, medical explanations for Emily Rose’s fate. So, in making no one a “villain” (except perhaps the venal church hierarchy) the film at least pretends to present a veneer of balance.

But the real sympathies of The Excorcism of Emily Rose are quickly revealed.

In the courtroom the scientific witnesses are portrayed as arrogant to the point of incompetence. The defence lawyer’s supposedly impartial, agnostic, viewpoint is almost immediately abandoned as she becomes convinced (without apparent evidence, but then “evidence denies faith”) of Father Moore’s sincerity. Finally, and most crucially, the audience is shown that Emily Rose’s possession is “real” – we are shown the supernatural nature of her experiences and so we are never in doubt that the rationalist arguments employed by the scientists and the priest’s accusers fail to appreciate the true nature of the world in which these characters live.

It is the final address on behalf of the priest by his lawyer that infuriates the most. Speaking directly to the audience through the mechanism of addressing the fictional jury, the writer and director attempt a shocking piece of intellectual sleight of hand. The existence of reasonable doubt in legal proceedings and the fundamental role that falsification plays in the scientific method’s unwillingness to offer definitive answers are mashed together and twisted. What emerges is an unrecognisable bastardisation of two enlightenment principles which is then used to justify for the notion that any explanation, however preposterous, is as valid as any other so long as a person is possessed of genuine faith.

No article of faith can be rationally assessed, whether using the tools of law or science, because the inevitable presence of uncertainty (“reasonable doubt” or scientific reticence or blind, babbling faith) always leaves room for alternative views. Thus, the choice between competing alternatives rests solely on what one chooses to believe. In an intellectually unsustainable, but nonetheless impressively cheeky, inversion the film attempts to squeeze religious dogma through an imagined chink in science’s armour by twisting the postmodernist critique of rationalism beyond what is remotely sustainable. These are fundamentally unstable foundations on which to attempt to construct a rationale for a faith-based society.

It is precisely the same sort of dishonest argument being used to try and lever Darwinism out of American schools, and it is shoddy and corrupt.

The proponents of religiously-inspired “faith-based” theories of the world are not arguing – either in this film or in the debate over Darwinism – that all theories are equivalent. Instead they use the idea of equivalence as a way of inserting their preposterous worldview (a girl was possessed by the devil, the planet was created in seven days, god specifically designed the octopus to be amazing) into the mainstream debate. Once established they then proceed to force out all alternative explanations because, in the end, the “truth” revealed by faith is devinely inspired and to question it is heresy.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose doesn’t allow the viewer to assume that perhaps the rationalist view of the girl’s condition as an illness was correct (of course Emily was possessed by demons, we see them everywhere in the film) any more than creationists or advocates of intelligent design are willing to allow that their theories are just another possibility that can sit alongside Darwinism.

This “argument” uses the quasi-post-modernist notion that the choice between competing theories is essentially a question of personal preference to open the door for the public consideration of their views. Having inserted their Trojan horse, the proponents of faith then immediately abandon ideas of pluralism and demand a pre-eminence for their visions. And that, of course, is precisely what happens in this film. The competing visions of the world – rationalist and faith-based – cannot cohabit, nor do they have to because the makers of The Exorcism of Emily Rose leave us in no doubt as to what is real and what is mere theory.

A poor horror film, lacking both menace and tension, if Emily Rose is to be remembered for anything it will be the pernicious way it attempts to justify the abandonment of critical or rational modes of thinking in favour of reliance on faith. “This isn’t a trial about facts, this is a trial about possibilities” says the priest’s lawyer in her closing remarks. Ignore all that science nonsense, she means. Only faith offers certainty. There really are demons hiding in the shadows, we’ve shown them to you, and it was the the devil that killed this little girl, not the irrational lunacy of some vision-maddened god-botherers.

It is nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense for it implies that faith and understanding are equivalent. It is a statement that precisely defines the moment when the Enlightenment finally crashes to a close and the inexorable march of a new Dark Ages begins.

(Originally published in Matrix 177, Jan/Feb 2006)

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