Catholic Residue: The Aesthetic Legacy of The Exorcist
What kinds of religious affects stick to the material (after)lives of a film like The Exorcist? In this essay, I argue that the film reveals the techne—the craft, skill, and orchestration of seeing and feeling—that manifests in Catholic art and how it gets translated into American visual culture to...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
The journal of gods and monsters
Year: 2025, Volume: 5, Issue: 1, Pages: 14-25 |
| Further subjects: | B
Aesthetic
B Material Religion B Horror B Film B Catholic Imagination B Affect |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | What kinds of religious affects stick to the material (after)lives of a film like The Exorcist? In this essay, I argue that the film reveals the techne—the craft, skill, and orchestration of seeing and feeling—that manifests in Catholic art and how it gets translated into American visual culture to make the visceral experience of religious horror feel real, regardless of belief. Two artifacts shape my analysis of The Exorcist in this regard: the audience reaction footage from its cinematic premiere in December 1973 and the possessed Regan animatronic on display at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York. These material objects, in conversation with other elements of Catholic art, raise the question of what remains when Catholicism does not. When the aesthetic qualities of Catholic art and horror intermingle with and are reappropriated by the aesthetic traditions of film and popular culture, how do we know what is Catholic when we see it? What is left of the Catholic imagination when the belief in Catholicism is no longer present, or was never there in the first place? |
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| ISSN: | 2689-7032 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of gods and monsters
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