Foreshadowing The Great Recession in ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’
The Exorcism of Emily Rose opens with a stark scene of a large farmhouse on a humble plot of land. Long shots hover on bare corn stalks, ripe pumpkins, dying trees, a hornets’ nest. It is harvest season; it is cold, and abandoned. The only other structure in this place is a small, old barn that doesn’t seem to be in use. But this home isn’t abandoned—a woman peeks out of the upstairs window and gestures to the man exploring the grounds—gestures to us.
We’re going to set aside the emotional and religious themes in Emily Rose, accepting those to be the successful intentions of the filmmakers. The precise design choices of this film during the time of its release, however, bring up some other, quite different ideas. The Exorcism of Emily Rose was directed by Scott Derrickson and released in 2005, just a few years before the Great Recession in the U.S. While the film boasts that it is a retelling of the infamous true story of the death of Anneliese Michel (a tragic case of severe mental illness), this movie is, in parallel, the haunting foreshadowing of an economic crisis that shaped the minds and futures of the audience it was addressing.
In 2008, the U.S. housing market crash, brought on by predatory loan practices, pulled the nation into the Great Recession. The global economy fell alongside it, many families lost their homes, and rural areas suffered. In the aforementioned scenes, we get a glimpse of the aftermath of a home in turmoil. It is reminiscent of a zombie film with perfectly ripe harvests left to rot, little visible life, and no obvious threat in view. It sets the viewer up to feel vulnerable and exposed: a scab ripped off, a security blanket pulled away, a lie shattered. Here, in these heavy visual materials, we get to see the real effects of depletion. A barren barn with just one horse, a hornets’ nest instead of honey bees, withering corn stalks, frost, the worn shutters, dirty blinds drawn closed, yellowing wallpaper, outdated furniture, antiquated crucifixes, the famous dead tree where Emily meets Mother Mary—framed against the warm glossy wood of the courtroom, the rich reds and golds of the church where Emily seeks help, and the post-modern design of her classroom and dorm—all of this means something. The contrast of these images pitted against one another draws a distinct line between the two settings of the film. It is where Wall Street and the middle class come to a head. The visual materials of the film hold fast to one idea: Emily’s decision to go away to university is what makes her sick. This poignant opening is not a description of Emily’s condition; it is a warning.
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The ephemeral consequences of economic recession are particularly jarring with regard to American identity, which is deeply rooted in work, specifically manual labor. For the men in Emily’s life (who are also the exclusive tellers of Emily’s story and responsible for her), their loss takes shape in the exorcism itself. In this context, it functions as performance of physical labor, an attempt to control an uncontrollable thing. In the same way that farmhands wield machines in order to harvest (and control) mass amounts of organic material (plants, food, animals), the exorcism is a performance marked on Emily’s body, albeit in order to help her, wherein the men try to harness a wild and unnatural force. Notably, the exorcism is performed in the barn, and ultimately fails. Man versus machine and the allegories for some kind of moral order is not the argument that I wish to present here; only a nod to this heavy-handed imagery, and the idea of its failure in this moment in time. We can talk about the glaring problems that come along with sweet Emily, whose life is exclusively directed by these four men: her father, the priest, her love interest, and the medical examiner. Each are figures who historically have had ownership over women in very physical means, either through the direct control of women’s bodies or through the purchase of assets, property, and custody of children, which were only granted through a male counterpart. But nearly all exorcism movies have this misogynistic tone. It bears addressing, though in this case it is more pertinent to push further into the simple idea that the systems in place do not work. The failed exorcism accurately describes the blow to the masculine hetero-normative American Dream: an inability to exercise one’s control, vulnerability.
Failure is a theme throughout this film. Alongside the regular exorcism tropes of guilt, repressed feelings, and holy doubt, failure and the failure of a system is at the forefront. Many anthropologists, economists, and political analysts predicted the housing bubble problem and warned of the impending burst, yet no actions were taken to prevent the severe loss and ultimate recession of 2008. Emily Rose is rife with the same kind of language. In our first glimpse of defense lawyer Erin Bruner, she says, “The system worked—that’s all,” while discussing a former client. It’s difficult not to read this as a perverse attempt at reconciling a thing that should never have come to pass. In fact, the case that she is referring to ultimately results in another lethal crime, revealing a reckless mistake and her own system collapsing. If Emily and her family are representative of the working class who were (and remain) economically devastated by the Great Recession, it is appropriate that their counterparts are outfitted in a suit of ivory towers: the church, the courtroom and its lawyers, and the university. The film is absolutely dripping with contempt for it. It presses on the idea over and over again that sweet, young, beautiful Emily was only afflicted because she went away to university—an institution that corrupted her mind against her roots.
Upon meeting the Rose family, Bruner is visibly out of place. For the religious agendas in this story, it seems to be an attempt to hone in on Bruner’s agnosticism, but when Emily’s mother states, “Our life is very strange to you,” in reference to her discomfort, the class divide between them widens. Bruner tries desperately to convince Emily’s mother that they are not all that different. Her over-explanation of growing up in a small town and knowing what it’s like to survive on a schoolteacher’s salary falls flat against the tattered wallpaper of the Rose’s living room and circling cats. The image of Emily reaching desperately in the church but unable to touch the altar also comes to mind. According to the story, that is the turning point in which Emily is overcome. She is unable to reach her destination, unable to fully embrace the fruits of labor in the ivory tower because she doesn’t belong there. Additionally, later in the film, when Emily’s father is on the stand, the prosecuting lawyer makes a point out of embarrassing him by forcing him to admit that he has never read academic work and therefore would not be able to recognize his own daughter’s illness—a real stab in the heart, and not unlike the words of politicians who claim there was just nothing to be done. Both the stories of Emily’s “condition” and the Great Recession play the blame-shifting game onto a grieving family and then to the middle class.
Slightly aside, the cats are another interesting visual point. Seen again, much later in the film, they take the form of Emily’s sisters. It is nearly shot for shot: three cats, three sisters, still image of the couch neatly framed. In each, they cling to their mother, in need of nourishment—emotional or otherwise. In a film where so much emphasis is placed on “telling Emily’s story,” there is very little said by the characters who know her best. Everything that we know about Emily as a person before her affliction, is told through the women in her life: that she is kind to animals, proficient in music and other languages, that she was happy.
Traditionally speaking, women hold the keys to the home—literally and figuratively. Not allowed to be breadwinners, women were responsible for passing down culture, creating spaces of care and recovery, teaching, and building sanctuary. If the men in Emily’s life experience loss of identity through lack of physical labor and control, the women in her life experience loss of identity through an inability to participate in her recovery. Her brave sister, who witnesses Emily’s self-harm, is the only one who attempts to break down this invisible wall. What kind of different ending might there be if Alice had been allowed to participate in the exorcism? In the repeated sound motif “EMILY!” that is screamed throughout the film, we are hearing Alice’s voice.
Adding insult to injury, the stark reality that the Rose family must live with is unbelievably far from the ivory towers that hide those unaffected by recession, unafflicted by demonic possession, or otherwise harmed. The flamboyant nature of the predatory loans responsible for the 2008 housing market crash is expertly and subversively depicted in the coroner’s photo that is presented to the jury early in the film. What is meant to be a horrific disfigurement of a beautiful girl is nothing short of a cheap glamour shot. Let’s peek through that fake blood and recall advertisements of that era. Here is a comparison between Emily’s final photo and the 2006 season winner of America’s Next Top Model. The angle of her neck, hell, even the expression on her face, is a replica. It is a lazy exhibit that fetishizes violence. Here we do not see any warning signs, but instead a glamourization of the suffering that the working class do not get to escape. This image is a false promise that lacks any real accountability. Thematically, Father Moore states that the violence done unto her was exclusively through demonic possession, and therefore leaves him faultless. If Emily Rose is actually a description of the Great Recession then it still holds—this extraordinary loan, this opportunity, it is a lie. All that can be done now is, “to tell Emily’s story”.
Covergirl Ad, 2005
Film Still, The Exorcist of Emily Rose
America’s Next Top Model Archives, 2006
Then we reach the moment in all exorcism stories: the name of the demon revealed. Belial, roughly translated from Hebrew as “worthless,” is who has taken up residence in Emily’s body. After a few choice cut shots, we learn that this demon goes by many names but refers to itself as “the one who dwells within.” Here again we are called to consider an insidious threat, a sickness that rots from the inside out—one that is not far away but indeed in your own country, your own value, your own home. Belial baits the men, saying, “Force me out,” but they cannot and suffer a great loss. How helpless one must feel when pressed against something too big to fail.
Finally, when Emily chooses her fate as a martyr, she sets the stage for a new narrative to be told about what happened to her family. Suddenly, this disaster that occurred, through no fault of her own, is now her burden to bear. Suddenly, those who most depend on these systems to work just to stay alive must now take all responsibility. The blood on Emily’s hands isn’t stigmata: It’s a bailout. And yet, what of poor Emily? All of this talk on failure, debt, guilt, remorse, truth-seeking to be laid out for whom? Emily Rose plays as an honest reflection of the economic and political stage that was set during its release in 2005. The audience, captivated by Emily’s story was like her—young, college-bound, eager, innocent. And while the Great Recession was easy for very few, Emily and her generation are the lambs led to slaughter and made to believe that it was “so that all will know.”
Article written by Theresa Baughman
Theresa totally hates movies but sometimes watches them with her friends. She writes about the intersection of art & anthropology and she loves demonic possession horror.
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