The Ninth Configuration | movie | 1980 | Official Featurette
Col. Vincent Kane is a military psychiatrist who takes charge of an army mental hospital situated in a secluded castle. | dG1fdVRaSWdZaUx3bDQ
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 The ninth configuration dealt directly with God's existence and with the problem of evil.
00:08 And it did that by opposing to it the mystery of goodness.
00:12 The novel, Legion, goes beyond both.
00:16 Namely, in some way, we have chosen the suffering.
00:23 In the ninth configuration, which forms the central part of Blatty's trilogy of faith,
00:27 the miracle which the author addresses is less spectacular, but ultimately more involving.
00:31 The recognition that one single selfless act may demonstrate the persistence of divinity
00:36 because, as Cain points out to his patient, if you think God's dead because of all the
00:39 evil in the world, then how do you account for all the good?
00:43 This question is the key to all of Blatty's work.
00:48 The deep meaning of the ninth configuration is really an attempt to find a solution to
00:55 the problem of evil in the face of the incredible suffering of the innocent.
01:02 And I'm not talking about suffering caused by the will of man, that kind of evil, moral
01:08 evil.
01:09 I'm talking about the kind of physical evil that's built into the fabric of the universe.
01:14 The ninth configuration doesn't give an answer, but it gives an alternative mystery that you're
01:21 forced to think about, namely, the mystery of goodness.
01:25 If we're nothing but atoms, molecular structures no different in kind from this desk or that
01:31 pen, then we ought to always be rushing irresistibly blindly toward serving our own selfish ends.
01:37 But that isn't the way things always are in this universe.
01:41 So how is it that there is love in the world?
01:44 I mean love as a God would love, and that a man will give his life for another, that
01:50 there are altruistic acts.
01:53 And this is a profound mystery, which I find insoluble without assuming the existence of
02:00 an ultimately benign deity, a creator.
02:04 I don't belong to the God is alive in hiding in Argentina club, but I believe in the devil
02:09 all right.
02:10 You know why?
02:11 Because the prick keeps doing commercials.
02:13 Original sin might be real.
02:15 Hello, operator.
02:16 Maybe it was something genetic.
02:19 Can you prove there's a foot?
02:21 There are some arguments for reason.
02:23 Are those the things we use to justify dropping atomic bombs on Japan?
02:28 The ninth configuration actually started life as a satirical 60s novel, Twinkle, Twinkle,
02:32 Killer Cane, which the author had attempted to get filmed under the direction of William
02:36 Friedkin.
02:37 Some years later, the writer and director came together again on The Exorcist, success
02:41 of which encouraged Blatty to write, produce and direct the ninth for the screen himself.
02:45 It wasn't to be an easy task, partly because few people could understand what sort of film
02:49 he was trying to make.
02:51 I mean, you try doing the hard sell on an incisively satirical theological thriller
02:58 set in an army asylum in which a spaceman shouts at his shrink about his religious fixations
03:02 while his best friend sets about adapting the work of Shakespeare for dogs, a labour
03:05 of love.
03:06 But damn it, someone's got to do it.
03:12 As one reviewer said, you know, you've never seen anything quite like it.
03:16 There was no way to categorise it.
03:18 A metaphysical murder mystery, a gothic war story, a cosmic love story, all those things
03:25 tied together.
03:26 What do you see?
03:30 An old woman in funny clothes blowing poison darts at a buffalo.
03:33 Bison?
03:34 For two acts, two out of three acts, you're looking at a comedy with some kind of thread
03:42 of mystery that's running through it and deeper moments.
03:45 But it's finally really all about God.
03:51 The result was equally baffling.
03:53 A movie whose highlights include Exorcist star Jason Miller worrying about whether to
03:56 cast a great Dane as Hamlet.
03:58 Out!
03:59 And tell your stupid agent never to waste any more of my time.
04:03 Ed Flanders telling an ornamental skull, don't blame me, I told them not to operate.
04:07 George DiCenzo attempting to exorcise a Pepsi-Cola vending machine.
04:13 And in some versions anyway, screen hard man Robert Logier doing a karaoke version of the
04:18 Al Jolson number Rainbow Round My Shoulder in blackface.
04:23 Not to mention Blatty himself cameoing as the Major League Fruitcake, Frome, who doesn't
04:27 care what you do as long as you don't touch his stethoscope.
04:30 Sars and Krebs in Christian, sir.
04:32 And bloody damn well about time.
04:33 Now will you get this man into surgery or are you planning to just let him stand here
04:37 bleeding to death while you and your buddy play soldier?
04:39 For Christ's sakes, what is this, a hospital or a nut house?
04:42 No, no, not the stethoscope!
04:45 If all this sounds deranged, it's because it is.
04:47 But it's also brilliant.
04:49 Blatty's screenplay won a Golden Globe Award, there were international awards for actor
04:53 Scott Wilson who excels in the central role of Cutshaw, and Barry DeVore's minimal score
04:57 remains an eerie, not to mention extremely collectible classic.
05:01 Although little seen on its initial release, the ninth configuration has developed a loyal
05:04 cult following, with Blatty tweaking countless versions over the years, of which the following
05:09 presentation is his definitive cut.
05:11 [MUSIC PLAYING]