THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (1980)
****
Ever have one of those “Where’s this movie been all my life” moments?
Based on my appreciation of Peter Weir’s The Cars That Ate Paris, the cosmic algorithmic Gods of Suggestion at Netflix recommended William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration, a 1980 film that, despite being hailed as “The finest American surrealist film ever made” by People Magazine upon its release - and moreover, being a Golden Globe Best Picture nominee and Best Screenplay winner - is an obscure title at best. Intriguing as well was the fact that Blatty - best known as the author of The Exorcist - directed this film as well as writing it, a directorial debut he’d follow with only one other movie, 1990’s underrated The Exorcist III.
Adapted by Blatty from his novel Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane, The Ninth Configuration is almost entirely set within the walls of a castle in the American Pacific Northwest where the military has set up an unconventional treatment center for insane and shell-shocked Vietnam veterans. Essentially being passively monitored while being allowed to run free, these soldiers - played by a who’s who of character actors ranging from Robert Loggia to Moses Gunn to Exorcist’s Jason Miller - frantically run about and engage in one absurd and manic conversation after another, their main topics of focus being the existence of God and their planned all-canine production of Hamlet . Enter Stacy Keach as a Marine psychologist who, while suffering from his own crippling nightmares, is driven by a passionate desire to help the inmates, tirelessly offering himself up to sitting quietly and listening to one veteran after another share his nightmares, hopes, fears, and outlandish fantasies. Soon after arriving, he takes particular interest in tormented astronaut Capt. Billy Cutshaw (played by Scott Wilson, who received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance), whose intense phobia of going to the moon seems driven by a crisis of faith.
It all seems like heady stuff, but Blatty’s meticulously structured screenplay cracks with rare and astounding breakneck speed and consistently piercing humor, as lines of significance are lost and found within the seemingly absurd rantings of the inmates, until all at once every musing seems as profound as the last, and ultimately, almost everything that has come before leads to the singular event which elevates this movie from a simple Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead-esque high-wire act of spellbinding Dadaism to a symbolism-rich tale that - like The Exoricst before it - ends up being an enthralling examination of the existence of God wrapped up in the most unexpected place.
The Ninth Configuration is a fantastic, mind blowing work of art, an unabashedly surreal example of auteurism at its finest, from its mesmerizing opening scene to a transcendent and jarring third act that, despite all the insanity that has come before, still manages to surprise with its confirmation that indeed, there has been some method to all the madness. It is truly a peerless masterpiece.
- Logan Crow
11/24/09
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