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Summary: Edgy and full of suspense . . . . Brilliant!
Review: This is one of the best films ever made- hands down. Blatty casts the finest collection of actors ever assembled in one film. Scott Wilson is captivating. Jason Miller is thought-provoking. Ed Flanders provides the perfect balance. Stacy Keach leaves you awe struck. I would recommend this film to anyone truly interested in a fine movie going experience. Also see 'The Exorcist 3' by Blatty, featuring Flanders and Miller.
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Summary: Cutshaw...Why won't you go to the Moon?
Review: The crucial question of existence is posed to our EVERYMAN protagonist essaying the symbolic role of astronaut. Captain Billy. Scott Wilson plays the ultimate mind/soul game with (perhaps?) Christ himself in the guise of a once-ruthless combat marine known with fearsome reverence as KILLER KANE. Chameleon-like changes in emotion and intelligence metastasize a brilliant ensemble cast through archetypal roles of fool, coward, skeptic, arch-cynic to ultimate commitment in APOSTLESHIP. The film...uses the frame work of a very talky extremely metaphor-laden theater-of-the absurd to pose its statement on the NECESSITY of "The Leap of FAITH". Religious puns and symbolic names abound and the movie could devolve into a not-too- subtle "Waiting for Godot" if it were not for one of the most merciless Judgment (fight)scenes ever screened. This film is not for everyone. Its ultimate questions are, however. Religious-themed movies that are not overt catechisms or are merely clever exercises in metaphysics are rare. It is, of course, up to the viewer to decide if he has been conned or challenged by a movie that genuinely extends its reach. Each man choosing...like an astronaut...to make the leap of faith to the heavens. Or, as the very frightening leader of the demonic motor cycle club called THE CHAIN GANG demands: "Take your baptism here (as he pours "beer" over the head of a potential initiate)... you Chicken Mother...and JOIN OUR CLUB!" Soren Kierkegaard coined the phrase "leap of faith" also bluntly put it: EITHER/OR...the choice is yours. This is a intensely provocative film...by the writer/director of THE EXORCIST. In my estimate, " The Ninth Configuration" is not only a far better film, it conveys clearly the consequences of rejecting one's true destiny ("the moon" and the "stars") by playing it safe and pretending its God's fault. "Cutshaw...why won't you go to the Moon?"
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Summary: Existence and Purpose
Review: I first encountered this movie in an obscure video rental shop inside my university campus 12 years ago. It was the title that intrigued me and i rented the tape because of it. I never expected it to be a subtle, intellectual, philosophical movie of complex proportions (that is,coming from Exorcist director William Peter Blatty). Being a die hard existentialist, i deemed that the movie dealt with almost every salient point existentialism is exploring - absudity, the meaninglessnes of life, the questionable existence of God, the nature of 'goodness' and the need to uphold one's 'meaning' and 'purpose' in a meaningless world. Set in mental institution, a group of 'mad' war veterans were housed as patients exploring their own little wayward delusionary worlds. There was the hammer armed patient wrecking a wall because its atoms won't let him pass, and there was an ex-astronaut who suddenly had a dreadful phobia of space because there's nothing out there - no God and no meaning. The protagonist (played by Stacey Keach) was torn between his violent past and his ruminitve nature and relentless effort of disciplining himself - what in effect defines him as a human being in the context of being good or evil? The morality play in the movie is tremendous exploring simultaneously the nature of creation, the nature of man, the nature of insanity and the nature and purpose of God. The title phrase - The Ninth Configuration, sums it all up in an ironic, cerebral metaphor cast in the vast ocean of chance, that is - It is easier to believe that life on earth arose from proteins randomly forming patterns up to the 'Ninth Configuration' (despite the large statistical improbabilty), than believing in a God. This scene was played out in the movie as a dream sequence where-in astronauts were digging something on the lunar soil and beside it eeirily was a crucifix w/ Christ's figure. The effect was surreal, suspended, displaced animation. At the end of the story, however, the purpose and meaninglessness were resolved, and that there is after all a pattern and an order in which life's sufferings and travails were molded from. This is a must see film for people who likes to see a cut above run-of-the-mill films. A thinking man's movie that arms him with a grain of thought we often take for granted due to the orbits we mindlessly traverse - our existence and purpose in a supposedly 'absurd' and 'ruthless' universe.
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Summary: As another Blatty character once said, this man is a poem.
Review: William Peter Blatty must surely be the most underappreciated artist of our time. The Ninth Configuration is a punch in the gut to the reductionist, cynical world. This is crystalized in the moment when Scott Wilson's character considers the relative madness of Hamlet - truly, if he was crazy, or if the more extreme madness of all those around him made him seem to be. In that hope, is our own. And if Killer Kane is worthy of salvation, perhaps we all are. What a beautiful, lyrical, important film. Also wonderful performances from three actors sadly no longer with us: Ed Flanders, Alejandro Rey and the great Jason Miller.
Rating:
Summary: Simply a Masterpiece
Review: A truly stunning, majestic movie with performances of the very highest caliber. A masterpiece! Billy Blatty is the most underated film-maker of his generation.
Rating:
Summary: The Ninth Configuration
Review: The explicit intellect and wisdom that stems from this film, would be beneficial to an ignornant world, if each and every one of us were not so caught up with our own petty little egos. Read into the film and open your eyes and spirit.
Rating: 
Summary: Blatty = overlooked gem of a filmmaker
Review: Let me just say that, between this film and The Exorcist III, I have a feeling that the world may have been deprived of some absolutely amazing work due to studios unwilling to take a gamble on such a filmmaker as Blatty. Perhaps I'm way off base with this assumption, but all I know is that William Peter Blatty is an extraordinary writer/director. He has a surrealistic approach to telling his stories, a style in which the audience must pay attention in order to piece together the information. Rather than alienating the viewer, it allows him/her to become all the more absorbed in the worlds Blatty creates. He also has quite an extraordinary visual sense that is all his own. As I said, I can't help but think that Blatty has a true masterpiece in him, one even better than The Ninth Configuration, if only he would step behind a camera once again....
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Summary: The Mystery of Goodness
Review: This movie, as with the book (which it very nearly parallels), explores what Blatty calls, 'The mystery of goodness'. Why, in a purely material universe, would anyone ever put his life at risk for a fellow human being? One should simply do whatever it takes to allow him to move up the pecking order and survive - period. The basic antagonism is between faith in God and existentialism (as Bob Dylan so eloquently put it, 'You've either got faith or you've got unbelief, there ain't no neutral ground!'). The 'insanity' evidenced in the patients can only be termed 'insanity' if one embraces faith, for the most basic tenant of existentialism is that life itself is absurd - ergo there can be no such thing as sanity in the first place! Do this or do that, it makes no difference whatsoever except in the moment. This is the position acted out by the patients, all of whom are high-ranking military officers who, presumably, are intelligent and disciplined, thus making all the more puzzling their 'insane' behavior. The various scenes with psychiatrist Keach reasoning with patients run amok (one casting a Shakespeare play with dogs, another 'punishing' a wall because it would not allow him to fit his atoms between the spaces in its atoms, etc.), would seem to prove that the patients are indeed mad - but only in a universe with meaning! Astronaut Wilson challenges Keach at every turn to give meaning to the obvious pain and suffering of life, which to him proves that 'Foot' (God) is either a sadist or simply doesn't exist, in which case everything that he or any of the other patients does is no more or less 'sane' than anything anyone else might do. Wilson meets each example provided by Keach with a logical counterpoint, erasing any real meaning to the argument put forth. The mathematical argument against the spontaneous appearance of even a single protein molecule is pure logic, yet in and of itself it is insufficient to impart the meaning Wilson is seeking. Wilson asks for just one real-world example of a reason not to be insane! I won't spoil the exquisitely beautiful and profound answer. Blatty posed the question, 'Does madness come from evil or does evil come from madness?'. The answer is the former, and the evil is a lack of faith in God.
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Summary: WILL ENTHRALL THE DEPTHS OF SOUL!
Review: Stacey Keach, Scott Wilson. To aid traumatized war heroes, the government has generated an asylum in a castle. This film is most stricking and engrossing movie footage! In a thriller/ drama/ slightly comedic fashion,this film deals with startling clarity the issues of the existence of God, the substance of the universe and creation, and the believes of life after death. Things the asylum inmates are challenged to greet by an unsual psychiatrist. Excellent film. also inclues: Jason Miller, Ed Flanders, Robert Loggia, Richard Lynch, Mosses Gunn.
Rating:
Summary: The most powerful and engrossing film I've ever seen!
Review: I can't believe this film, which came out in 1980, is just now coming to my attention. Stacy Keach and Scott Wilson are amazing in their ability to convey a wide array of human emotions in a most convincing way. The film seems to drag at times, but the last third of the film is especially powerful and justifies the plot development. This film deals with the most important issues - the existence of God and the possibility of life after death - in a very honest and intense way. The religious symbolism is especially effective, but it is one of those films which you will want to watch over several times to pick up on certain details. What is so wonderful is that this film, being set in a mental institute, doesn't explain a lot of puzzling behavior, and it is only toward the end that a real twist is explained. I just hope it goes to DVD someday. In the meantime, you MUST see this - it is that good.
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