"The Exorcism of Emily Rose" - if you saw it, what does the following scene mean?

Not having seen the movie, I have no context. But the action suggest to me that she is a cloistered kind of woman, to some extend, and she wants to get away from the visitor, but her only avenue of escape is into music. I would think she mistrusts the priest, but also feels trapped.

Obviously, I could be totally off base, since I only have the information you provided to make an interpretation. But hey, I have fun challenging myself with problems like this. Do let me know if this has any relationship to the story at all.

Er, I should tell you, Emily is possessed at the time. I don’t think the devil’s playing piano to escape (although a few bars of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” would probably make even him forget his troubles).

Actually, I think there’s something significant in the music she plays.

I saw it but I don’t even remember that scene.

It kind of depends on what you think possession is. I think of it as a metaphor for mental illness, most likely an illness that caused rather strange behavior where a person seems to have more than one personality. This multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder.

Any persons suffering such, might be unhappy to see the priest, especially if they had been getting hassled for supposedly having the devil in them. However, once again, whereas physical escape may be impossible, mental escape still is possible.

Now, if the author or screenwriter did believe in devils and possession, I suppose it changes things somewhat. Mostly it means that the author is delusional or is writing as if delusional, and therefore it becomes somewhat difficult to interpret.

But if the devil is that which society disapproves, and that-which-soicety-disapproves goes and plays the piano, it is still an effort to escape.

It’s only not that, I think, if you believe in a literal devil living inside people. If that’s your reality, then I can’t help you. I don’t mean you, Mr_M, but you plural—people who think the devil is a real entity, separate from humans.

Well, you might be right. Rent the movie (it was on cable a few hours ago) and see what you think. It’s based around a true case where the priest had the woman stop her psych meds because he felt it wasn’t in her head, i.e., that she was possessed. That having been said, was he responsible for her death?

And I feel the point was in the song she played. I’m still trying to find it.

What kind of mental illness did she have? Did they say? How did she die? Suicide? If so, I’d hold the priest responsible. It would be like a doctor taking away the blood pressure medicine of a heart patient. Or telling a cancer patient she couldn’t have chemo, because it would put evil into her blood.

Mental illness is very serious. I think I read once that 10% of bipolar folk die of suicide. I don’t know how they figure that kind of stuff out, but it seems like the rate is much higher than for normal people.

If she was off her meds, and either depression had come, or if she was schizophrenic, the interior voices had come, she played the music to take her mind out of itself, so she couldn’t hear the voices telling her to die. If she was angry, then I would expect the music also to be vigorous and furious. However, if she had made her peace, and knew what she was going to do, then it would be more elegiac. She would be saying goodbye to herself.

Actually, I think they said she had some form of epilepsy that allowed her to also contort her body the weird way she did. BTW, every now and then my cat twists himself like a barberpole and I tell people it was because he watched “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”. The actress did most of her own stunts.

Trust me. I definitely think you should watch the movie because I think you’ll like it. It really focuses on the two opposing trains of thought. It’s not a slice and dice. Some people consider it courtroom drama with scary elements.

And you could find out what the verdict was.

Simply put the artist the wrote the original song “minor c” had his own dealing with the devil. Often brought up through his works, and through what he himself researched. Had a tough childhood and adult life. It was funny because through my research I noticed that even back in the days of when Rachmaninoff was a new artist, they had there good clean artist, and evil grungy type. Ole boy here was definitely of the darker side, and often took criticism for it! He talked a lot about death, and dealt with anxiety and depression himself. Was a interesting character to say the least, and makes dreadful good music!