William Friedkin rose to fame as the director of The French Connection.William Peter Blatty had written the screenplay for the Pink Panther film, A Shot in the Dark.Now Blatty had a serious project in mind as he considered whom to pitch to direct the film of his novel, The Exorcist.He wanted, and got, Friedkin.The two disagreed about the final cut of the movie, with Friedkin winning out.The movie was a tremendous success.Several years later the cut favored by Blatty was released, again with success.Blatty died last year.The year before that so did Fr. Gabriele Amorth, an exorcist for the Diocese of Rome.Last night I watched The Devil and Father Amorth, a documentary by William Friedkin about the famed exorcist.
The Exorcist made an impact on the lives of many people, not least Friedkin.Over four decades after making this film, the director is still mulling it over.The Devil and Father Amorth is primarily footage shot by Friedkin of an exorcism performed by Amorth.In general the filming of exorcisms is forbidden, but given his stature as a film-maker, Friedkin was given permission to film without crew, on a small, hand-held video camera.Although nowhere near as violent as the fictionalized film, it is disturbing to watch.As a documentary, it includes interviews with doctors, some from Columbia University, who agree that possession is “a thing,” but one suspects they might disagree with the director as to what that thing might be.
Although Friedkin isn’t an academic, society accepts that (at least some) film-makers are intellectuals.Perhaps lacking subject specialization, they nevertheless read a lot and possess quite a lot of street knowledge of psychology.At just over an hour, this documentary isn’t long, but it is provocative.For me it raises once again an issue that I address in Nightmares with the Bible—the curious laity, due to lack of engagement by traditional scholars, must rely on such efforts to get information about spiritual entities.The documentary, which deals with a heavy subject, is one that Friedkin tries to lighten a bit at the end by stating that if there are demons then angels must also exist.This goes back to the idea, discussed more fully in my book, that demons derive from fallen angels.The “one size fits all” approach of academia has shoehorned belief in one direction.While The Devil and Father Amorth won’t likely convince skeptics, many who watch it will be left wondering.