Standing at the bottom of the steep, narrow staircase in Georgetown that served as the setting for the final moments of his classic tale of demonic possession, William Friedkin took a moment to apologize.
"I climbed these last week and it nearly killed me," the 82-year-old director of The Exorcist said on Tuesday, having made his way down the steps on the windy, overcast day. There was no way he was going back up; the tour was over. He had joked earlier that it would be "not only fitting, but poetic" if he had kicked the bucket at the foot of the staircase like Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) in his adaptation of William Peter Blatty's bestselling book.
The "Exorcist Steps," so-called for their pivotal role in both the 1973 film and the 1971 novel, were the last stop on Friedkin's tour of sites in Georgetown used during the filming of his classic horror film. The stairway, designated a landmark by D.C. a few years back, remain a popular tourist site—unsurprising, perhaps, given that The Exorcist is one of the ten highest-grossing films of all time, after adjusting for inflation.
Friedkin took us into Georgetown University offices and classrooms, recalling the angles on each setup for each scene. More interesting than the information about the ways in which Friedkin had to fudge facades—they built a false front at the Prospect Street house so the window from which Karras leaps was nearer the steps—were the insights we gleaned about his own faith. Walking through Dahlgren Chapel, the beautiful brick church on the heart of Georgetown University's campus, Friedkin revealed that he refused to bring a desecrated statue of the Virgin Mary, a key prop in the film, into a house so holy.
Anyone who has seen a movie being made understands the overwhelming nature of the filmmaking process: a veritable army of technicians descends upon any location to set up tracks for cameras and obtrusive lights and massive screens, to say nothing of the director and the actors and grips and all the rest who must be on hand during the filming itself. When asked about how to balance all that with the nature of the location in question and whether or not he feared feeling like an intruder in the church, Friedkin said it was about "not intruding, but capturing the spirit of the place."
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"I am a believer in the teachings of Jesus Christ," Friedkin said earlier in the day, during a press conference for his new documentary, The Devil and Father Amorth. "I made this film as a believer."
The questions of belief and faith that rest at the heart of The Devil and Father Amorth—a chronicle of the Vatican's exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, anchored by an actual exorcism—are similar to those at the center of The Exorcist. "Blatty and I never spoke about a horror film," Friedkin said, and if you read the book on which the movie is based, that makes sense. The Exorcist has "the most terrifying novel ever written" slapped on its cover, but it's a tagline that makes very little sense to your humble reviewer. It's not a particularly scary book, just as The Exorcist was not a particularly terrifying movie (aside from the stray jump scare here and there).
Rather, both are about the ways in which modernity can both undercut and supplement faith. Karras is very much racked by doubt, a theme the book drives home again and again: he says he has lost his faith; he cannot stand the sight of the poor and the homeless, dreading being assailed by the wretched with claims of Catholicism in the hope of scoring a dollar to get a bottle of bum wine. Every attempt Karras makes to prove that Regan MacNeil is possessed he counters internally with science, with doubt: her physical transformation is just malnourishment; her demonic voice merely the result of vocal cords thickening; her newly advanced vocabulary simply a manifestation of cryptomnesia; her increased intellect obviously a Jungian manifestation of hysterical somnambulism.
Karras is vexed that when permission to perform the exorcism is given by the Church, he is not chosen to lead it, but Father Merrin shows us what true faith is and why he is the superior choice. "Don't you want to hear the background of the case first?" asks Karras when Merrin arrives to the MacNeil house. "Why?" he responds, simply. His calm and self-assurance is a source of strength to everyone involved: "He [Merrin] put his hand on her [Regan's mother's, Chris] shoulder and as he squeezed it lightly and reassuringly, Chris felt a warmth and a power flowing into her, as well as a feeling of peace and an odd sense of something that felt like—What? She wondered. Safety? Yes, something like that."
Father Amorth exudes a similar sort of confidence and spiritual certainty. The Vatican's exorcist and a man who performed multiple exorcism ceremonies a day, you get the sense that Amorth was something akin to a rock star priest in Italy, a well-known and beloved figure prior to his passing in 2016.
The centerpiece of Friedkin's documentary is an exorcism of an Italian woman in her thirties named Cristina, a ritual performed by Amorth. While the rest of the documentary has a rather straightforward talking-head style to it—with Friedkin narrating and providing information—the exorcism, shot by Friedkin without crew and with just a handheld camera, is surprisingly harrowing. Cristina speaks during the ritual in a guttural growl that sounds like something out of a movie, as if two voices had been layered atop one another. There is no levitation, no head-spinning, none of that: but there is anger and terror and fear.
Friedkin talks to a pair of neuroscientists in the course of the documentary, neither of whom can suggest a definite cause for or solution to Cristina's trance-like fits or vocal alterations. He also sits down with a table of psychiatrists, all of whom seem more or less open to the idea of exorcism as a course of treatment, given that "possession" is a subcategory of dissociative identity disorder in the DSM.
I wrote "surprisingly harrowing" because, like most, I consider the notion of demonic possession to be a bit outré. And you occasionally get the sense that the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles interviewed by Friedkin feels the same way. He says repeatedly that he wouldn't want to do an exorcism because his well of faith is not deep enough; one almost gets the sense that he is a bit embarrassed to be talking about possession and exorcism at all. The shrinks and the surgeons seem to have more faith in the power of the ceremony, however, given their faith in the power (and the mysteries) of the mind.
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During his press conference at Georgetown University, Friedkin said, "Do not expect The Exorcist movie" when sitting down for The Devil and Father Amorth. It's certainly not that—this is far drier, sometimes a bit overwrought (the musical cues in particular struck me as a bit heavy handed), and occasionally a little messy (the acoustics on one or two of the interviews are bad, echoing as if the microphones were positioned across the room).
But The Devil and Father Amorth is nevertheless fascinating and compelling, a must-watch for fans of The Exorcist specifically and William Friedkin's oeuvre more broadly. And it, along with his discussion of faith, helped put some of Friedkin's other work into perspective. Rewatching To Live and Die in L.A. recently, it struck me that the movie culminates with a descent into hell, fire and flame consuming the film's counterfeiting villain. Sorcerer basically takes place in purgatory, the story of four sinners drawn together in a land from which they cannot escape and a fate they cannot outrun.
"Faith is a mystery," Friedkin said at one point, musing on the reasons—spiritual, psychological—exorcism can work. The Devil and Father Amorth makes it no less mysterious. But it provides a small glimpse into just how it works, if not why.