Over forty years ago, William Friedkin shocked the world with The Exorcist, the terrifying tale of a young girl whose body was taken over by an evil entity. With the 1973 masterpiece, Friedkin wrote the book on exorcism movies, and his next film brings him back to the world of demonic possession.
For the documentary The Devil and Father Amorth, fresh off a premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Friedkin filmed an actual exorcism performed by Father Gabriele Amorth. Speaking with Variety, he called the life-imitates-art experience “terrifying.”
What he witnessed was Father Amorth’s ninth exorcism of an Italian woman.
“I had to shoot it alone, obviously,” Friedkin recalled. “The conditions were that I come along with no crew and no lights. So I used a Sony still camera that shot high-definition video. I had only that camera running and I was about two feet away from them, probably even closer.”
He continued, “It was terrifying. I went from being afraid of what could happen to feeling a great deal of empathy with this woman’s pain and suffering, which is obvious in the film.”
Friedkin also noted that the late Father Amorth (he died in September 2016) was a fan of The Exorcist, as it “helped people to understand his work.”
