What began as a brief conversation between Friedkin and Father Gabrielle Amorth - the head Exorcist for the Diocese of Rome for over 30 years - as two professionals who knew of each other's work soon transformed into an once-in-a- lifetime opportunity, as Amorth agreed Friedkin could film an exorcism ceremony.
Friedken explores the origins of The Exorcist. Anyone who's seen even one of the hundreds of documentaries about the making of that classic... will not find anything new here.
While providing incredibly rare insight, The Devil and Father Amorth is an overly-jumbled, overwrought documentary experience whose reach unfortunately exceeds its grasp.
This would be an interesting subject to explore at length, with a host who didn't seem to be padding an opportunity for self-promotion with the trappings of science.
Longer than a bonus feature for the already exhaustively-presented Exorcist, but not quite long or complex enough to be the feature-length exploration of real exorcisms it aspires to be - effectively, an infomercial for his earlier work.
No sense of gothic mystery is to be found with not a single artfully shot frame in the entire film. (Remember, The Exorcist was so well shot that they actually used a film still as the poster and it's stunning.)
The Devil and Father Amorth starts to feel slippery, as Friedkin uses the sliver offered by psychologists and neurologists as a pry bar to crack open space for the supernatural.
