‘I don’t think I will ever be the same’: ‘Exorcist’ director says Vatican invited him to document the real thing
The version William Friedkin constructed for the 1973 supernatural horror film was not that far from the actual rite he recently documented
William Friedkin, acclaimed director of The Exorcist, says he’s now seen the real thing - and filmed it.
Talking to an audience at the Cannes Film Festival in France last week, the 80-year-old filmmaker said that the Vatican invited him to film an exorcism earlier in May. The version he constructed for the 1973 supernatural horror film, Friedkin added, was not that far from the actual rite he recently documented.
“I don’t think I will ever be the same having seen this astonishing thing,” he said. “I am not talking about some cult, I am talking about an exorcism by the Catholic Church in Rome.”
A representative for the Vatican countered the claim that it had invited Friedkin, noting that it currently does not have an official exorcist. However, the spokesman said that it is possible Friedkin was confusing another Catholic initiative with the Vatican.
That’s not to say the Catholic Church lacks exorcists. In 1999, the church updated its manual on exorcisms: De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam, or Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications. It was, perhaps, overdue - its predecessor had been written in 1614.