Film director William Friedkin died yesterday at age 87. While he grew up Jewish, Friedkin is most well known for directing the Catholic horror film The Exorcist, which continues to scare the absolute shit out of people to this day.
A couple years ago I did a piece for America about the making of The Exorcist, and in researching that story I learned some wild tales about Friedkin, like how he would sometimes shoot off guns without warning to get the frightened reactions he wanted from his actors, or how he once suddenly slapped the Jesuit William O’Malley, who had a small part in the film, to get more emotion out of him.
Cinematographer Owen Ruizman later said, “Billy was reaching for the limit, he was committed to it, and he was obsessed by it himself. And that obsession was contagious.”
But for his own part, Friedkin saw the story as fundamentally a story not about the devil but about faith. “If you’re watching closely you realize that the film’s true protagonist is not the girl but…
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