The Devil and Father Amorth (2017)

26 Thursday Jul 2018

Tags

Christina, Documentary, Exorcism, Gabriele Amorth, Italy, Possession, Psychology, Religion, Review, William Friedkin

D: William Friedkin / 69m

With: William Friedkin, Gabriele Amorth, Jeffrey Burton Russell, Paolo Vizzacchero, Nadia Vizzacchero, Neil Martin, Itzhak Fried, John Mazziota, Robert Barron

In 1972, director William Friedkin began shooting The Exorcist, an adaptation of the novel by William Peter Blatty. The movie was an unqualified success, partly because of the special effects used to express the nature of the possession. It was also the favourite movie of Father Gabriele Amorth (the ‘h’ is silent), an Italian Roman Catholic priest and the Vatican’s Exorcist in Chief (though he thought the special effects were “over the top”). Having made the most famous movie about an exorcism, Friedkin was given the opportunity in May 2016 to witness (and record) a real exorcism, one carried out by Father Amorth on a 46-year-old Italian woman known as Christina. This would be her ninth exorcism. Afterwards, Friedkin followed up his experience by showing his footage to various interested parties such as clinical neurologists, psychologists, and even the Archbishop of Los Angeles. Having gained their views, Friedkin returned to Italy to meet with Christina again, but their encounter was not what the director was expecting. And due to a variety of circumstances, his enquiry into her possession was left open-ended…

You can see the obvious attraction for Friedkin in making this documentary. And it couldn’t have been difficult to raise the funds to get the movie made. But somewhere along the way, something went dreadfully wrong with the whole idea, leaving The Devil and Father Amorth as something of an odd fish, dredged up from the bottom of the ocean and looking unlike anything seen before. With a lengthy introduction that relates to the making of The Exorcist, Friedkin revisits some of the Georgetown locations where the movie was shot, and includes archive footage of Blatty talking about the inspiration for his novel. It’s perhaps meant to be a nostalgic trip down Memory Lane, a way of explaining how Friedkin came to make this movie as well. But as the movie progresses, it proves to have less and less relevance and feels more like an attempt to pad out a documentary that’s already in danger of having an appropriate running time. Make no mistake: the exorcism footage barely covers a third of the movie’s length, and despite being the “real thing”, isn’t as enthralling as you’d expect. And though it’s meant to be taken seriously, when Christina yells, “I’m Satan! Stop it!” at Father Amorth, it’s hard to believe that possession is really what’s happening.

It’s a view backed up by a number of scientific talking heads – though none of them will come right out and say it. Friedkin asks the question several times: can possession be what the Church says it is? But no one will commit to a straight answer, and though demonic possession is recognised as a psychological disorder, their equivocation is something of a non-starter (where is Richard Dawkins when you need him?). Only the neurologist Itzhak Fried comes close to hitting the scientific nail on the religious head when he says that without a belief in demons then it’s unlikely anyone else will suffer in the same way. To his credit, Friedkin allows the experts’ different opinions to stand unchallenged – who knows, one of them might be right – but spoils everything with a reconstruction from “memory” of the meeting with Christina that sounds like something from 1973. So lacking in credibility is this sequence that it spoils the movie as a whole and makes you wonder if this really is as authentic as claimed; if it is then truth really is stranger than fiction.

Rating: 4/10 – with an exploitative feel to it that further undermines the rationale behind its making, The Devil and Father Amorth is an uncertain movie that can’t decide if it’s making the case for possession or not; Friedkin is a stiff presence in front of the camera, as well as something of a badgering interviewer, but the banality of it all does allow a layer of sincerity that otherwise, would be sorely missed.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)

18 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Angela Robinson, Bella Heathcote, Drama, Lie detector, Luke Evans, Psychology, Rebecca Hall, Review, Sexuality, True story, Wonder Woman

D: Angela Robinson / 108m

Cast: Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, Bella Heathcote, Connie Britton, JJ Feild, Oliver Platt, Chris Conroy, Alexa Havins

The creation of Wonder Woman, or at least, the source of her creation, is the kind of story that should be filed under “so incredible it must be true”. And that’s exactly right. Wonder Woman was the lasso-twirling, tiara-wearing brainchild of ex-Harvard faculty member William Moulton Marston (Evans), a psychology professor who also invented the systolic blood pressure cuff used with lie detectors (though he forgot to patent it). Wonder Woman was born out of Marston’s belief that women could only truly be happy by “submitting to a loving authority”, i.e. a husband. As a result, the early Wonder Woman comic strips were full of scenes of bondage, domination and spanking, with the majority of the female characters passively accepting their situations. Some of this was due to the structure of Marston’s private life. He was married to Elizabeth (Hall), also a professor of psychology, and they in turn lived with a research assistant of Marston’s who became their joint lover, Olive Byrne (Heathcote). Both women had children by Marston, and for a number of years their living arrangements went unquestioned. This polyamorous relationship led to Marston’s creation of the Amazonian princess, but even though the Wonder Woman comic strip was enormously popular, its content ensured that it would fall under the spotlight of Josette Frank (Britton) and the Child Study Association of America, and find itself at risk of public censure…

In telling Marston’s story, and that of Elizabeth and Olive, Angela Robinson’s earnest biopic relates a story of a ménage à trois that succeeded on its own terms, and in flagrant defiance of the societal norms of the period. This is the movie’s focus: not the creation of Wonder Woman, but the creation of a three-way relationship that withstood both internal and external pressures, the addition of children (four in total), long periods where Marston was reliant on his writing to bring in money (Elizabeth was a better breadwinner), and which did so because of the trio’s commitment to each other (though inevitably, there’s a blip). Robinson’s screenplay is firmly on the side of Marston and his two Wonder Women, and the personal and sexual explorations they undertook in order to make their relationship work, and if there isn’t too much in the way of judgment or objective criticism about the nature of their private lives, then it doesn’t hurt the story overall. But there are moments where the narrative seems in need of a dramatic push, and Robinson obliges accordingly.

But this is a movie about feelings, and emotions, and the best way of expressing them. Refreshingly, and aside from a closing scene in a hospital room that seems to go on for far too long (see if you think someone should have come in at some point), the characters make their points succinctly and quickly before moving on the next, and despite some occasionally clunky expository dialogue, the cast all give strong, skillful performances. It’s good to see Evans taking on a more meatier role than of late, and he expertly navigates the twin poles of Marston’s personality, aiming for dominance in his public and working lives, while being submissive in private. Hall is terrific as Elizabeth, hiding her vulnerability and insecurities behind a fearsome exterior, and Heathcote is equally impressive as Olive, the young woman neither Marston nor his wife can live without. As a framing device, Marston’s meeting with Frank doesn’t always tie up with what amount to flashbacks of his life up until then, but it does give the viewer a better understanding of Marston’s views on relationships and submission and all areas in between. This is a movie that’s unafraid to explore issues surrounding marriage and polygamy and notions of what constitutes individual pleasure, and in doing so proves itself to be intelligent and thought-provoking, though a little too matter-of-fact in its approach.

Rating: 7/10 – purposeful and intense for the most part, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women plays it straight, and in doing so, does justice to its trio of lead characters and their unconventional lifestyles; Bryce Fortner’s cinematography adds a layer of nostalgia to things, and Robinson is to be congratulated for interpreting Marston’s life in such a way that the majority of the movie remains plausible if not always entirely convincing.