“This is Bill Friedkin, day one, take one…“

Director William Friedkin explains, discusses, and occasionally shrugs off the many disparate elements, themes, and influences that helped him to create what many consider to be one of the most frightening films of all time.

“…just a straight ahead story that was done as realistically as possible.“

With that sentence William Friedkin proves that he was the right person to direct The Exorcist. That he understood the assignment from page one, word one of William Peter Blatty’s bestselling novel.

For me it also brings to mind the moment in Dario Argento’s Tenebre when crime novelist turned amateur detective Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) quotes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to actual Detective Germani (Giuliano Gemma).

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

That is why The Exorcist is able to work as well as it does and why so many of its knock-offs and almost all of its sequels fail. Friedkin knew that the build-up to the possession needed to be both methodical and painstaking. That the reality of Regan’s possession had to be indisputable in the mind of the audience members by the time Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) arrives at the house.

An arrival that just so happens to contain one of the most memorable shots in cinema. What inspired that shot and how it came to be is just one of countless stories and anecdotes that Friedkin shares in Leap of Faith, a documentary that is simply the man sitting in a chair and talking about how he made his most famous movie.

Writer/director Alexandre O. Philippe (The People vs. George Lucas, 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene) does not allow alternate points of view to contradict Friedkin’s version of the story. This documentary leans pretty heavily into the Auteur Theory, as does Friedkin himself. The man even goes so far as to tell how he told Blatty to junk the script and start over, by giving the author a marked up version of his own novel, to explain exactly what the new script did and did not need.

“I’m more interested in spontaneity than perfection.“

There are plenty of anecdotes and evidence of what Friedkin put the cast and crew through during production, and the director is quite open about some of them. He shares how he would fire a gun off at random times, so that some actors did more than simply “act” scared. An old director’s trick he claims was used by George Stevens and John Ford. He also shares how he punched one non-actor, so the guy would be able to cry with the kind of power the scene called for. But he does not go into any detail about the injuries that Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn suffered on set.

“…to me it’s more a chamber piece than a spectacle.“

The one thing I do agree with Friedkin is that his film’s quieter moments are when it is at its most powerful. The opening in Iraq (which Friedkin had to fight to include), Father Karras’s nightmare, and a dialog scene between Burstyn and Lee J. Cobb are all rightfully singled out for their excellence.

“…it’s both obvious and indecipherable.“

A nitpickers gotta nitpick and Friedkin discuss what he thinks is the biggest nit in Blatty’s story. The ending. Friedkin flat out admits he does not understand it, or what it was that Blatty was trying to reach for. The ending does work, of course. It just does not hold up to Friedkin’s analytical approach to the material.

But his comments do make for a fascinating end to a documentary that, despite being a man sitting in a chair and telling stories, is as every bit as thought-provoking and engrossing as The Exorcist itself.