The Interviews (ft. David Kittredge on Boorman And The Devil; Padraic McKinley on The Weight)

The Empire Film Podcast

This episode features two deep-dive interviews with directors transitioning from editing to directing. David Kittredge discusses the emotion

Key takeaways

David Kittredge describes 'Exorcist II: The Heretic' as a period of profound professional trauma for John Boorman.
Kittredge emphasizes that cinematic innovation requires directors to take massive risks, even if they fail.

Main topics

Documentary filmmaking
John Boorman's filmography

Notable quotes

I have an overwhelming responsibility to make this a film... because as a cinema lover, this is one of the great directors of all time.

Conclusion

A moving exploration of the grit and passion required to sustain ambit

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:14) I'm Chris Hewitt and welcome to another episode of The Interviews. We're kicking off with a long one, folks. An extended interview with David Kittredge, director slash editor slash narrator of the excellent documentary Borman and the Devil, which tells the wild story behind the making of John Borman's Exorcist II, The Heretic, complete with interviews with Borman, stars Louise Fletcher and Linda Blair, and a host. of familiar faces. It also, in a way, makes a case for the film, which has long been famously considered one of the worst blockbusters ever made. I spoke to Kittredge on Zoom recently, and we had a fascinating chat about a fascinating film that went way over our allotted time. Enjoy. Thanks for doing this. I love the film. Speaker 3 (1:03) You know, you work on a film for several years, as I have on this film, and it's like... you know, to get this kind of reception, the reception that I like because we premiered at Venice last year. So I've been running around with the film for about a year and it's. Speaker 3 (1:18) I don't honestly know how to process it. It's just been amazing. And I've met so many amazing, famous filmmakers. Speaker 4 (1:26) I'm like, oh my, you want to talk to me? I'll talk to you. That's great. You're a legend. Speaker 3 (1:32) But it's been a little bit crazy. Yeah, wonderful. Thank Speaker 4 (1:36) you. Well, David, I want to talk about the journey that this film has had to the screen because it's evidently... A long one. And there are a couple of, there are a couple of clues. One is very, very sad. Obviously, we split you so long with this. If I didn't know I was going to Speaker 3 (1:51) get this much shit for John saying that he was 85, I probably would have cut it out because I didn't know, like, because it's true. I shot John Borman in, in, he was the first interview in this film and that was in 2018. Right. And that was, and he was 85. And I actually saw John. And that was the first time I had seen him since 2018. Well, you went over to Ireland. No, he moved in with his son, Charlie, in Surrey. Speaker 4 (2:21) Oh, okay. Speaker 3 (2:21) Yeah. Speaker 3 (2:24) Yeah, I mean, he's 93 now. I mean, he's still there, and it was lovely to see him. I'm glad I shot him when I did, and I'm glad everybody got to see John Borman the way that I think John would have wanted to be seen. Twinkling and sharp. Yeah. Funny and all the great things that make up who he is. Speaker 3 (2:54) Yeah, I mean he's had some health issues in Speaker 4 (2:57) the last year or two especially and Speaker 3 (3:00) you know, he's hanging in there. Speaker 4 (3:02) Um, which is amazing. Yeah. Speaker 3 (3:04) Yeah. I, I just, I, and it was really lovely to kind of go to him and say, you know, thank you. Um, because I, I mean, you've seen the film, so, you know, he didn't have to open up to me the way that he did. He didn't have to be vulnerable or been able to have kind of given me the credit for this. And it's like, I don't, I can't credit. I mean, I mean, i think he liked me um and i think he he believed me when i said i wanted to look at this one film in his filmography probably the the last film he wanted to actually look at and say like okay this was a film that fundamentally changed you as an artist the way that you looked at film the way that you looked at um the audience and uh you know it you can see the films he made after And some masterpieces that he made after. Speaker 3 (3:58) Having gone through the cataclysm of the heretic both in the making of it and the reception of it fundamentally changed him as an artist and and not for worse either i think that it really broadened his belief it broadened his um Speaker 3 (4:15) vision of what cinema really is which is not just about like making movies for yourself it's like there's a communication and a dialogue you have with the audience um and yeah it it was very moving yesterday i mean this is very emotional because it just happened yesterday i'm still very emotional about it because i'll never be able to repay him that debt if if my documentary is worth anything it's because he chose to be open and vulnerable Speaker 3 (4:45) And that's a debt I can never repay. How Speaker 4 (4:47) did you get in touch with him in the first place? Speaker 3 (4:50) I was put in touch with an author who wrote a book about him. And I basically said, like, can I give you an email to forward to him? You know, being respectful, you know, it's like I want to be respectful. And he did. And John got back in touch with me. And we had kind of it was kind of a courtship to get him to agree to an interview. because i had to i felt i had to convince them that i was like a for real like as a filmmaker like i was an actual filmmaker like not some you know amateur or you know kind of youtube video essay like whatever um and then i was not making a film out to mock him or the film i actually wanted to look at this this work in his body of work what was he trying to do where was he at how and again technically this exorcist to the heretic like it or hate it um it's technically an astonishing film and and some of the stuff they did in it with the in-camera effects and and the camera tricks and all the stuff it's stuff that he would employ later but it's it's also just unbelievably inventive stuff it's it's one of the most visually um stunning movies of that period of of any scope and um i think just as a cinema lover i wanted to know how some of it was done um So yeah, and and after a few months and this was 2017 when I first got in touch with him and then after a few months We agreed here invited me to his home to shoot him in his home and I had one day with him and I was February 28 2018 and The entire interview takes place that comes from that day that one day There were no reshoots. It was that you know, you got what you got, but he sat with me pretty much the whole day and I got an interview that I was watching I remember I was watching the footage back in my hotel room that night uh while the dupling you know duplicating the the media make it so like oh my god I gotta get this off on one disc I gotta put this on multiple hard disks just you know because you know whatever um and I was watching it and I and I just felt like a I I have an a responsibility an overwhelming responsibility to make this a film and finish it and get it out no matter how long it takes, because this as a cinema lover, this is one of the great directors of all time, as far as I'm concerned. And he's talking not just about this one film, he's talking about his life. He's talking about what it is to make films, to make art, to make any sort of ambitious art and how to survive. It, when it turns into a catastrophe and this is all stuff, I don't think a lot of artists talk about. And. To have one of our greatest filmmakers, one of the greatest filmmakers ever speak about this. I just felt this responsibility. I was like, I don't care how long it takes. I have to make this and I have to make this as fantastic as I possibly can make this. I told my friends, I was just like, if this isn't one of the greatest movies ever made about making a movie, I'm not going to stop until it is. That's all I wanted to do. Because, you know, I think there are a lot of people like me who just love cinema and love movies. And this movie is for us. Speaker 4 (8:10) First of all, how long did you have with John? Speaker 3 (8:13) I had a day. I don't remember how many Speaker 4 (8:15) hours. Okay. So it was hours. It was a full Speaker 3 (8:17) day, though. Because we started in the morning. We set up. We started shooting. We took a lunch break. Speaker 4 (8:23) we Speaker 3 (8:24) shot all afternoon and by the time I left the sun, it was like magic hour. The sun was going down. So I was just like, I'm here. Crew, Speaker 4 (8:31) local crew. Speaker 3 (8:32) Oh, yeah. No, actually, Seamus Deasy, who was his cinematographer in the last several films he made, shot it and it was really lovely. He offered because they're close friends. And I think I think he. I think it was insurance. I think you wanted to make sure it was done right. And I was like, oh my God, you're going to get Seamus Deasy. Do it. Like, he's great. Whatever. That's fine. You just gave me a gift. And we had two cameras and yeah, that was it. And it's funny. Like, you know, I talk about that moment in the hotel, watching the footage and hearing John talk about like his life, his work, ambition, his family, how he felt when. exorcist 2 the heretic came out and it was so rejected it was there were riots you can't even talk about the rejection of this film and and make people in 2026 understand it exactly because this was this was at a time before home video much less the internet and you know if you wanted to see a movie you would have to see in the theater or wait several years to see it edited for television it was only later in like the 80s that people started having like you know um like pay cable and stuff and being able to see stuff it might be different in britain because i think that you guys were playing unedited movies even then but um in america you couldn't you couldn't see anything and uh they wanted to be scared and they weren't they were not scared by exorcist 2 they were mad and he He really I learned later He said in an interview actually just a couple of weeks ago And I did not know this that he had never really talked about this period of his life It was the greatest professional trauma of his life a trauma that I can't even imagine to have worked so hard and so long on such a sincere film like it or hate it Exorcist to the heretic is an utterly sincere film Speaker 1 (10:23) and Speaker 3 (10:24) I just I can't he almost gave up filmmaking and thank god he didn't Speaker 4 (10:31) yeah absolutely um i mean from that you go into you go to his house yeah your focus at that point is the exorcist dying i Speaker 3 (10:43) was so nervous like i'm talking to one of the greatest filmmakers ever and i'm like okay i'm hyper prepared right yeah i didn't want to have a heart attack really Speaker 4 (10:52) okay i Speaker 3 (10:53) i have like 11 pages of questions And I'm like, okay, I don't know if we're going to get through everything. Like we're supposed to have two days together that morning. John pulls me aside before the shoot is like, David, I think we can get Speaker 4 (11:05) this done in Speaker 3 (11:05) a Speaker 4 (11:05) day. And I'm like, Speaker 3 (11:07) You're John Borman. Yes, we'll get it. Just tell me. Fine. We'll get it done. And we did. And, um... I just think I was in like kind of a fugue state when I was interviewing him because I'm also like kind of like I'm largely I have largely been an editor for most of my career. And so I know bites. I know sound bites. I know moments. And it's like I'm watching him. And part of me is listening to what he's saying. And then part of me is like listening for. OK, that's a bite. OK, that's a bite. And there were very few cases. He's so good. There are very few cases where I was like, could you say that again? Speaker 3 (11:44) at like without the pronoun because like you would need to happen without that with the context you know like you would have to take out the context so there i think i only did that i only had him repeat something i think once and i don't even think it made the final cut so um he was just a fantastic interviewee um you know open funny uh uh such a lovely i wish i could have just