Boorman and the Devil

New Showbiz Analysis

The documentary opens with the ghostly, unfinished sets of Exorcist II: The Heretic, a visual metaphor for the creative ambition that outpaced its own execution. David Kittredge’s film argues that John Boorman’s 1977 disaster was not a failure of craft but a casualty of Hollywood’s inability to accommodate genuine artistic risk. The sold meaning is clear: the director is a tragic hero, crushed by the machine, and the film’s infamy is a badge of integrity. The camera loves Boorman’s vision, framing his choices as noble and the studio’s interference as petty. However, the film’s internal logic pulls against its romanticism. By treating the studio system as a monolithic villain, it ignores the collaborative labor of the crew and the financial realities that made such risks possible. The “risk” is framed as purely aesthetic, detached from the economic consequences for the workers who built the sets. The ending settles on Boorman’s later success, suggesting that the industry eventually learned to respect the auteur, a neat moral verdict that smooths over the systemic inequalities of the era. The film is a fascinating autopsy of a specific Hollywood moment, but its liberal performance of artistic freedom masks the traditional hierarchies that enabled it.