Maria Munoz Rivera |
Madrid (EFE).- Russell Crowe gets into the skin of the controversial priest Gabriele Amorth, “an interesting figure to interpret” not only “because of his exorcisms but also because of his personality,” the actor told Efe when talking about the film “El Exorcist of the Pope”, which arrives this Wednesday in Spanish theaters.
“I don’t think it’s a common horror movie or that it’s similar to ‘The Exorcist’, it’s more complex because it rescues real events,” Oscar-winner Russell Crowe told Efe about the film directed by Julius Avery (Samaritan), centered on the figure of who was the most famous exorcist in the world.
Movie inspired by the real archives of Father Amorth
A film inspired by the real archives of Father Amorth, who was appointed official exorcist of the diocese of Rome in 1986 and who founded the International Association of Exorcists (AIE) in 1990, an organization he presided over until his retirement in 2000.
Amorth was also known for his controversial statements. He assured that John Paul II performed an exorcism in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican to drive out the devil from a demon-possessed girl or that the attacks on Pope Benedict XVI for the cases of pedophile priests had been “suggested” by Satan.
During the years in which he worked as an exorcist, Amorth performed more than 70,000 exorcisms, as he himself claimed on several occasions. A trajectory that he left reflected in his books, documentaries and memories.
Crowe gets into the skin of Amorth
Crowe, Oscar winner for his leading role in “Gladiator” (2000) now becomes Amorth in a film that combines fiction with some of the Italian father’s testimonies during his years as Rome’s official exorcist.
“I didn’t know the figure of Amorth until I received this project,” says Crowe, who read two of Gabriele Amorth’s works to prepare for the character. “I traveled to Rome and talked to a lot of people, I documented myself,” says the actor about his approach to his character.
“When making these types of films, one of the things that you have to be alert to is understanding the information objectively without neglecting the script,” Crowe explains to EFE about the film, which balances true testimonies with supernatural scenes from the iconography associated with exorcisms.
In the film, Father Amorth travels to Spain to exorcise a possessed child. There he discovers a whole hidden plot related to the devil for centuries. “The film has many elements; it could go from ‘Indiana Jones’ to ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ so I don’t think it’s a normal horror movie, it’s ambitious,” he says.
“I think I quickly understood Amorth’s personality to be able to put it in the film”, highlights Crowe, who stresses that the priest was not only “interesting because of his work, but also because of his own personality”, a type of character that was “ important to understand in order to bring it to the screen”.
For Crowe, the most surprising thing about the project is “having discovered that the Vatican had its own archive of exorcisms”, an “unknown” reality and that the film shows punctuated by some scenes associated with exorcisms; from levitations to vomiting objects, self-harm and phrases in dead languages.
“Perhaps the narrative does not have as much action as I would have liked, but that is precisely what is important, respecting the real elements that Amorth experienced,” Crowe explains about the film, which he considers “deep and background” thanks to the fact that part of those real facts.