Sep 23, 2026 · 1h 47m
A cinematic disaster becomes a test of auteur mythology
The Best Movies About Filmmakers, and ‘Boorman and the Devil’
The discussion uses John Boorman’s failed Exorcist sequel to examine creative authority, New Hollywood’s collapse, and how artists should be judged.
- 1The Exorcist II: The Heretic fails on its own terms, not merely because it followed a landmark horror film.
- 2Borman and the Devil reveals how impossible productions expose the gap between auteur authority and collaborative filmmaking.
- 3Director documentaries matter most when they connect artistic ambition, personal chaos, and the consequences of failure.
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The hosts turn The Heretic’s notorious failure into a broader test of whether a director’s misfires deserve as much attention as their masterpieces.
The brief
Sean Fennessey and Tracy Letts begin with Borman and the Devil, a documentary about John Boorman’s troubled production of The Exorcist II: The Heretic.
They argue that The Heretic is not simply a bad sequel: its ineffective imagery, performances, and lack of suspense make it a failure on its own terms.
Boorman’s ambitions place the film inside New Hollywood’s final era of expensive, personal studio projects, before executives tightened control after Heaven’s Gate.
The conversation asks whether artists should be remembered for their triumphs or judged across their failures, with Boorman’s career offering evidence for both views.
From Hearts of Darkness and Burden of Dreams to fictional directors in All That Jazz and The Stunt Man, the hosts map cinema’s fascination with creative chaos.
The standout idea is that the best filmmaking documentaries demystify directors without reducing them, showing how authority, collaboration, ambition, and failure shape a career.
Featuring
Orson Welles
John FordBooks & mentions
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