The first of three weeks of William Friedkin. Do remember to check out my exploration of the man himself.
The French Connection (1971): After a series of smaller movies, Friedkin hit it big with TFC. On what is basically his first major film (few of the people involved were big names at the time, including Hackman and Scheider), he put together what he himself called “a solid B movie”…that ended up winning five Academy Awards, including for best film, best director, best actor and best adapted screenplay. It’s an intriguing true story about a major narcotics bust of the era, assembled with flair and considerable good fortune. It took Friedkin & co. three years to finish it at a time of turmoil for distributor 20th Century Fox, but somehow everything came together so well that it elevated the B movie to one of the more memorable films of the decade, aided by some very fortunate casting mishaps (Hackman and baddie Fernando Rey were not first option, with a fun story to boot for Rey). A movie about obsession with a big pinch of police vigilantism, a seminal car chase sequence and elegantly nuanced performances from those in front of the camera, TFC is exciting to watch and a piece of Hollywood history. 8
The Exorcist (1973): If there were moments in The French Connection that felt somewhat disjointed, thanks/due to Friedkin’s exploratory approach to editing, this is toned down significantly in The Exorcist, a movie that’s as accomplished as the best released of the decade. The story itself and the grounded approach were revolutionary at the time, with sparse, yet goose-bumps-inducing use of special effects. The means to achieve some of the performances from the actors might have been questionable, but everyone from Ellen Burstyn, to Max van Sydow, to Jason Miller and, of course, to Linda Blair brings perfectly pitched cinema-making moments. What stood out on rewatching The Exorcist is its willingness to be as real as possible, finding nuance and doubt even in a character like Father Karras. As Friedkin put it, its the result of two dissenting approaches, one coming from a man of faith, like writer William Blatty, and one from an agnostic like himself. Strange to think of it as a horror movie, because it is first and foremost an existential movie that emphasizes the ancestral notions of good and evil, while establishing a type of dogma that lingers in horror cinema to this day, fifty years later. 9
Sorcerer (1977): Every big director of the 70s and 80s yearned for a Fitzcarraldo-esque triumph of vision and ambition over nature itself. Coming off two resounding successes, Friedkin had similar thoughts with Sorcerer, an inaptly named re-envisioning of H. Clouzot’s Wages of Fear (1955). It features four no-good criminals safe-harboured in the Dominican Republic, doing grueling jobs in an attempt to regain their freedom. As fate would have it, they are chosen to attempt the transportation of many a-box of highly volatile explosive across the jungle, pushing them to the limits of their wits and resources. While the characters don’t get as much development as I’d have liked and the movie lumbers under its extended prologue, it all builds towards a very worthwhile finale. This features a taut twenty minute scene of the trucks crossing the most dangerous places of the Dominican jungle (some not exactly located in the Dominican Republic). I found it an imperfect, but memorable movie, asking some particularly relevant questions about our ability to cooperate internationally, which, as the last years have shown, is still as complicated to achieve as ever. 8
Cruising (1980): For a movie as controversial as Cruising, you would expect fireworks when first watching it. You would be mistaken. Friedkin and everyone involved with the making of this crime mystery with a foray into the scene of hardcore gay leather culture seemingly made everyone unhappy – the gay community, the straight community, the ratings board, the critics and Al Pacino. I guess you can imagine why this movie could and was and, I reckon, is problematic, because it treats a matter of some sensitivity, especially in those days, as exotic and not much more. Other than that, I found Cruising to be a particularly accomplished piece of filmmaking, even if Pacino didn’t quite know what he was doing and Friedkin went above and beyond to make the plot more complicated than it needed to be – including an insinuation on Pacino’s character that only came about during editing and would have probably changed the actor’s approach to the role. That said, it worked for me and the ambiguity bordering on confusion is a feature, not a bug. The crime story it tells is not always exciting, with a lot of voyeuring going on, but the movie works well on mood and tempo, with a classic take on how experience inevitably shapes us, whether it is real or make-belief, intended or not. 7
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023): Last weekend saw the streaming release to William Friedkin’s last movie – an adaptation of Herman Wouk’s play. The play itself is based on the novel previously published by Wouk and adapted into the well-known movie starring Humphry Bogart, The Caine Mutiny (1954). As the title implies, the focus here is entirely on the court-martial, in an old-school and engaging legal battle meant to establish whether a mutinous act had occurred on the Caine ship. Not all performances are captivating, but the ones that matter are, with Jason Clarke a particular standout and Kiefer Sutherland convincing. The film also marks the last appearance of Lance Reddick, who finds good nuance in his role as Judge Blakely, a befitting send-off. The movie is ultimately about the ease with which we pass judgement on people, reducing a life to an instance and failing to appreciate the history that lies behind a generational divide. It’s not absolutely riveting or pitch-perfect, but it’s exciting to watch throughout and a decent movie for Friedkin to end it on, with a central character emblematic of the concerns present throughout his career. 7
tributary stu 