William Friedkin (1935 - 2023)

[DarkImbecile]

William Friedkin

[Pavel]

I’m glad he at least managed to make one more film before he passed

[Mr Sausage]

The French Connection and The Exorcist remain terrifically exciting films and deserve their reputation. I haven’t much liked the other Friedkins I’ve seen, with the notable exception of the utterly wild Killer Joe. There are a few notables I still haven’t caught up with, like Sorcerer and Bug. Good excuse to do so.

[beamish14]

I’m gutted. To Live and Die in L.A., Sorcerer, and Killer Joe have always meant so much to me. He was, I think, the last living director to have worked on Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Nat Segaloff’s biography of him, Hurricane Billy, is a hoot. It ends around 1989, but it’s packed with some incredible insights and quotes.

[FrauBlucher]

The French Connection and The Exorcist remain terrifically exciting films and deserve their reputation.

Wow. I just didn't think he was that old. Time flies. Talk about two films that dominated the early 70s. As a 10 to 12 year old those two films I remember being in the public ether so much during that period. I was too young to see them but recall hearing so many adults talk about them.

Also, the Friedkin interview of Fritz Lang is always an interesting watch as well as a bit frustrating

[Big Ben]

RIP to an absolute legend. His commentary for Cruising is one of the funniest things I've ever listened to.

[hearthesilence]

I still need to see The People vs. Paul Crump, which may very well be his most innovative film. I imagine it presages a lot of his groundbreaking methods in The French Connection.

[Finch]

I've said elsewhere on the forum that I prefer Bill Blatty's Exorcist III, compromised product and all, to Bill Friedkin's original film but The French Connection is an all-timer, and Bug, Sorcerer and To Live and Die in L.A. are very good, and Killer Joe has got to be one of the nastiest neo noirs (and that's a compliment). I still remember my very first forum post was complaining about how bad Friedkin's Vertigo commentary was, and the one for the Exorcist was equally useless because he just repeated what happened on-screen.

Hopefully, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial turns out to be another good one! RIP.

[swo17]

Looks like Lance Reddick will also feature in Friedkin's upcoming film

[therewillbeblus]

The French Connection and The Exorcist remain terrifically exciting films and deserve their reputation. I haven’t much liked the other Friedkins I’ve seen, with the notable exception of the utterly wild Killer Joe. There are a few notables I still haven’t caught up with, like Sorcerer and Bug. Good excuse to do so.

I used to love classic these Freidkins in my youth, but their impact has softened considerably with recent revisits. Conversely, I think his last two Tracy Letts adaptations are handily his most impressive work, outside of To Live and Die in L.A., which only improves in my esteem the older I get

[Rayon Vert]

Still love The Exorcist just as much as ever, which is a lot. Tremendous accomplishment.

[beamish14]

The French Connection and The Exorcist remain terrifically exciting films and deserve their reputation. I haven’t much liked the other Friedkins I’ve seen, with the notable exception of the utterly wild Killer Joe. There are a few notables I still haven’t caught up with, like Sorcerer and Bug. Good excuse to do so.

I used to love classic these Freidkins in my youth, but their impact has softened considerably with recent revisits. Conversely, I think his last two Tracy Letts adaptations are handily his most impressive work, outside of To Live and Die in L.A., which only improves in my esteem the older I get

Friedkin had a real gift for adapting material that originated on the stage.

I want to rewatch it, but I remember Deal of the Century being painfully boring and very visually uninspired. It was written by Paul Brickman, who wrote/directed two of my favorites, Risky Business and Men Don’t Leave

I’m really curious to see if there is a way for both cuts of Rampage to get a joint Blu-Ray release one day

[The Narrator Returns]

I haven't seen a lot of Friedkins (I'm missing the big two) but I love all the ones I've seen. I want to shout out The Hunted, which got lost between Friedkin's wilderness period and his Tracy Letts revival but is a terrific, sheared-to-the-bone thriller, with a foot chase worthy of his more famous vehicle setpieces.

[John Cope]

The French Connection and The Exorcist remain terrifically exciting films and deserve their reputation. I haven’t much liked the other Friedkins I’ve seen, with the notable exception of the utterly wild Killer Joe. There are a few notables I still haven’t caught up with, like Sorcerer and Bug. Good excuse to do so.

Sorcerer is easily my favorite film of his (I've seen it many, many times) but that's an easy claim for me to make as it's one of my favorite films period.

[Rayon Vert]

I've purposefully never seen Sorcerer, worried it might ruin The Wages of Fear for me. Maybe somebody I'll get over that... fear.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen The French Connection, for whatever reason. I have no motive not to correct that!

[therewillbeblus]

RV - Sorcerer is so different from The Wages of Fear tonally and economically, that I don't think it runs the usual risk of ruining the original. I don't love the film as much as many, but it's a really interesting experiment that succeeds entirely on its own terms. And many people weary of/averse to remakes enjoy it on those terms.

I don't want this to come across as disrespectful (as it's not meant to be posed as a 'silver lining' in any way whatsoever), but I'm curious what this will mean for home video releases of Freidkin's work going forward, as I believe his level of participation has been known to affect releases, for better or worse

[Kracker]

Yeah Sorcerer is a different movie with a different interpretation. That's why I like it so much, its a completely different experience and something i wish subsequent adaptations did more often. People wrongly classify it as a remake when its really a different adaptation of the same source. Remake is when something takes anything original to another previous film or adaptation.


I hope his posthumously released final film winds up being good. From what I understand, his last movie, another about an exorcism, was kind of a stinker and would be a shame if he didn't end his career on a good note.

[hearthesilence]

I'm mostly a fan of The French Connection with mixed feelings about The Exorcist, but I'll say this - when I needed a distraction from election day 2020, I basically watched horror films all day, something I typically don't do, and The Exorcist definitely fufilled my needs very well.

[FrauBlucher]

Friedkins' closet picks and Friedkins' Top Ten

[brundlefly]

mixed feelings about The Exorcist, but I'll say this - when I needed a distraction from election day 2020, I basically watched horror films all day, something I typically don't do, and The Exorcist definitely fufilled my needs very well.

It's an intensely well-crafted multi-use tool. Because of the way it is shot and where it is mostly set, it can be taken seriously. Because of some of the extreme elements in it, it can be camp. It brings the biggest things -- God, the devil, innocence, guilt -- into a chamber drama set around a child's bedroom. The supernatural, the primal, the mundane. There's enough in there that you can let slide any meaning that doesn't get to you at the moment. (You don't have to look at it and say, Hey, here are grown men strapping a little girl to bed and torturing her, for instance.)

When I first saw it I was young and its seriousness shocked me. When I saw it as a cynical teen, I cackled; "Your mother sews socks that smell!" was already well in the lexicon. When I watched it again recently, after having seen both parents out of the world and having friends whose children have suffered series of frustrating diagnoses, I saw the worst of its horror as all real and completely divorced from good and evil. Are you doing the best things to care for those who depend on you?

[flyonthewall2983]

Blue Chips is a favorite of mine. The pace is maybe too fast but the subject matter was handled as delicately as possible but it’s arguable he had a bit of more free reign at Paramount for obvious reasons at the time, but for at least this one he made the most of it.

[beamish14]

Blue Chips is a favorite of mine. The pace is maybe too fast but the subject matter was handled as delicately as possible but it’s arguable he had a bit of more free reign at Paramount for obvious reasons at the time, but for at least this one he made the most of it.

Nick Nolte’s impromptu sermon at the Black church is one of the most unhinged moments from any of his films. Simultaneously very uncomfortable and entertaining.

[knives]

That one’s real good. I also want to give a good word to The Night They Raided Minsky’s which is pretty hilarious.

[hearthesilence]

Totally forgot that Robby Müller was the cinematographer on To Live and Die in L.A., and not only did he decline to participate in the car chase due to safety concerns, that work was given to the second unit cameraman - future cinematographer for Wes Anderson, Robert D. Yeoman. Pretty amazing they both worked on that film.

[therewillbeblus]

That's cool, though not surprising at all considering how great the film looks. One of my favorite things about To Live and Die in L.A. is the contrasting yet blended relationship between form and content mirroring the themes. It's a pulpy, pop-80s synth crime thriller on the exterior, yet deeply cynical underneath in its depiction of how humanity erodes as people acclimate to roles without their own cognizance. The bleeding of morality and identity and relationships without expected cues elides the progression from us but also reflexively demonstrates how the characters themselves don't know what's happening to them while it is, triggering a loss of all aforementioned elements in that nebulous merger. Things still appear clear on the surface at the end -transactional relationships, ideas of right vs wrong, power dynamics, concrete emotions stances, a presumed Code... but that formal and behavioral lucidity is deceptive. The cycle continues with an entirely new contextualization - all these cops have is to hold onto something tangible and defined in a chaotic, gray world out of their control. The mirage must be upheld, at the expense of complex emotional engagement, humanistic action, self-exploration, etc.