Remembering William Friedkin

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William Friedkin, the Oscar-winning director of the masterpieces The French Connection and The Exorcist has died at the age of 87.

Born in Chicago on August 29, 1935 to Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants, Friedkin worked on documentary film crews and TV shows in the 1960s, rising to prominence in the early 1970s among a generation of creative and resourceful young filmmakers who would create the New Hollywood movement. He directed a handful of highly theatrical films in the late 60s and early 70s—musicals or adaptations of stage plays. But it was The French Connection, his gritty, low-budget neonoir set in present-day New York City, that catapulted him to the big-time.

The film was written by Ernest Tidyman, based on Robin Moore’s book of the same name from 1969. Made on a budget of $1.5 million and produced by Fox, the only studio that didn’t reject it, The French Connection was shot documentary-style on location. It is noteworthy (among its incredible performances) for featuring a heart-pounding car chase through the streets of New York, which, thanks to Friedkin’s vérité style, feels immersive and hyper-realistic. Nominated for eight Oscars and the winner of five, it completely reworked the cop thriller and remains one of the most important crime films of all time.

Following the phenomenal success of The French Connection, Friedkin directed The Exorcist. The 1973 adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel of the same name, it is long considered the greatest horror movie ever made. The Exorcist was nominated for ten Oscars. It is impossible to overstate its impact on the horror genre or on cinema, writ large.

In 1973, along with Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich, he started a production company in association with Paramount called The Director’s Company. Due to various disagreements, it had a short lifespan, but produced three seminal films, Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon (1973), Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), and Bogdanovich’s controversial Daisy Miller (1974). Throughout his long and inventive career, Friedkin directed many fascinating films, including a a $22 million remake of the Henri-Georges Clouzot 1953 thriller The Wages of Fear called Sorcerer (1977), which bombed after competing at the box office with Star Wars, a film that The Director’s Company passed on producing. Several subsequent films were less successful at the box-office: The Brink’s Job (1978), the cult classic Cruising (1980), and Deal of the Century (1983). In 1985, to great success, Friedkin released The French Connection‘s descendant-of-sorts, the classic neonoir To Live and Die in L.A, and, in 1987, the critical darling serial-killer movie Rampage (1987). In 1998, he directed the impressive cable remake of Twelve Angry Men.

Friedkin’s accomplishments were manifold, and his legacy is one of intense artistic perseverance in the face of tawdry commercial concerns. It’s a tragedy that many of his fascinating middle-period films were neglected or maligned; Friedkin’s box-office failures are more interesting than many directors’ successes. And yet, if for some absurd reason there is only one film for which Friedkin will be remembered, it will be The Exorcist. Friedkin wanted the film to have the gravitas of a domestic drama, while also featuring moments of horror that were both believable and unforgettable. In an era of wildly inventive practical special effects, Friedkin’s ingenious direction (like lowering the set temperatures so that cast members’ breath could be visible to the camera during the exorcism scenes) elevated the film’s tone to serious levels of terror and dread. It was a new kind of movie. Rumors of production accidents and deaths only further shrouded it in a layer of mystery, as if making the film had stirred the attentions of an occult realm like none had before. Yes indeed, Friedkin’s film was so effective in its depiction of the supernatural that it was ascribed with the power to not only reach but also rumble an otherworldly astral domain.

Friedkin continued directing projects for film and TV through the aughts and teens of the 21st century. His last film, for some time, was the 2017 documentary The Devil and Father Amorth, about repeated exorcisms of an Italian woman in the remote village of Alatr. But in 2022, he returned to direct a film adaptation of Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. That, his final film, will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2023.

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