The Friedkin Connection

So I often wonder: if you put the three titans of American 70s auteur cinema – William Friedkin, Paul Schrader, and Michael Cimino – in a room with a loaded gun and a gram of coke, who would come out alive? Personally, my money is on Billy Friedkin. I am only more convinced of this after listening to Friedkin’s retelling of his autobiography The Friedkin Connection.

If I’m being honest, the French Connection and Exorcist director seemed like a massive asshole. They say never meet your heroes. And I definitely never wanted to meet Billy. In fact, I’d probably jump his ass in a parking lot. But there’s no doubt that he’s the most underrated filmmaker to come out of the era which produced Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. Some would argue that his run during the 70s is unimpeachable. The Boys in the Band (1970) was a turning point in LGBTQ cinema. The French Connection (1971) personified the grittiness that later define the decade. The Exorcist (1973) needs no introduction. Sorcerer (1977), then a box office bomb, now considered Friedkin’s magnum opus. The Brink’s Job (1978), never seen it. Had Billy been able to keep his ego in check, he might’ve coasted his way into the GOAT conversation. With that said, I’m sure Friedkin had no complaints on his deathbed. He ultimately won an Academy Award and married actress/Paramount CEO Sherry Lansing.

What’s interesting is that Friedkin claimed that he never subscribed to the ‘auteur’ theory of cinema, stating that film is a collaborative medium. Mind you, all of his actions with writers, actors, and studio executives say different. But there is something unpretentious and almost proletarian about his direction. That’s probably due to the fact that he was a high school educated kid from Chicago who worked his way up through live television. This greatly contrasted with his peers who attended film school and/or were mentored by Roger Corman.

Now you can talk your shit about audiobooks, but I’m tellin ya, I doubt The Friedkin Connection would hit as hard without Billy himself reading it. So do yourself a favor. Drop a few shrooms, shutter the windows, turn up the sound system, and waste the next 20 hours by listening to William Friedkin tell his story.

Freakin Friedkin!

When I think of 70s auteur cinema, I don’t think of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, and others. I think of Michael Cimino.

I also think of William Friedkin, who passed away yesterday at 87 years of age. Fans of the horror genre are in mourning because he made one of the most important films of the decade in The Exorcist. But let’s not forget his other pioneering achievement in Sorcerer, which, a few years before Heaven’s Gate, managed to steer Hollywood away from director-focused pictures. Friedkin was a pioneer in that way.

But he also directed The French Connection which garnered him an Oscar for Best Director. For me, the picture defined Hollywood cinema of the 1970s. Along with DP Owen Roizman (who also died earlier this year), Friedkin created a vision of NYC that was grimy and downright disgusting. Honestly, the city never looked better. While the picture presents itself as a run-of-the-mill police procedural, the ending flips the script. Instead of catching the bad guy, Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle accidentally kills a fellow cop and is left shooting at the shadows. The French Connection was a game-changer.

Of course, the movie is best known for its car chase sequence, where Friedkin bravely put at risk the lives NYC motorists and bystanders by failing to obtain permits to film such a thing. He was a maestro at shooting these scenes. He’d try to duplicate his success with the car chase in Jade, switching out the streets of NYC for San Francisco, and let’s just be honest: it was genius. But too bad that David Caruso is no Gene Hackman.

Billy Friedkin also claimed that he only ever did one take. I have a hard time believing that, but salute. If only Michael Cimino had learned that trick, Hollywood history might’ve turned out different.

RIP Billy Friedkin

bill friedkin

The career of William Friedkin is a reminder of how hard it is to make a good film.

He hit two films out of the fuckin park with The French Connection and The Exorcist then kinda floundered from there (he did have a few notable films afterwards, namely Sorcerer and To Live and Die in LA, the latter of which I haven’t seen).

Sure Friedkin won his accolades here and there, but he is truly the maestro of one specific thing: directing car chases.

Everyone remembers Gene Hackman just plowing through cars and walls while Friedkin neglected to obtain permits to film such a thing in the French Connection (and apparently there’s a good chase sequence in To Live and Die in LA), but Friedkin’s crowning achievement, in my view, is in Jade.

Before David Caruso was spitting out one liners while rocking a pair of sunglasses in CSI: Miami, he tried his hand at being a film star. Jade was the absolute highlight of this period.

In the film, after Angie Everhart gets totally destroyed by a Ford Thunderbird, Caruso pursuits the vehicle in his POS Ford during a delightful chase where vehicles fly through the air down the streets of San Francisco (and Caruso does his best Gene Hackman impersonation).

The best part is when the chase goes through some parade and pedestrians attack the vehicles using martial arts. I guess that would make sense if you learn about other cultures while binging on cocaine.

Take a look: