C&C 8: RIP William Friedkin
A few words about Hurricane Billy
When I called Ethan Iverson back to discuss the passing of director William Friedkin, I told him the truth. I hadn’t heard my phone because I was listening to the soundtrack from To Live and Die in L.A. (1985).
Friedkin will be remembered for the dazzling one-two punch of The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973). He may only be remembered for those two films, speculating as much in a 2012 interview with Eddie Muller that we ran in Noir City magazine. And The French Connection from here on out may largely exist only in crudely compromised fashion. So let’s spotlight some of his other movies.
Chief among them: Sorcerer (1977), which overcame a triumvirate of jinxes to be belatedly hailed a masterpiece. It opened soon after Star Wars, so no one knew it was in theaters. Except for critics, who knew that it was based on the Georges Arnaud novel that became Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (1953) and condemned it accordingly. (Friedkin always chafed at the notion that Sorcerer was a remake, and he was right, as his version is very much its own beast.) The film fell out of circulation owing to a rights dispute, resolved only because the director undertook protracted legal action. In 2013, Sorcerer was discovered anew. I saw the 4K restoration on the big screen, the ideal way to experience this intense drama about a quartet of outcasts forced to ferry volatile explosives overland. It was a treat to learn from The Simpsons writer/producer Mike Reiss that a tribute to the film’s harrowing rope-bridge sequence was added to the “Mr. Plow” episode because the staff heard Friedkin was a fan of the show.
You know a filmmaker is a force to be reckoned with when you regularly revisit a movie that you don’t like in the hope that you’ve changed, or somehow it has. Such is the case with me and To Live and Die in L.A. It boasts bravura action sequences and a cast full of then-relative unknowns. It’s also scuzzy on a molecular level. Every character is reprehensible. Friedkin commendably commits to that vision, down to some narrative choices you’d never get away with now. I will say that I love the Wang Chung soundtrack unironically and unreservedly.
Friedkin doesn’t get anywhere near enough credit for tumbling to the talent of Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Tracy Letts early, making films based on Bug (2006) and Killer Joe (2011). The former preserves Michael Shannon’s searing stage performance for the ages, while the latter, a hellbent hoot and a half starring Matthew McConaughey as a sleazy Texas lawman, marks the dawn of the McConaissance.
It’s not top-drawer Friedkin, but dear God do I love Jade (1995). High-toned trash that revels in its high-toned trashiness without apology. There’s something to be said for knowing exactly what kind of movie you’re making. In American Rhapsody (2000), screenwriter Joe Eszterhas grumbles about Friedkin adding a stylized sex scene to provide “just a little bit of Belle de Jour,” and in his subsequent books he bashes Friedkin for changing his script. I don’t care. I have watched Jade more times than I am comfortable admitting, and I will watch it again in Friedkin’s honor.
Friedkin’s final film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, will be released posthumously. I’ll let the man himself have the last word, from his 2012 Noir City interview.
When I came into this world … I didn’t think I’d be known for anything. I have nothing to say about how I got here, how I’m going to leave here, or what happens in between … I just feel that I am lucky to have a job—that’s the most honest thing that I can tell you. To be able to direct a fucking movie, and I’ve done fifteen of them, more than half of them aren’t worth a shit, even I can’t look at them—but they’re mine, they’re still very much mine … I consider myself a very lucky man.