Posted on 08/07/2023 10:51:19 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Both great movies. I’ve watched the French Connection several times the past couple of months. Really an outstanding movie.
50 years on, The Exorcist still packs a punch.
If you liked “The French Connection”, you’ll also like “To Live and Die in LA”.
His movie Sorcerer was incredible. I couldn’t believe that it flopped like they said.
Watched it again a few months ago - A+ for the car chase scenes. Gene Hackman super-bad.
Friedkin also directed the underrated 1978 crime comedy “The Brinks Job.” Based upon actual events, the cast plays up the clownish elements of the caper. Peter Falk was the lead performer and he behaved like a criminal Moe Howard in his role.
Interestingly. Friedkin hired some local Boston criminals to assist on the production. Later, the thieves stole fifteen film cans and tried to demand $1 million in ransom money to return the film reels. The goofs had stolen outtakes and dailies, not the positive prints that had been transported to New York City and put into film storage.
Fun film well worth seeking out.
"You'll be picking your feet in Poughkeepsie"
Friedkin directed one of the best music videos, when they mattered, in Laura Brannigan’s “Self Control”. The risqué treatment caused an uproar when the video was released.
Yup- even the ending music after that entire movie is creepy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFIs_Ddfahk
And it keeps getting funnier, every single time I see it!
Between The French Connection and The Exorcist, he did something unusual and historical: he did a filmed interview with one of the greatest directors of the early 20th Century, Fritz Lang, director of “Metropolis” (1927) and “M” (1931).
I prefer it. And Sorcerer for that matter.
Check out “Bug”. His film of the Tracy Letts play. A great piece of sustained paranoia.
I was an usher in a United Artists theater when Sorcerer ran and I can tell you it bombed hard. Nobody understood it.
Truffaut said “Sorcerer” flopped because so much of it was filmed in the rain. He thought audiences subliminally thought the dynamite would not go off in that weather.
One of the last of the directing giants from the ‘70s. RIP.
There are quite a few left. Coppola, Scorsese, Malick, Spielberg etc.
A few, but not many as they approach or surpass their 80s. Lamentable that there are very few younger directors of note these days, as the films have nearly all been thoroughly politicized to the point of garbage and banality.
Don’t forget George Lucas!
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