Once upon a time, children, way back in a magical time of weaker marijuana and unprotected AIDS-free sex called the 70’s there existed a group of young American film directors called either “The New Breed”, “Young Hollywood” or whatever stupid cliche Peter Biskind comes up with to sell his latest book.
Most of you younger folk will recognise the more famous names lumped into that particular category, such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Now they are both old power barons, raping our childhood sensibilities with remade crap and late, late sequels to franchises that probably should have remained long dead (sorry Thrillho)
But one name always stood out to me. The angry guy in the back of the room, insulting everybody else yet unleeashing his often-inconsistent brilliance on an unsuspecting film populace: William Friedkin.
“Who the fuck is that?” I hear some of you less-geeky readers ask. Well, Friedkin is an undisputed genius who refuses to compromise and hates everybody who stands in the way of his art. Hell, rumor has it he hates everybody period. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t have the career of Lucas or Spielberg.
Anyway, to answer the above question, Friedkin has the honor of directing both two of the best car chases of all time as well as arguably the scariest movie of all-time. While you may not know Friedkin, you probably know “The Exorcist” and maybe even “The French Connection”. Hell you may even remember “To Live And Die In LA”.
In this humble author’s opinion, the above films are all masterpieces. They are all well-known films. The first two are “blockbusters”.
So why doesn’t the average Joe know who this guy is? It’s simple, really. He’s an asshole. By pretty much all accounts, Billy is a true dick who cares for little save getting the film done at all costs.
In 1975, this guy was on top of the world. He could do whatever he wanted. And, unfortunately for him, he did. He spent several years remaking one of his favorite French films, angering financiers, actors, and pretty much everybody else in the process. I feel the result is brilliant. Many don’t. I will tell you that if you haven’t seen “Sorcerer” then you are missing out on the creepiest action flick ever made. No, not creepy in the icky alien sense, but creepy in the snse of dread permeating every frame of the film.
Friedkin pretty much hurt his career bad with this film, and it would be a while before he would move on. And even when he did, the results were uneven. But to me, always kind of awesome. Remember that stupid basketball movie with Nick Nolte and Shaq and Penny Hardaway? Yeah, kinda pretentious, I know. But try and watch it again. You may see the strange dread and futility of Nolte’s character in the end when he spills his guts about the corruption of college basketball. That’s the thing with Friedkin’s films. They rarely have that happy, Lucas-Spielberg ending. They usually have the darkest endings in American cinema since Stanley Kubrick. They rarely have likable characters. Understandable characters, maybe. But in no way shape or form are they usually “lovable”. Do yourself a favor, Wiki this guy’s filmography, Netflix the whole bunch and be prepared to be…drained. While that may sound liuke a not fun time, I guarantee you you will understand why I’m writing this crap.
