
William Friedkin, Acclaimed Director of ‘The French Connection’ and ‘The Exorcist,’ Dies at 87
The Oscar winner "never played by the rules, often to my own detriment," he said.

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Thanks article link. If you’ll through the comments you will find that the author’s son, Michael Blatty, gave his thoughts as well.Good piece in today’s NYT on the Exorcist and Friedkin. Lots of comments from him of which I was unaware.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/12/...ytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
I'd say it's because movie fans can put what Friedkin did in the proper context and historical perspective and, most importantly, the general public doesn't have a clue who William Friedkin (or Sam Peckinpah or John Ford or D.W. Griffith) is so they don't get demolished on social media for a day or two.But why are they still regarded as legends in our current climate
But why are they still regarded as legends in our current climate
Amen!For the same reason acclaimed authors with...let's say...personal issues -- like Lewis Carroll or Ernest Hemingway -- are still praised for their writing despite those personal issues. And that's because people are able to distinguish the difference between the person and their work.
While made some great contributions to film it probably should be said that he could be pretty ruthless in his methods. There was the story that in the Exorcist where Ellen Burstyn was thrown back from Regan’s slap she was pulled back using a rope. Burstyn complained that it was too much and he told her that he would go easier, but then yanked her even harder in the next take which apparently led to chronic back issues for Burstyn. Was also known to have fired guns on set to get desired reactions. Made Mercedes McCambridge (voice of possessed Regan) chain smoke, chug whiskey and drink raw eggs to the voice sound the way he wanted. Another incident showed with Freidkin not getting the reaction he wanted from William O’Malley (Father Dyer) from Karrass’s death. So he said something to O’Malley like “do you trust me” got a yes response to which Friedkin slapped him across the face as hard as he could. On the French Connection he apparently ordered the crew to cause a traffic jam on one of the NYC bridges to get a shot he wanted and apparently filmed the famous car chase without permits and with little regards for safety. I guess you can’t argue with the results he got and not to speak ill of the dead but a lot of stuff you couldn’t do today
Yes Friedkin talked a little bit about these things in The French Connection commentary. If memory serves, the way the car/elevated chase was shot led to an unplanned car accident while Hackman was actually driving in one of the shots.While made some great contributions to film it probably should be said that he could be pretty ruthless in his methods. There was the story that in the Exorcist where Ellen Burstyn was thrown back from Regan’s slap she was pulled back using a rope. Burstyn complained that it was too much and he told her that he would go easier, but then yanked her even harder in the next take which apparently led to chronic back issues for Burstyn. Was also known to have fired guns on set to get desired reactions. Made Mercedes McCambridge (voice of possessed Regan) chain smoke, chug whiskey and drink raw eggs to the voice sound the way he wanted. Another incident showed with Freidkin not getting the reaction he wanted from William O’Malley (Father Dyer) from Karrass’s death. So he said something to O’Malley like “do you trust me” got a yes response to which Friedkin slapped him across the face as hard as he could. On the French Connection he apparently ordered the crew to cause a traffic jam on one of the NYC bridges to get a shot he wanted and apparently filmed the famous car chase without permits and with little regards for safety. I guess you can’t argue with the results he got and not to speak ill of the dead but a lot of stuff you couldn’t do today
And that's because people are able to distinguish the difference between the person and their work.
Well, that's their problem!Some (hopefully most) can, but a lot of people can’t
Well, that's their problem!
Well, we're not going to solve the world's discourse problems in this thread.Theres a lot of things out there in this world where I would agree with that sentiment, but sometimes in reality it doesn’t hold up (but yeah with Friedkin and others at in that period it was a different time and those tactics were more commonplace)