William Friedkin has died at the age of 87. Variety’s obituary is here.
His films The French Connection and The Exorcist are among the best of all-time.
I spent a lot of time watching The French Connection when we were doing the FSM CD of it (and the sequel score). I marveled at every frame.
I remember for both of those films, being surprised, the first time I saw them, at how different they were from the mainstream blockbuster filmmaking I was used to (of the 1980s and ’90s). You really had to work to interpret what was going on—but it was so rewarding to do so.
And when they got into their grooves...
...they were transformative.
Farewell to a master!
I liked this article from two years ago on Friedkin's two films The French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A. https://www.roughcutcinema.com/post/the-french-connection-at-50-william-friedkin-and-the-undermining-of-the-lawman
It gives some context to the failure of The War on Drugs, the era in which TFC was originally made, and coming to the conclusion that Popeye Doyle was a bad guy and an even worse cop (something that the original audiences seemed not to understand).