Flickread: The Friedkin Connection

by William Friedkin
512 pages.
2013


William Friedkin's career in film has seen dizzying heights and abysmal depths but in spite of his diminished reputation in 21st century Hollywood, Friedkin's best work remains phenomenal and enduring while many lesser films, like The Guardian, don't reflect his ability to dredge humanity for its darkness and moral frailties. Even some of his failures are more interesting than many successful director's triumphs. In a career spanning 50 years, Friedkin has given us the ragged streets of New York in The French Connection, the terrifying possession of a 12-year-old girl in The Exorcist, a rogue-ish FBI agent hell-bent on arresting a counterfeiter in To Live and Die in L.A. and a psychotic Texan law-enforcement officer who moonlights as a killer for hire in Killer Joe, all of which reflect a career far from the vast ocean of ordinary that grips the movie industry.

Friedkin's 2013 memoir; The Friedkin Connection is a cinephile's feast. Biographical details of his life as a son of Russian Jewish immigrants raised in working class Chicago give way to a fascinating history of his professional career. Told in unfussy, direct prose, Friedkin's memoir doesn't avoid his messy personal life; several divorces, ruined friendships, relationships, several near-fatal heart-attacks but he doesn't dwell on the personal details either. His book is what film-lovers crave: making-of, behind the scene accounts of how the films for which Friedkin earned international renown were conceived, made, marketed and were received by critics and audiences alike. Like the gifted filmmaker Friedkin is (was?), he knows how to tell great stories, of which his book contains ship-loads.

Friedkin doesn't waste any time in divulging his many personal and professional failings, how he screwed up friendships, burned bridges, infuriated those around him and often took people for granted. He is honest and straightforward but he doesn't fritter time away on soap opera-like dramas off-screen. He is painfully honest about how his career faltered after the 70s' and how the directorial offers began to thin. He is grateful to still find work and occasionally he shows his burning, creative flame still flickers in films like Bug and Killer Joe.

Friedkin's life in 1940s' and 1950s' Chicago was anything but crepe suzette; his father sold men's clothes while his mother supported him as a nurse following his father's passing. After an undistinguished high school life and no college ambitions, Friedkin found a job in a local Chicago T.V. station mailroom, which eventually evolved into a job in the studio, which in turn led to his first directorial job.

A chance encounter at a party inspires Friedkin to conceive a T.V. documentary about an african-american man on death-row who he and many others believed was innocent called The People vs Paul Crump. Friedkin's film won an award at a San Francisco film festival and flush with modest success, was able to direct another documentary for the small screen called The Bold Men. Friedkin admitted his heart wasn't in the film, which strengthened his resolve to never devote his time to projects for which he had no emotional or creative attachment.

The 60s' found Friedkin behind the camera for more T.V documentaries but also a very brief stint on the Alfred Hitchcock Hour (one episode, really). Friedkin's offbeat direction on the episode Off Season brought him some notoriety but his work remained tethered to the realm of T.V. documentaries until his friendship with singer/songwriter Sonny Bono led to his first feature film effort called Good Times, which was conceived to capitalize on Sonny and Cher's 60s' popularity. The film didn't set the cinematic world alight but Friedkin didn't tarry; he moved on to an adaptation of a Harold Pinter play called The Birthday Party. Pinter was then an emerging talent as a playwright. Friedkin met with Pinter and eventually came to stay with him in his England home while the latter wrote the screen-adapation. Friedkin and Pinter became life-long friends and the collaboration is a creative coup for Friedkin, as the experience allowed him the opportunity to work with another august talent; English actor Robert Shaw. For Friedkin to work with a playwright who was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize would be an achievement for any filmmaker, but Friedkin's star was only just ascending.

Friedkin's Boys in the Band (1970) brought him controversy; the groundbreaking (but mostly forgotten) film's frankness about homosexuality was considered taboo at the time as it depicted a dinner party of gay friends that goes awry when it is discovered a heterosexual is among the invited. The film garnered some positive critical notice and a some award nods but it also demonstrated Friedkin's willingness to provoke and explore what was then shocking subject matter.

Friedkin followed up the film with what would become a timeless, classic thriller: The French Connection. Friedkin's account of it's conception and making is absorbing reading, especially for cinephiles. He shares every pain-staking detail of its creation. We learn the great film was almost aborted due to studios tepid interest in the project. Friedkin in a directorial role was also of no interest to producers while they also held the notion that Gene Hackman in the role of Popeye Doyle seemed more like a liability than a boon. We learn Fernando Rey was "accidentally" cast as the villain Alain Charnier. Friedkin asked for an actor he liked who he had seen in a Bunuel film, only to find Fernando Rey greeting him at the airport. Friedkin was livid; castigating the casting director for hiring the wrong actor but he eventually warmed to Rey as the heavy. It is one of those serendipitous blunders that not only turns out to be a movie-changing choice but makes for a great story and great reading.

It is astonishing to read that the film's iconic car chase scene was largely improvised rather than storyboarded--a testament to Friedkin's inventiveness and his sometimes dangerous filmmaking methods.

The film's success, critically and financially, earned Friedkin much-needed clout and not a little confidence. In fact, Friedkin is keen to point out that the film's success allowed him to present his next film idea to the studios: The Exorcist. For me, the making of Friedkin's most famous film (and my personal favorite of his) is the steak entree of The Friedkin Connection and it is the making-of account to which he devotes most time and words.

An encounter with Exorcist novelist William Peter Blatty years before on another film production led the scribe to present Friedkin with his hugely succesful novel as a possible film adaptation. It is fascinating to learn the novel itself might have mouldered in obscurity if not for Blatty being cast as a guest replacement on the Dick Cavett Show; an appearance that propelled his book to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list. Its success also led to a Hollywood deal with creative control over aspects of the film adaptation. The film essentially became a collaboration between Friedkin and Blatty, who wrote the screenplay and offered the director some guidance and ideas.

I winced, reading of the casting choices for the role of Chris MacNeil: Audrey Hepburn, Jane Fonda and Anne Bancroft. Hepburn asked that the production be moved to Rome, where she was living, to which Friedkin balked. Bancroft was pregnant and asked that the production be delayed a year, which was impossible and Fonda, having read the script, responded with venom; "what is this capitalist, piece of shit?" How Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller and Max von Sydow came to be cast reflects Friedkin's loyalty to those he felt were ideal for his creative vision and his daring. Both Blair and Miller were gutsy casting choices, as both were unknowns and untried before a camera. The obstacles in the production, the innovations on the set and ultimately the film's enormous, commercial success round out the filmmaking account. For lovers of the film (like me), it is very satisfying; every detail a prize, every remembrance a ruby.

The book's latter chapters cover his lesser-known films, among them Sorcerer, which has been largely forgotten, and the ill-advised making of Cruising, which may have helped diminish Friedkin's stature in the film industry, which lead to Friedkin's gradual decline as the Hollywood It director to someone struggling to fund a film.

Friedkin is painfully honest about his fall from film empyrean and posits causes though he doesn't delve too deeply. One of his films that has been unjustly overlooked is To Live and Die in L.A.; a movie I believe belongs in the Friedkin pantheon with The French Connection and The Exorcist. It is unfortunate it came along during the hero-in-white hat 80s', because its characters are rich in contradictions and moral ambiguity.

From the 80s' to present, Friedkin has made some interesting failures and modest artistic successes. His latest, 2011's Killer Joe, was unfairly dismissed by critics and the movie-going public alike.

After two failed marriages, Friedkin wedded film producer Sherry Lansing, which seems to be a solid pairing, bringing him happiness and contentment. If making movies has become a struggle, he seems to have found joy and solace in his now settled personal life.

Does he have any great films left in him? Unfortunately, he may not. But with Friedkin, one can never tell. One indisputable fact is his significant contribution to movie history and maybe that's enough. The Friedkin Connection is a must read for cinephiles and the more casual film-lovers. For ardent fans of The French Connection or The Exorcist, it is indispensable.


The Friedkin Connection by William Friedkin