Friedkin , best remembered as the director of The Exorcist and The French Connection passed at 87 Those two films are considered his best , and he never had the phenomenal financial and popular success they brought again in his career. But he continued to make interesting films , To Live And Die In LA , Sorcerer come to mind. The Old Gaurd continues to fade away. RIP.
Who chose Tubular Bells as soundtrack !
RIP to the man behind one of my all-time favorite thrillers, although he has been noted in the RIP Thread already with several posts.
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The French Connection was certainly a great film... not really familiar with much of his work other than the Exorcist. I remember the summer the Exorcist came out. There was a drive in theatre near us and there was a lumber and brick yard connected at the back fence of the drive in. We used to climb the pallets of bricks and watch movies and drink beer from there all the time. Probably saw the Exorcist a dozen times from there.Originally Posted by battema
Anyway, was Friedkin the director Peter met with about making the Lamb into a movie?
No. He did meet with him after Friedkin read the story on the back of the Live album though, when Friedkin was looking for people to work with whom he thought could provide new and interesting ideas.
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Sad news.
Never saw The Exorcist, but he seemed like a pretty smart and funny guy. The interview between him and Nicolas Winding Refn was great.
"what's better, peanut butter or g-sharp minor?"
- Sturgeon's Lawyer, 2021
I read if he had known about Tangerine Dream he would of had them do the soundtrack. I can't imagine it without Tubular Bells.
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I've always been more familiar with his early movies but somehow missed Sorcerer until recently. Very good movie and soundtrack. Killer Joe is a recent-ish movie of him that I really enjoyed. RIP to a true original.
That was Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Hurtleturtled Out of Heaven - an electronic music composition, on CD and vinyl
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The French Connection and The Exorcist are absolute total strokes of firm genius. Both on my top-25 films of all time.
Cruising is an intriguing experiment in narrative form adjustment and delusional limits of "interactive" vocation (as to receiving end) - sought not to neither tempt, distance, appall or confuse but rather lure the viewer into cognitive dissonance and deliberate transcendence of acceptance, but ultimately unsuccessful as it tends to veer into somewhat unwanted-for ridicule of features. And by this I don't mean nitpicking on alleged discrimination of various sexual minorities in countercultural logistics etc. I watched this on VHS in 1984, my mother having rented it due to Friedkin's overall rep and her respect or love for (or attraction) to Hackman's 'Popeye'-character in The French Connection. Needless to say she quickly fell dull to means of formality and dealings, signal always being that when she didn't like a movie she'd resort to knitting instead, while still pretending to be partly watching. "[...] Semi-Gaypacino doesn't cut it", as I recall. You can imagine how it was seeing Brian De Palma's Body Double with my mom in the room. Ghast.
Sorcerer -definitely- ought to be seen. Along with assortments by Kubrick it's the one single lever of achievement by a 'New Hollywood' director to reach a fringe of what Angelopoulos and Herzog were doing as singular cinematic composition-techniques and dramatic tell-tale linguistics in Europe. But beware; it may appear overacted, demented/deranged in notions of "message" and the brink of ethics seemingly communicated - but never as integrally unsubtle as in anything by, say, Peckinpah (whose stuff I love as well, btw.).
From his later/recent oeuvre I've only paid due notice at Killer Joe, which is again nothing but intriguing but also frustrating in its obvious setout to mock generation X/simulation and the consistent amistice of futile amorality and delights of immediacy as perceived through lenses of a "wiser" reason. Friedkin openly scorned the postmodernist traction of film as storytelling, and the majority of academic creed allowed it due to The Exorcist essentially being the least ambiguously presented dramasubstance in nothing less than the history of cinema. Friedkin never took to generational excuses for sloppiness in narrative vision, and reportedly despised the ideas of "fair contrarian" (namely Tarantino and the lot). At least the ordeal of watchin Killer Joe with my 13-year old son brings about the feeling of faint continuum in family matters. And none of us crave for KFC anytime soon.
'
However, the one returning Friedkin title more rock'n'rollers certainly should dare to experience is Rampage from '87. It's a quite downdusted semi-fictional impression on assumed "deeper" implications in consequence of the murders carried out by Richard Chase, the most tremendously bizarre serial killer since ol' Jack in Spitalfields. The movie purports to capitalize on then current real-crime merits of film in new medias (syndicate TV/broadcasting, video club internals and more), especially The Deliberate Stranger (on Bundy) and To Catch a Killer (on Gacy), but the end result is still among the more rivetingly grotesque chronicles of vicious slayer madness sent by a prominent filmmaker. The scene with the antagonist's smirk as he carries some milt and intestine/kidney along in a wino-paperbag conjures up parables.
Friedkin had better be missed, although I suspect his superlative work will soon be declared taboo for some reason or another. Rest in peace, past history. Future reckons something other from it, as we shouldn't have to recall latter/former realities. Better just decide about truth.
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Do you not like horror films? I know not everyone does, but if you do, you don't want to pass it up. As you probably know, it's more than a horror film.
No I’m not really a horror film guy.Most of them I’m not able to sit through — I guess I have a weak stomach.
I do like Tubular Bells though.
I guess The Exorcist is not the film for you, then! It CAN be a bit stomach churning. The French Connection is excellent.
The French Connection is one of those films that, if it turns up on TV, I end up watching it.
Apart from that, the only other films I'm familiar with are Sorceror and To Live And Die In LA. Tangerine Dream's soundtrack is a great match for the film, primaeval, dark and brooding.
Not being a horror fan, I've no great desire to see The Exorcist, even if it is more than just a horror film.
I saw The Exorcist in second-run a year or so after it first came out. Read the book before seeing it. The movie, much more so than the book, scared the pants off me. I'd wake in the middle of the night, having to use the bathroom. I'd lie there and say, "Forget that, I'll wait til morning."
When I was in college, second year I think, the philosophy teacher had invited that ghost-hunting husband-and-wife team the Warrens to talk to the class, shortly after The Exorcist came out. They claimed to have an entire exorcism in which they participated on audio tape. They said they would not play some of it for the class, as they were afraid to "open a door." Naturally, I had to see the movie after hearing that.
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
The Exorcist is one of the very few books I have read.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STUPID PEOPLE IN LARGE GROUPS!
Yeah I do need to check that one out. It's one of those movies that I've heard mentioned so many times over the years, and yet somehow I've still never actually seen it.
"what's better, peanut butter or g-sharp minor?"
- Sturgeon's Lawyer, 2021
The first date I took my wife on back in February of 1973 was a double feature, The French Connection and Mash.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STUPID PEOPLE IN LARGE GROUPS!
And when you say very few - are we talking under 100? Or something more like 10?
Ravens Annual Team Yearbooks don't count ;-)
Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit
Probably under five.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STUPID PEOPLE IN LARGE GROUPS!
Every now and then I think of To Live and Die in LA but it's been years. I've never seen it pop up on cable since the 80s and I've never seen it on the streams.
RIP to a master of his craft
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Yes, only seen it on TV once, many years ago. By comparison, The French Connection is probably showing on a TV somewhere right now.
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