Obituary | To live and die in Hollywood: The Exorcist director William Friedkin (1935-2023)

American director William Friedkin died this week aged 87. (Photo: Twitter)

Earlier this week, Hollywood lost one of its most influential filmmakers of the last five decades. William Friedkin, the iconic director and writer behind movies like The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973), passed away at the age of 87. He was an uncompromising and unapologetic filmmaker, never afraid to speak his mind. His film output had slowed considerably in the 21st century, but his work continues to influence a wide range of filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Christopher McQuarrie even today.

Friedkin was one of the defining voices of the New Hollywood movement, marking a shift from the studio-driven movies of the '40s and '50s to the era of the film director as authorial voice. Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Ford Coppola emerged as the the most successful filmmakers during this time due to their populist and commercial tendencies, but it was filmmakers like Friedkin, and John Frankenheimer who pushed the boundaries with their stories and challenged audience perceptions.

To any cineaste, the name Friedkin immediately conjures up a couple of images — Linda Blair’s spinning head in The Exorcist, and the car chase in The French Connection. Friedkin was a master of thrills and visuals, but he always used them as a means to advance character and story. Viewers would be sucked in by the inventive and daring car chases, but what they would take away was the obsessive drive (pun intended) of the protagonist, and a reckless disregard for the collateral damage resulting from their single-minded pursuit of their objective.

Friedkin was particularly interested in “the thin line between the policeman and the criminal, and between good and evil”. He was unafraid to showcase deeply flawed protagonists like the racist and brutal detective Popeye Doyle from The French Connection, and the amoral secret service agent Richard Chance in To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). Chance as played by William Petersen is a precursor to The Wire’s detective Jimmy McNulty, the poster child of problematic cops. The end justified the means for these characters, but viewers were forced to question whether the damage done along the way was worth the trouble, and whether they were rooting for the right person.

The Academy awarded Friedkin early in his career; The French Connection was nominated for eight Oscars and won five, including Best Picture and Best Director; and The Exorcist became the first horror movie to be nominated in the Best Picture race with nine other nods. He suffered a setback with Sorceror (1977) which was rejected by critics and the box office. Nevertheless, Friedkin considered it his masterpiece and the movie is now hailed a misunderstood classic. He bounced back with To Live and Die in L.A., and sporadically made movies well into this century. His last movie, Killer Joe (2011), featuring Matthew McConaughey was critically acclaimed and is often credited with kicking off the McConaissance.

Friedkin’s style was visceral, making viewers feel like they had been on a harrowing journey. He was gritty before it was fashionable to be gritty. His camerawork took cues from documentary techniques, with a reliance on hand-held shots and a sense of the camera always catching up to the action in the scene. There was an immediacy in his filmmaking which gave his movies the sense of being observed rather than being written and performed for the benefit of an audience.

Friedkin had a gift for regaling listeners with no-holds-barred anecdotes from his days on set. In the parlance of today’s youth, the man DGAF. He was vocal about his disdain for the sequels and prequels that The Exorcist spawned  — “horrible”, “big mess”, and “dumb waste of time”, were some of his descriptors, and these are only the ones fit to print. He also revealed that the fake money that was made for the counterfeiting thriller To Live and Die in L.A. was so good that he used it in real life for years after production ended. Friedkin revered his actors, but couldn’t resist taking digs at them — “I’d rather work with tree stumps than actors”.

In his later years, Friedkin became a font of knowledge for younger filmmakers. He spoke extensively and frankly about his process, and his Q&As are masterclasses on filmmaking. His autobiography, The Friedkin Connection (2013) is a must-read for any film student. Friedkin held screenings at his home, and gave a lot of time and advice to upcoming directors like Damien Chazelle, among others. Guillermo del Toro was one such recipient of Friedkin’s largesse and even agreed to serve as backup director on Friedkin’s final movie The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023), which was completed before his death and will premiere at the Venice Film Festival next month.

Freidkin left an indelible mark on the industry and the art form. He knew better than anyone else that good art can be so all-consuming that it possesses the viewer. And this is the kind of possession that we don’t want an exorcist for.