William Friedkin Dead: ‘French Connection,’ ‘Exorcist’ Director Was 87

[Shaka Zulu]

William Friedkin, the Oscar winner behind The French Connection and The Exorcist who was one of the most admired directors to emerge from a wave of brilliant filmmakers who made their mark in the 1970s, died Monday. He was 87.

Friedkin died of heart failure and pneumonia at his home in Bel Air, his wife, former producer and studio head Sherry Lansing, announced.

He was part of a brilliant generation of filmmakers who upended the studio system, making movies that were provocative, individualistic and antiauthoritarian. Several of its members at one time joined forces to create The Directors Company in an attempt to give themselves the independence they cherished, though internal disagreements led to its dissolution, not long after they had collectively turned down Star Wars.

Even in a work that might have been a B movie with another helmer, Friedkin could dazzle with his skill and originality. The Exorcist (1973), one of his most admired films, begins in a Middle Eastern desert, where an old man stumbles through an archeological site toward a hole where something — who knows what? — has arrested others’ attention. The sequence is terrifying, not just because of its desaturated images and the naturalistic performances that capture the heat, sweat and humidity of the locale, but also because of a soundtrack in which a buzzing, insistent sound reminiscent of flies — perhaps the lord of the flies himself — grows ever louder and more menacing.

William Friedkin, Acclaimed Director of ‘The French Connection’ and ‘The Exorcist,’ Dies at 87

Apologies if this has already been posted.

 

[auntiehill]

Such a great director. "French Connection" has been/ will continue to be studied by film students for decades.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

Rest in peace Mr Friedkin.

 

[publiusr]

To this day…the most chilling thing I have ever seen (on the big screen) was from a film of his that had nothing to do with split pea soup:

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