The passing of American director William Friedkin yesterday marks the end of an era. Friedkin was the director of The Exorcist, the horror film that changed the genre: here was a film about an evil coming from within the sacred family home, rather than a threat attacking the family from outside.
The Exorcist worked as a social commentary, too, with religion, sexuality, youth and politics central themes of the film. Unlike other horror films released around the same time, The Exorcist had no comic edge, nor was it remotely Gothic. It was a deeply fearful and serious film about true evil that had entered an American home: it seized on people’s fears about the wickedness and sin which they believed was taking hold of American society in the Seventies.
But Friedkin should be remembered for more than this remarkable film: over his five decade career he made 20 movies, picking up 19 Academy Award nominations along the way. And although his best work was undoubtedly made in the Seventies, when he also made the Best Picture-winning The French Connection, he continued to make some thought-provoking films up to his death. His final project, legal drama The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, will premiere posthumously at Venice in September.
Here we pick five of the director’s best films to watch after The Exorcist.
The Birthday Party (1968)
The Birthday Party is a horrible, brilliant film. Made before Friedkin became a household name, this neo noir is said to have been one of his passion projects – the director was reportedly a fan of Harold Pinter’s 1957 play of the same name. Happily for Friedkin, Pinter came onboard, writing the film’s script and choosing the film’s cast: Robert Shaw starred as Stanley and Patrick Magee starred as McCann.
The film taps into classic human fears: it tells the story of a birthday party that is turned on its head by the arrival of two sinister figures. A 1970 Evening Standard review described the film as “a study of domination that sows doubts, terrors, shuddering illuminations and terrifying apprehensions inside the four walls of a living-room.”
The French Connection (1971)
Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider and Fernando Rey starred in this fantastic award-winning action-thriller. The story follows two NYPD police inspectors, Popeye Doyle and Cloudy Russo, who are trying to track down the ring-leaders of a heroin-smuggling gang in France. Tables are turned when the smugglers decide it would be easier for the drug shipment to go through if the police officers are bumped off, and suddenly the chasers become the chasees.
The film picked up eight Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture and Best Director, catapulting Friedkin onto the world’s stage.
The Brink’s Job (1978)
This crime-thriller about the Fifties Brink’s robbery had a lighter edge than The French Connection. Based on the famous true story, it starred Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates and Paul Sorvino as members of a motley crew that rob a private security headquarters in Boston and manage to nab as much as $2.7 million – which is around $34 million in today’s money. But this was no masterful job, and the five associates start to crack under police pressure.
The film picked up an Oscar for Best Art Direction, and won over many reviewers, too, despite not raking in the cash. In 1979, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, film critic Roger Ebert described the film as “a slick, skillful and often very funny caper movie. It’s so good, indeed, that I’m a little amazed that The Brink’s Job hasn’t become a major Box Office success... What [Friedkin] exhibits here... is a light touch.”
Cruising (1980)
In Friedkin’s controversial 1980 thriller, Al Pacino stars as Steve Burns, a detective who goes into the underworld of gay and S&M clubs in New York City in the Eighties to try and stop a serial killer who is murdering gay men. Upon the film’s release it was immediately met with backlash: many argued that the film’s subject matter was dealt with insensitively. People felt there was both a lack of understanding about the various subcultures the film was trying to depict, and found the film to be excessively violent. Some LGBT+ activists were offended by the film’s association between gay men and brutality.
To this day Cruising remains one of Friedkin’s most challenging and provocative films, but it has been reassessed over the last forty years. Speaking to Vulture in 2013, Friedkin said: “Many critics who wrote for gay publications or the underground press felt that the film was not the best foot forward as far as gay liberation was concerned, and they were right. Now it’s reevaluated as a film. It could be found wanting as a film, but it no longer has to undergo the stigma of being an anti-gay screed, which it never was.”
Filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino, Nicolas Winding Refn and The Safdie brothers have all positively referenced Cruising. Philosopher Camille Paglia has also spoken about the film saying, “I loved Cruising—while everyone else was furiously condemning it. It had an underground decadence that wasn’t that different from The Story of O or other European high porn of the 1960s.”
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
William Petersen, Willem Dafoe and John Pankow star in this hard-hitting action crime thriller. It’s a chase flick once again as Secret Service agent Richard Chance (Petersen) sets out to track down counterfeiter Eric Masters (Dafoe) with his partner John Vukovich (Pankow). But Chance, who plays fast and loose at the best of times, is being even more reckless than usual, as he is being haunted by the death of his old partner.
The film holds an 86% Rotten Tomatoes score, with its critics consensus saying “With coke fiends, car chases, and Wang Chung galore, To Live and Die in L.A. is perhaps the ultimate Eighties action/thriller.” Ebert heralded the film as Friedkin’s “comeback”, describing the film as “first-rate”, and in 2008, The Los Angeles Times listed the film at number 19 on its rankings of The 25 best L.A. films of the last 25 years.
