Tag: film analysis
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To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
After the flat and uninspired comedy Deal of the Century, William Friedkin made perhaps his most stylistically satisfying picture, To Live and Die in L.A., based on a novel by former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich. The story follows two Secret Service agents as they attempt to bring down a successful counterfeiter, and like Friedkin’s…
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Deal of the Century (1983)
Deal of the Century is one of only two movies William Friedkin gives no mention at all in his 2013 memoir, and seeing the movie illustrates why. The movie, designed to be a contemporary homage to Dr. Strangelove and the ever-present dangers of nuclear war, fails to be either demonstrably funny or serious about the…
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Cruising (1980)
Does the current cultural climate allow for a movie like Cruising to be considered, let alone greenlit? The brazen attitude with which William Friedkin infuses this story takes it far beyond what the source material, Gerald Walker’s novel, would allow. Utilizing an entirely different backdrop, one that would cause many audiences to do a double…
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The Brink’s Job (1978)
How does a filmmaker respond to a major disappointment, despite believing their most recent work is undeserving of such treatment? For William Friedkin, the fact that Sorcerer did not live up to its expectations at the box office revealed more about the times than the quality of his work. In his memoir, he mentions the…
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Sorcerer (1977)
Sorcerer, the movie for which William Friedkin wished to be remembered, is as taut and intense a thriller as any that has been made before or since. One of the reasons for this is how Friedkin strips the story down to its bare essentials: four men attempt to transport extremely unstable explosives two hundred miles…
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The Exorcist (1973)
When the movie adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist opened the day after Christmas 1973, few who saw the picture could have imagined the film’s staying power. Over budget with no star names, the studio did not have high expectations for its returns and were shocked by its wild success. Even in the 1970s,…
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The French Connection (1971)
For some filmmakers, the chance of a lifetime comes along, often by happenstance, when the right material is presented to them at the right time, and they decide to make a movie that will become one of the defining achievements of their career. For William Friedkin, after four productions which challenged him to adapt to…
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The Boys in the Band (1970)
At a pivotal moment of twentieth century American culture, playwright Mart Crowley adapted his life story to the stage in order to understand the place he and others like him occupied in society. Despite the fact that the story revolves around a collection of gay characters, Crowley insisted he didn’t write The Boys in the…
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The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968)
William Friedkin’s third feature has an improvisational, put-together-at-the-last-minute feeling that is appropriate for its subject matter, which deals with the evolution of staged comedy shows in 1920s New York City. Based on historical fact, the movie revolves around the biggest burlesque theater, run by Billy Minsky, as it struggles to stay open despite crusading moralizers…
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The Birthday Party (1968)
Theater and cinema have always had a kind of sibling rivalry despite theater being much older and, some might say, more sophisticated in nature. Yet, when the movies burst onto the scene in the early twentieth century, denizens of the theater quickly realized how soon their fates could be written on the wall if they…