William Friedkin, or 'Billy' as he is most commonly known, has always occupied a unique space in the pantheon of great '70s directors. His two biggest critical and commercial hits The French Connection, and especially The Exorcist, are what cemented his reputation, even though his best film might just be the 1977 thriller Sorcerer.
He made several other very solid to great films -- his To Live and Die in LA is riveting, his controversial Cruising is excellent in its own way, I even like his much maligned comedy Deal of the Century, it's more of a dry satire than a laugh out loud romp, but that doesn't necessarily diminish it in my mind.
He is a blunt spoken, irascible type and the makers of Friedkin Uncut wisely give him plenty of room to wax rhapsodic. It is not like Noah Baumbach's De Palma, which was simply the singular voice of its subject, Friedkin Uncut features the director's contemporaries, collaborators and fanboys -- and that makes it feel a little more conventional.
Sometimes, when it comes to actors like Gina Gershon, it seems to confirm Friedkin's reputation as a bit of an abusive jerk. Some others, like Matthew McConaughey, does a very effective job of defending the director's preference for trying to get a scene in one take.
It does it job -- it makes you want to revisit his work in a new light -- but you almost wish the film has taken a more definitive stylistic approach or a least more of a clear thruline. Ironically enough, there's another new Friedkin documentary, focused entirely on the making of The Exorcist, called Leap of Faith -- that does many of the same things this doc does but a little better.
By dwelling entirely on one movie -- Friedkin's most famous -- it makes many of the same points (and cribs some of the same anecdotes -- like how Jason Miller stole the role of Father Karras from beneath Stacey Keach), but it has a more compelling thesis statement.
Friedkin Uncut unfortunately doesn't work his way through the director's filmography or give yourself a sense of his evolution as a filmmaker. Instead it jumps around, spending too much time on some films, and not enough time on others.
When it finally gets around to Sorcerer -- which as I said earlier, might just be Friedkin's masterpiece. It's compulsively re-watchable, visually stunning and consistently underrated -- I was worried the movie wasn't going to get covered at all. And part of understanding that movie's initial perception as a failure has as much to do with when he made it as anything, on the heels of The Exorcist. Even the movie's title was a silly attempt to link it to its predecessor in Friedkin's oeuvre.
Coppola does brilliantly sum up his and Friedkin's and arguably the rest of the so-called film brat generation's ethos when he says, "when you wanted to show something extraordinary you had to something extraordinary"
Gems like those make that doc great, while Leap of Faith makes a movie we thought we'd heard everything about somehow feel very fresh and relevant. Instead of interrogating the movie's themes of good and evil in a sort of a campy, exploitative way, it takes them seriously and artistically.
It's a somber film -- Friedkin is a great storyteller but his delivering can grow numbing. But it certainly enshrines The Exorcist as the truly great film it was. Sometimes I think because it was a hit and a genre film people try to downplay its power. But it's a bonafide masterpiece.
I completely disagree with the film's contention (voiced aggressively by Quentin Tarantino) that Roy Scheider was ill-suited for the lead role in Sorcerer. Sure it would have been a different, bigger movie had it starred Friedkin's original choice Steve McQueen. But Scheider is no slouch. It was just the right film at the wrong time ... it opened opposite Star Wars.
And even though it 'failed,' Friedkin had final cut -- and so the finished film is still his singular vision.
The two docs about his life -- not quite -- but they are required viewing if you, like me, think Friedkin is consistently underrated.
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