@@shyman3000 So firstly I think we should get married. Secondly, have you listened to Orson Welles yet? Like Friedkin he has those oratory and analytical qualities
@@furtherback6131 ha! Yes I have watched a few interviews with Orsen Welles, he is great. There is also a good documentary on Friedkin that just came out before he died. Werner Herzog comes to mind as well, he is kind of everyone's favorite, but there is one great conversation between him and Jonathan Demme that I love. Directors talking to each other is an extra treat!
He's so sophisticated individual and the amount of knowledge and understanding of complex subjects is astonishing. He's so damn good director for many ways, but I feel that his movies are so dark and gritty, which is why most of them failed quite badly on box office. People were just not willing to see ''dark'' movies all the time, Star Wars was good example of this during the Sorcerer's release. People wanted to see something with happy ending. Sorcerer was greasy, dirty, dark and nihilistic masterpiece with occational moments of relief. Star Wars changed all of that, after which movies started to be ''lighter'' again after strong vibes of the 70's.
@@d-d-i indeed, you couldn't have said it better. His movies are more dark, intense, and pessimistic then the average movie. But that's the kind of outlook William Friedkin has, he portrays how the world really is in his movies. William Friedkin gives me inspiration to be a film maker one day. He does indeed demonstrate an above average level of intelligence.
@@shusterandy Yea and not just in terms of the subjects in the movie, but also with the whole movie making process. Especially editing, he seems to have 6th sense with it, that how couple frames can affect the visual feel with the cuts.
@@VideoAmericanStyleAgreed. Some great films but a lot of them are dated. Dog day afternoon and Serpico are classics, fantastic performances but they're dated and of their time
I could sit and listen to William Friedkin all day long. His thought process and execution as a director are so compelling. I have watched the documentary Leap of Faith 5 times and it is so great listening to him talk about what inspired him in creating The Exorcist. RIP Mr Friedkin!
The Exorcist should have won the Best Picture Oscar. Also Best Director (William Friedkin), Best Supporting Actor (Jason Miller), and Best Supporting Actress (Linda Blair). One of the many times that a movie that deserved the accolades got screwed over by The Academy.
@crow9553 I think the biggest reason Linda Blair didn't win is the fact that Pazuzu's (the demon) voice was done by someone else. An actor's dialogue is crucial to their overall performance. And you have to admit the voice and dialogue was a huge part of the character. Now Jason Miller 100% hands down DEFINITELY deserved the Academy Award!! In fact I had thought he won it for a long time when I was younger.
Back in the day OLD HOLLYWOOD (the voters) did NOT like HORROR - it turned them off ! Just the facts . They liked DRAMAS. the "game changer" was when Silence of the Lambs won best picture! I was shocked. Really. God Dammit: Rosemary's Baby was ROBBED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@ppiorkowski1502 No. Old School Hollywood people - did NOT like horror . It was that simple. They prefer refined DRAMA. Rosemary's Baby deserved BEST PICTURE as did 2001. Many of the voters were older people back then. More old fashioned.
Extraordinarily powerful stuff for 1973. Unprecedented. Modern audiences, lacking a sense of film history and reference points are incapable of understanding the devastating, even traumatic impact the film had when released. Completely new approach to horror, transcending the genre; with the brilliant use of photography, editing, sound design, and clinical medical science inestimably enhancing and burnishing the film's almost documentary-like verisimilitude - firmly grounding it in a stark, believable reality. To paraphrase a line from Rosemary's Baby: "This is no nightmare! This is really happening!"
He was a wild man, thank goodness. It's one thing making ground breaking movies when you are young, but he made Bug and Killer Joe in his 70s! rest in peace to him!
Not to mention the Brilliant "makeup Illiusions" created by the greatest Makup Artist in the world, Dick Smith. If the makeup was fake looking and laughable, it would never have worked.
The interviewer looks and sounds like an Americanized Burke Dennings! Thank you for finding/uploading this. It's so refreshing to have Friedkin's perspective just when "The Exorcist" was initially released.
This is such a great find, almost a miracle!! I had been searching for a very long time any interview that William Friedkin might have given, especially around the time of the original release of "The Exorcist"! The only thing the interviewer left out was mentioning another film that Friedkin directed, which was "The Birthday Party" (1968), based on Harold Pinter's stage play of the same name. Thank you so, so much for uploading this gem!!!
to me...he was truly deserving to win the oscar for THE EXORCIST..which he didn't. The Sting was entertaining, fun..but, so old-fashioned and nothing groundbreaking...which is something you can't say about The Exorcist. and for Bill to be able to pull that movie off despite everything that's stacked against him was incredible.
There were LOTS of films in 1973 that were WAY better than "The Sting". I'll take "American Graffiti", "Paper Moon", "Mean Streets", "The Three Musketeers", and "Badlands" any day over "The Sting". Hell, I'll take "Sleeper" over "The Sting"! "The Last Detail" was good too, so was "Scarecrow" and "Serpico", and "Westworld". "Don't Look Now" and "The Wicker Man" were not nearly as great as "The Exorcist", but good creepy movies as well. Fellini did one of his greatest movies "Amarcord" and Truffaut did one of his greats as well, "Day For Night". F**k "The Sting"!
“It’s a challenge toward which one has to respond”. - William Friedkin That line pretty much sums up what drives one of the greatest directors of the 20th century.
As RU-vidr Andrew Shuster remarked, I find Friedkin to be an absolutely compelling and fascinating speaker. He is a great intellect, a visionary, and a true artist.
Im late posting this but thank you. Most interviews with him are in his senior years. I wish i met him...the man entertained my dad and i thoroughly all my life....i just wish dad was alive to experience To Live and Die in LA in 35 mm. William Friedkin will be missed
One of the most fascinating and talented directors ever to come out of Hollywood. I love his no-nonsense style and I love his description of what he thought of Al Pacino when they worked together on ‘Cruising’ 7 years after this.
William Friedkin is a revelation to me - as a director - who has had some of his movies - that were masterpieces - panned by the critics. Cruising was one. When I saw it I was astonished - because it was an unusual - but brilliantly directed movie - about a serial killer - who murdered gays - he picked up in the nether world of gay sadomasochistic sex - in bathhouses and bars Friedkin created a terrifying atmosphere in the hunt for the killer - based on areal life psychopath. Another of his great movies - which was made around half a century ago - and which I only became aware of recently - was To Live and Die in LA - which hasn't dated at all. As in every Friedkin movie - each superbly directed scene merged perfectly - in a flow of non stop excitement and enjoyment. Then there is his tribute to Henri Clouzot's classic - The Wages of Fear - in which some desperate characters compete to drive a truckload of nitro-glycerine over rough country - to extinguish an oil fire. His movie - Sorcerer - was not only a tribute - based on the same theme - but also an individual masterpiece. He is in my opinion - the equal of the great Stanley Kubrick.
I hold Friedkin to be a true creative visionary and genius. I saw the original cut of Cruising when it came out and found it to be one of the most terrifying films I have ever seen. There is one murder scene in particular that is so real, so powerfully directed that it evoked in me a feeling of being in the room as it was happening; I instantly felt nauseated, queasy, and paralyzed with fear. This palpable sense of realism is the hallmark of a great work of art.
Friedkin is a genius. He speaks about the importance of sound in film. To me, modern movies do not care about sound anymore, but only popular radio soundtrack music. Jack Nitzsche and Friedkin together created the greatest movies that had incredible sound.
8:10 Wm. Friedkin is referring to The Devils of Loudun, a 1952 non-fiction novel by Aldous Huxley. The book examines the psychology behind a six-year period of alleged demonic possession which affected a group of 17 French nuns in the years 1632-38. It was made into a movie in 1971 titled, The Devils, directed by Ken Russel and starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave. 6:50 In the case of the 1949 event on which the movie was based, it's interesting that Friedkin refers to the exorcism as a last resort. After the Exorcist was released, exorcisms became a first choice for many, with a slew of exorcists cropping up.
Among great modern filmmakers, Friedkin, Lucas, and Eastwood seem to me to be the least precious and pretentious, but I’ve always found Friedkin to have the most dark humor and edge of those three, especially in his later years after his early shine wore off. For a guy who skipped college he was extremely literate and well-spoken.
I've read people's comments on how plainspoken Mr. Friedkin is. He is so consice as well. Also, if only all interviewers were as excellent as this one. He asks great questions, he listens, he does not interrupt.
@@TheBundleofkent I looked a little more closely and did some digging - I think it's just some British TV interviewer, not MacGowran (though the resemblance is uncanny). The date given for this interview is '73. I'll assume, given there's a poster in the background, the interview took place either shortly before or after the opening of The Exorcist, which was Dec 26, 1973 (US). MacGowran in fact dies quite young - age 56 - in late January of 1973 (influenza), not long after production on the film completed shooting and eleven months before the film opens. MacGowran didn't live to see the completed film.
@@orpheus9037 my error! I think Friedkin says “ Don” or “ John” during the interview now that I watch it again. Thanks for the research though v helpful. And yes, he is a clone!
Great talker. Did he not kind of contradict himself at one point though? At the beginning of the interview he talked about going to the wrong address across the street from where he was supposed to go on his first job. Then later he talked about answering an ad about the job. Oh well really interesting guy.
