On August 7 local time, the famous Hollywood director William Friedkin (William Friedkin) died of heart failure at his home in California at the age of 87.

In 2013, Fred King received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Film Festival

Fredkin has been in the film industry for sixty years, leaving behind many film history classics such as "The French Drug Trafficker" and "The Exorcist". He has won the Oscar for Best Director and is the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Film Festival; Golden Raspberry Award nominations for Worst Director and Worst Writer of the Year. Compared with fellow directors of the "New Hollywood" movement, such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola, Friedkin's works may not be as strong as literary films, but they have the courage to challenge the audience's bottom line , Strive to create a screen spectacle.

With "French Network" overwhelmed Kubrick to win a statuette

William Friedkin was born in a working family in Chicago on August 29, 1935. His parents were both Jewish immigrants from Ukraine with average income, so he went to public schools all the way, and his grades were always average. . After graduating from middle school, at the age of 16, he joined a local TV station in Chicago. He started as a handyman, and with his diligence and wisdom, he was promoted to a live director of variety shows in less than two years. He also tried to shoot some TV documentaries.

In 1965, at the age of thirty, he left his hometown and came to Hollywood, the mecca of the film industry, to develop. Two years later, he released his first feature film "Good Times". Many years later, when looking back on his film life along the way, Friedkin expressed his dissatisfaction with this work, almost unwilling to admit that it was his work.

In 1968, Friedkin had two works, "Birthday Ball" and "Spring Scenery on the Terrace", but they were not very successful. Afterwards, he brought the popular off-Broadway play "The Boys in the Band" that focused on the gay community to the screen, which immediately brought him praise from the media and attention from the industry, and also made 20th Century Fox decide to hire him to direct "The French Drug Traffickers". ".

Friedkin and star Gene Hackman on the set of 'The French Dealer'

According to Friedkin, he got inspiration from the political film "The Big Storm" (Z) by the Greek director Gavras, and adopted a documentary approach to shoot "French drug trafficking network", an original dramatic fiction. The story made the movie audience feel new. In particular, the car chase scene in which the protagonist played by Gene Hackman chases the New York subway is recorded in the annals of film history, and all kinds of "greatest car chase scenes in film history" must have their place. Friedkin once revealed that in order to make this car chase scene, he spent 40,000 US dollars to bribe the head of the New York traffic control department, so that the latter agreed that he would go to the police station without closing the road in advance. The shooting was done in real daily traffic and people flow.

At the 44th Academy Awards held in 1972, "French Drugs", which was nominated for eight items, won five awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Adapted Screenplay and Editing, becoming the biggest winner of the year. Especially Friedkin's best director award, when he competed with Kubrick, the director of "A Clockwork Orange", and Norman Jay, the director of "Fiddler on the Roof". Wesson, Peter Bogdanovich, director of "The Last Movie" and John Schlesinger, director of "Bloody Sunday," finally stood out from the crowd, and it was not easy.

The production budget set by 20th Century Fox for "French Drug Trafficking Network" was 1.5 million U.S. dollars, and it was finally photographed by Friedkin slightly over budget, and the actual cost was about 1.8 million U.S. dollars (converted to the present, it is actually only 15 million U.S. dollars. USD up and down). But the film grossed more than $50 million worldwide after its release, making it one of the top-grossing films of the year. Moreover, the film has also won the approval of fans of art films and a large number of film colleagues with its so-called "neo-noir" style. Whether it is the predecessor director Akira Kurosawa or the later David Fincher, they all expressed their appreciation for this film in interviews, and the latter even publicly admitted that his work "Seven Deadly Sins" was largely influenced by The influence of "French Drug Network".

'The Exorcist' Breaks Horror Film Oscar Nomination Record

The huge success has not let Friedkin rest on his laurels. Two years later, he made persistent efforts and filmed "The Exorcist", which was completely different from "French Drug Trafficking Network" in terms of genre and style.

"The Exorcist", which was released at the end of 1973, has always been regarded as one of the greatest horror films in film history, and there are countless follow-up, imitation, spoof, and joke works that appeared in the future. At that time, Warner invested 12 million US dollars in production funds for the film, and finally won more than 400 million US dollars in the global box office. The commercial performance is even better than that of "French Drug Trafficking Network".

Friedkin in front of a scene in The Exorcist

Friedkin returns to 'The Exorcist' filming location in 2018

At the 46th Academy Awards held in 1974, "The Exorcist" received ten nominations, and also set a record for the first time in Oscar history that a horror film was nominated for the Best Picture Award. However, perhaps due to genre reasons, the film only won two statuettes for best adapted screenplay and sound effects, and it was completely defeated by another popular work of the year, "Cheat in Lie".

The nominees for the best director award that year are still star-studded: in addition to Friedkin, there are also Bergman in "Screams and Whispers", George Lucas in "American Graffiti", and "Last in Paris". Tango's Bertolucci. In the end, the award was also won by the director of "Cheat" George Roy Hill, but this did not prevent Friedkin, who was shortlisted twice in three years, from becoming one of the most popular directors in Hollywood.

New Yorkers waiting to buy tickets to watch "The Exorcist" in the cold wind at the end of 1973

It didn't take long for Friedkin to form an independent film production company with his friends Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich, who was four years younger than him, to fight for more voice and creative freedom. The name of the company is also logical: The Directors Company (The Directors Company), Paramount Pictures signed an exclusive contract with them, providing each film with a production fund of no more than 3 million US dollars, and the stories and themes are free for them to choose .

In this way, Coppola made "The Conversation" (The Conversation), Bogdanovich made "Daisy Miller" (Daisy Miller), both films were successfully released in 1974. "The Bunker Hill Boys" (The Bunker Hill Boys), which Ledkin wanted to shoot, was stillborn because he thought the budget of $3 million was too low. In the end, the director's film company announced its dissolution within a few years. Friedkin, who was busy for nothing, did not make a new work "Sorcerer" until 1977, but failed to continue the previous two films. The success of the movie.

For the filming of "Thousands of Thrills", Friedkin took the crew to the jungle of Dominica, but encountered various unexpected troubles (including Friedkin, many crew members were infected with malaria), Leading to overruns and timeouts. Moreover, when the film was released, it happened to hit the schedule with "Star Wars", and the final global box office was not even enough to cover the production cost of 22 million US dollars, which seemed to indicate that Friedkin's good luck had been completely exhausted.

Friedkin on the set of "A Thousand Thrills"

Disappointed, he temporarily stayed away from Hollywood and came to France. He married his girlfriend, the famous French actress Jeanne Moreau whom he had known for a while, and spent a leisurely life. However, this cross-border marriage lasted only two years. Friedkin was married three more times in the years that followed, and was by his side before his death with former Paramount Pictures executive Sherry Lansing, whom he married in 1991.

Back in the late 1970s, Friedkin, who had fallen into a trough in his career, successively launched the crime comedy "Dragon Tiger, Big Thief, Little Hands" (1978), the thriller "Cruising, 1980" (1980) and the comedy. The slapstick "Deal of the Century" (1983) did poorly both commercially and critically, and Al Pacino was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for "Cruise". It wasn't until "To Live and Die in LA" in 1985 that Friedkin returned to the old path of "neo-noir" similar to "French Drug Network", and finally achieved commercial success again. However, by the 1990s, several of Friedkin's productions were unsuccessful, as audience appreciation tastes changed and the film market shifted.

With Al Pacino on the set of "Cruise"

Regret being stubborn and missing out on Steve McQueen

After entering the new millennium, he directed "Rules of Engagement", "Game of Hunting", "Killer Joe", etc. From time to time, the audience can vaguely see some of the charm of his past works, but overall it is difficult to arouse modern audiences. response. In 2017, at the age of 82, he returned to the theme of exorcism and directed the documentary "The Devil and Father Amorth" (The Devil and Father Amorth), which encountered negative reviews from the media.

At the beginning of this year, Friedkin, who refused to accept his old age, moved the classic stage play "Mutiny" from the time and space background of "World War II" to today's Persian Gulf, and made a new film "The Caine Mutiny Court-" (The Caine Mutiny Court- Martial). Unfortunately, not long after the film was completed, the African-American actor Lance Reddick, who played the presiding judge of the military court in the film, died suddenly. reflect.

Throughout his life, among the 20 feature films he has directed, the one that Friedkin cherishes the most is not "The Exorcist" or "French Drug Network", but the one that was severely criticized by the media, "Thousands of Thrills" has been re-evaluated by many audiences. At the beginning, the film was originally planned to star in action superstar Steve McQueen, who was also very satisfied with the story after reading the script. However, he made a request to the director, hoping to write a role for his then wife, "Love Story" heroine Ali McGraw, so that the two can go to the South American jungle to shoot together.

However, Friedkin flatly rejected such a request. Moreover, the workarounds that McQueen came up with, such as letting his wife act as a co-producer and go to the location together; or simply staying in the United States to shoot the film, were all rejected by Friedkin. The film was changed to starring Roy Scheider, the protagonist of "Jaws", which obviously lowered the appeal of the audience, which may have indirectly led to the unfavorable situation of the film's box office. In this regard, Friedkin still regrets it many years later. "I was too proud at that time. This is the biggest lesson in my film career-the close-up of McQueen is much more valuable than the natural scenery of the South American jungle."

In the sixty years of filming, Friedkin has had successes and failures. Ten years ago, he published his memoir "Friedkin Connection" (Friedkin Connection), a section in which he wrote: "A lot of things are regretted only after getting old. So dreams are a good thing .I've been dreaming lately that I'm re-shooting my old movies, re-shooting scenes. Several times, I'll wake up in the middle of the night and realize I was just dreaming. It's all over. And then, I Then sleep, then reshoot. That's it, I can go on and on. The scenes I remake in my dreams are not from the same movie, but somehow they all relate to each other and make the whole dream make sense .In the dream, I'm relaxed because everything is under control. No anxiety, no fear. I haven't made my Citizen Kane yet, but I still have time. I don't know how long I'll have to wait , but I like this thing. Maybe I will fail in the end, but next time, maybe even if I fail, I will fail better."