When I was a college student, the washed up William Friedkin came to speak on campus and couldn't draw a crowd. I was moving from journalism to pre-law and had nothing to do with film classes or drama or anything like that. But I had two professors selling the speaking gig hard because no one wanted to go. They kept emphasizing THE EXORCIST, one of the few hit films that Friedkin directed.
Against my better judgment, I went.
And listened to his boring talk while trying to figure out if he was a closeted gay men or just a sexist elderly man.
At the end of his too-long talk, I still didn't know. Reading his awful book from 2013 (he died in 2023), I'd guess he was a woman hating closeted gay man. Also very untalented.
The book is THE FRIEDKIN CONNECTION: A MEMOIR.
It's as plodding as the title indicates.
On the KINDLE edition, it's page 291 where he's talking about his first job in 'the business' in 1953 -- hired to work at a TV station. He tells you there were only three television networks back then:
There was little programming and only three networks. THE MILTON BERLE HOUR was on NBC, Jackie Gleason on the old DUMONT NETWORK.
And that's it. Even the slowest reader should be able to count and point out that's just two network. The network he overlooks was the biggest: CBS.
And as a closet homosexual, I guess it made since for him to overlook CBS and the most popular program on CBS -- the most popular program period and the only one really remembered and watched from the fifties to this day: I LOVE LUCY. Lucille Ball starred in the role and, as the Glenn Greenwald of his generation, it was important for Friedkin to ignore and hate women.
I like Sonny & Cher. They made some good recordings and LOOK AT US is one we often listen to. But, no, I don't mistake Sonny Bono for a musical genius. That means I'm way smarter than Friedkin ever was. Sonny & Cher are a part of music history, they are pioneers of the folk rock era. But, like most people, I'm aware that the cat was at least 70% Cher. At least 70%. Sonny couldn't sing -- and would have no more hits after he and Cher split in the mid-seventies. As a producer, he copied his mentor and former boss Phil Spector way too much. As a songwriter? Sonny tended to rip off other songs throughout the sixties. "Baby Don't Go"? A rip-off of "We'll Sing In The Sunshine." "Just You?" A rip-off of "Baby I Love You." I could go on and on with this and I wasn't even alive during the sixties. Friedkin was, was an adult, but didn't know from music -- popular or otherwise.
So he babbles on about making GOOD TIMES with Sonny. "And Cher!" Yes, Cher co-stars in the film. But he really doesn't mention her or note her.
You're writing a book in 2013 and you spend pages and pages on GOOD TIMES (a goofy movie that I enjoy but it was not a hit) and it's Sonny Bono, Sonny Bono, Sonny Bono, Sonny Bono . . .
Sonny's entertainment career ended when heLOOK AT US.and Cher divorced. Without Cher -- as his really bad ABC variety show demonstrated in its very brief run -- he had nothing.
Cher? She's gone on to win an Academy Award for best actress. Has proven to be more popular as a solo artist than she ever was as part of a duo. And Friedkin has nothing to say. He directed an Oscar winning actress in her first acting role (Sonny and Cher performed as themselves in concert in WILD IN THE STREETS, but GOOD TIMES was her first acting role) and he has nothing to share about . . . Cher?
Sexist pig.
While praising Sonny ("and Cher") he claims that they sold "over 80 million records worldwide." Even Wikipedia only claims 40 million for the duo. WIKIPEDIA also notes, "Cher has sold over 100 million records worldwide (as a solo artist)[1][2] and a further 40 million as part of Sonny & Cher, making her one of the best-selling female recording artists in history.[3][4]"
But, hey, reality doesn't justify his sexism so he ignores it.
In 2017, Ava and C.I. called him out for lying on TCM that when CITIZEN KANE came out, he saw it eight times in one day. The math and his age made that claim laughable. In the book, he lies that he saw it in 1961 at a retro house and saw it from noon to just after ten -- five times. Ava and C.I. already did the math. It's basically a two hour movie. You have to allow time for the coming attractions, you have to allow time for the theater to be swept between showings. There is no way that it aired five times from noon until just after ten. Why he needed to lie is anyone's guess. He makes his name with a documentary about a man on death row about to be executed and claims that his documentary led the governor to grant a stay of execution. I'd give him credit for that documentary and that accomplishment -- and too many have given him credit for both over the years -- however, not only was it a poorly directed and assembled film (as even he admits in the book) but he tells us that he believes the man was guilty of murder.
I guess a few of our YOUTUBERS on the left and 'left' should have read his book before praising him endlessly last year for that documentary?
He writes about 'directing' THE BOYS IN THE BAND --and I word it that way because he doesn't write about directing it. He writes about the time before -- lighting arguments during while looking for location shoots -- this is before shooting began. He does not write about filming on location or in the studio. He loses interest in the film rather quickly despite it being one of only two films he directed that are still shown repeatedly.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION was a hit and even spawned a sequel. It's also a film that has aged poorly. Gene Hackman won an Academy Award for the film and his performance is still strong but the script is weak and the 'big' moment is a car chase that was probably state of the art in the early 1970s but is so unimpressive today when stunts and chases are done so much better on not just film, but also on network cop shows. Still he spends 21 pages on the shooting of the film. About that mean in the lead up to the film where he's pitching and casting it (he did not want Gene in the film at all -- he did want Peter Boyle and gets off a few bitchy lines at Boyle for turning him down). And then we get about ten more pages of the editing of the film. It's a disappointment today and would be completely forgotten were it not for Gene Hackman's performance. (Friedkin didn't want him and only cast him when he was told no Hackman, no film. He also claims he created Hackman's performance in the editing stage of the film and that Hackman's actual performance was unimpressive.)
Then comes THE EXORCIST. Again, it's one of the two films that he directed which have stood the test of time. With THE BOYS IN THE BAND, Friedkin just filmed the play with a few 'open up the play' scenes on location. It's not a director's film. It had the play and the play's cast. Anyone directing that film could have done it as well as Friedkin and most could have done it better. Like THE BOYS IN THE BAND, THE EXORCIST worked because of the script. William Peter Blatty wrote the 1971 best selling book and then he wrote the script for the 1973 film. The US section of the film works better -- and is in sharper focus -- than the overseas section. Friedkin really flopped there. But the story was so strong -- a mother learns her daughter has been possessed by the devil -- with so many shockers (most of which were in the book) -- that it became a huge hit thanks to strong performances from Ellen Burstyn and a surprisingly touching Linda Blair. Surprisingly touching? You have to go back and view the film again to grasp how much Blair gave to that role. In your memory, you recall her head spinning around and her peeing on the carpet and telling the astronaut that he was going to die up there. But it's the quieter moments she provides that makes those shocking moments so memorable.
It's really the only film that Friekin made that had female characters who actually mattered -- along with Blair and the always incredible Burstyn, there's also Kitty Winn. He reduces Burstyn to a sentence or two here and there in the over 82 pages on the film. Example, the film's had its first showing and he mentions Burstyn in a single sentence along with others at the premiere when Mercedes McCambridge attacked him verbally for not giving her screen credit for doing the demon's voice. Other than her calling to ask to meet him about being cast in the film, that's basically it for Ellen who got an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Linda Blair gets a little more attention in the chapters as he describes the make up devised for her.
Again, 82 pages.
And not one word about Burstyn's acting. But he finds time to praise multiple male actors for their performances in the film. (He also offers pages of what I hope are lies about the Yazidis in Iraq.)
He had two hits in a row.
And that was it.
He then directed one flop after another. Fourteen flop films in a row. He married a studio executive which allowed him to continue to direct despite one flop after another. Without that wife, he wouldn't have directed the hideous JADE. Fourteen flops, thirteen instantly forgettable films.
1980's CRUISING flopped. It is remembered today for all the protests and complaints about the homophobia on display as Al Pacino played an undercover cop into the rough trade-fisting scene as he looked for a killer. He charts his interest into a project like CRUISING to 1979, "It was 1979, and there wasn't yet a name for AIDS, but gay men were dying mysteriously in increasingly large numbers."
When Friedkin typed or spoke, I assume everyone knew he was a liar. For the record, AIDS emerges in the US with the first reported case in the year 1981.
In the book, he trashes Pacino as unprepared whereas, for decades, Al Pacino has publicly spoken of how Friedkin didn't know what he was doing or what the story was supposed to tell and would never answer him on set -- even about the ending. Friedkin wrote the script but couldn't figure out if Al's character was a victim or the actual killer so between that and Friedkin's well known tendency to lie, I think most of us will line up with Al.
Reading the book was, like Friedkin's film career, a waste of time.