Remembering William Friedkin, a Craftsman of Cold Fury Who Left His Mark (and the Devil’s) on the Culture
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic The saga of American movies in the 1970s is now a mythology. In the first half of the decade, the movies that emerged from the New Hollywood were unprecedented in their realism, their immersion in the gritty side pockets of everyday life, their perception of the darkness hidden in the American Dream.
Then, of course, came Lucas and Spielberg, who kicked off the blockbuster revolution — the transformation of movies from reality into fantasy.
This myth has been repeated so often that we tend to take it as gospel. But, in fact, it isn’t quite accurate. Because the yin-and-yang of ’70s movies, the whole gargantuan whipsaw from reality to fantasy, had already expressed itself, quite spectacularly, in the staggering cinematic one-two punch that would forever define the director William Friedkin, who died August 7 at 87.
The first punch, of course, was “The French Connection.” Released in 1971, it was a drama about a grungy, racist New York cop, Popeye Doyle, played with a puckish fusion of glee and menace by Gene Hackman, and how his attempt to corner a European heroin smuggler turns into an obsession, a cause that drives him to extremes at once noble and deranged.
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