FRIEDKIN UNCUT OUT 17 AUGUST
Hitler and Jesus are the two greatest characters,” says an 83-year-old William Friedkin at the start of Francesco Zippel’s documentary. Well, themes of good and evil run through all of the director’s work, but it’s never a simple case of characters being one or the other. Hitler, Friedkin somewhat contentiously insists, was capable of good, Jesus of evil.
From there we dive into his early ’70s hits The French Connection and
The Exorcist, before zipping back to teeth-cutting days spent in TV and documentaries. Then it’s on to the flops (now critically reappraised) Sorcerer and Cruising, and other key titles such as To Live And Die In L.A., Bug and Killer Joe. Uncut is not exhaustive – dud movies are ignored; there are only indirect mentions of the rampant ego chronicled in Peter Biskind’s book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls; and such key collaborators as Linda Blair and Al Pacino don’t contribute.
But the talking heads who are on show (admirers such as Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola and Wes Anderson, plus leads in his movies like Gina Gershon, Matthew McConaughey and Ellen Burstyn) give good insight and great anecdote: Killer Joe’s Juno Temple tells of how Friedkin dropped his trousers in solidarity when it came to her nude scene. A somewhat familiar narrative emerges of Friedkin being a driven, combative, seat-of-thepants filmmaker capable of, yes, good and evil. It may not be new, but it is riveting. Jamie Graham