William Friedkin

Started by MacGuffin, April 17, 2013, 11:23:14 PM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Mel

Quote from: Lottery on April 30, 2014, 09:17:24 AM
Guys, Sorcerer was totally awesome.

Did you see new Blu-ray version or old DVD version (this cropped version scanned from poor material was released again without Friedkin consent)? And tell us something that we don't know already (at least some of us) ;)

Wikipedia is hardly good source of accurate information, but in case of "Sorcerer", some fan of film have provided a ton of information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorcerer_%28film%29 There is also this fan site: http://sorcerer1977.wordpress.com/ which has even more material, if anyone is into the film. I reposed some scraps from there already.
Simple mind - simple pleasures...

03

ive seen the bluray version and it is pretty amazing. clean, but it messes up my vhs nostalgia.

Lottery

Yeah, the new one.

Various Spoilersish

Anyway. This has to be one of the most dangerous feeling films ever. There was an overwhelming sense of tension throughout the film. Incredible setpieces which left me wondering how did they do it/how could they afford it. It's just that ability to shift scale- from the intimate stuff to distant views from the sky looking down on infernos. Those disasters in the film were remarkably convincing, and there was a doco feel to all the carnage.

Each individual intro section felt detailed and stylistically unique, as if each section could have been parts of separate films. The main plot (or whatever) comes into play around the halfway mark of the film and I just loved that gradual build. The film's approach to exposition is overall commendable. Didn't need an excess of dialogue and the plot nicely climbs out of the chaotic first half.
I forgot that it was an adapatation when I was watching. The flow was more novel than film, I can imagine reading it in book form.

One remarkable little thing is how an influence can be felt through a work- I read that the screenwriter recommended 100 Years of Solitude to Friedkin. I was seriously bouncing up and down/couldn't believe it when I read that, because I 100% got that vibe. Fantastic.


Also:
- Seemingly disparate lives lead to a unified fate (reflected in the style of the film well)
- I read somewhere that the real tragedy was that their fates were set at the beginning, they were always doomed, cool thought
- Fuck Friedkin's all star cast intentions- every primary character was individual and interesting- and real
- Wins award for best explosions
- Don't think I made a mention of the visuals, they were highly impressive
- Goddamn Tangerine Dream, unconventional and effective, love that main theme
- I loved the various crowd scenes- the returning of the bodies/riot was a fantastic great (more 100 YoS feels).
- Nightmare sequence felt like a different planet
- Must get around to watching Wages of Fear





Mel

Spoilers:

Quote from: Lottery on April 30, 2014, 12:28:20 PM
Anyway. This has to be one of the most dangerous feeling films ever. There was an overwhelming sense of tension throughout the film. Incredible setpieces which left me wondering how did they do it/how could they afford it. It's just that ability to shift scale- from the intimate stuff to distant views from the sky looking down on infernos. Those disasters in the film were remarkably convincing, and there was a doco feel to all the carnage.

Previous to "Sorcerer" Friedkin hit the pot twice with "French Connection" and "Exorcist" and was new flavor for few minutes. He could do and get financing for anything.

So he decided to go to the jungle (almost at the same time as Coppola). Roads were created in the middle of forest leading nowhere. Bridge was also built and those truck did go few times overboard. Water in river dropped so much, that had to lower the bridge (hence slack seen in film) and add heavy rain to mask it.

Quote from: Lottery on April 30, 2014, 12:28:20 PM
- Seemingly disparate lives lead to a unified fate (reflected in the style of the film well)
- I read somewhere that the real tragedy was that their fates were set at the beginning, they were always doomed, cool thought

I have read some speculations that they are long dead before reaching Porvenir. How Jackie gets away from car incident can support that - he escapes like a ghost, without anyone noticing him. Following this scent you can get to some kind of limbo/hell vision.

Quote from: Lottery on April 30, 2014, 12:28:20 PM
- Wins award for best explosions

I'm not sure how much I trust Friedkin. In one of the interviews, he stated that they had problems with blowing up tree trunk - studio pyrotechnics couldn't do that. So he got arsonist from States to fly to the set. He destroyed trunk in first approach and explosion actually was too big - you can see afterwards a lot of clear sky.

Quote from: Lottery on April 30, 2014, 12:28:20 PM
- Don't think I made a mention of the visuals, they were highly impressive

First DP was fired, because he couldn't lit locations fast enough. Second choice was a DP, who Friedkin befriended when making documentaries - that solved issues. They used mostly deep focus lighting on location as far I'm aware (I could be wrong though).

Quote from: Lottery on April 30, 2014, 12:28:20 PM
- Fuck Friedkin's all star cast intentions- every primary character was individual and interesting- and real

Probably it wouldn't bomb as much as it did. Still I love what every actor did in this film.

Quote from: Lottery on April 30, 2014, 12:28:20 PM
- Goddamn Tangerine Dream, unconventional and effective, love that main theme

Even better, music was composed before film. Friedkin liked music enough so he took first version. "Tangerine Dream" wasn't 100% happy about how music was edited - according to them it could be used even better.

Quote from: Lottery on April 30, 2014, 12:28:20 PM
- Nightmare sequence felt like a different planet

Location for that sequence is located in New Mexico: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisti/De-Na-Zin_Wilderness
Simple mind - simple pleasures...

jenkins

[butterflies in my stomach]

[heeyyy now, are you derailing?:]
narrative films are my favorite, they give me the most emotions, compared to let's say nonfiction aka documentary. i like how friedkin's history as a doc maker is conversationally incorporated alongside  sorcerer's "dangerous feeling" -- i think achieving this effect requires familiarity with how people feel in nonfiction and how cinema can be used to heighten feelings. i like how this is an example. if it's imagined as a doc, if all events occurred irl with cameras around, i don't think it would be as impressive. it steals us with its cinema. reminded also of my favorite example, kieslowski, who switched from docs to narrative fiction because he felt the creative tools of cinema were best expressed through deliberate intention. i agree

lottery you now might like sorcerer more than wages of fear, the choice might be related to the common problem of which one was your first encounter. like mel said, they're different perspectives, different times, different makers, and however related they are they're unrelated by the force of the creator's vision. mentioning this to shield myself from despair over understandable preference. k

Lottery

@Mel, yeah, I read the wiki after I finished the film. Loaded with fantastic information.

@Jenkins, yeah I see what you're getting at. General consensus is Wages of Fear is better but my perspective has already been shifted. I don't think I've seen many films executed this way. I wonder if a film like this could be made today.

Also, about it's name, I read why it had its title and what Friedkin intended with its meaning (fate), it's hell of a lot better the original Ballbreaker (this may sound awful/rudimentary, but I have a nagging suspicion that titles will affect how I percieve a film). It may be misguiding on the surface but it suits the film in a sort of atmospheric/tonal way. I think that's important. The content of the film changes how I see the title in a way, instead of swords, lords and magic, I think shamans and ruin and fate.


Alexandro

I have to take a small detour during this Sorcerer conversation to highly recommend and remind everyone of Friedkin's Bug. That one's a tour the force.

ElPandaRoyal

I saw Sorcerer for the first time a few weeks ago (didn't really feel like watching the cropped version for years, hoping I'd get a chance like this) and man, what a ride. Revisiting Friedkin these last few months has been a huge pleasure, I'm even thinking about giving The Exorcist another chance. One think that comes across in a lot of these movies is how ambiguous they all are, either in the narrative or morally. Such a ballsy filmmaker.
Si

jenkins

just like in case anyone didn't somethingsomething excuse:

http://twitter.com/WilliamFriedkin/status/467554612686237696/photo/1

[edit]
nothing to say but he's become a new personal hero of mine
Mel [17|May 03:15 AM]:   jenkins<3 http://pic.twitter.com/jIgS80S0vx and http://pic.twitter.com/0czuSjcpPD and http://pic.twitter.com/dgAFVrLyPy

[edit]
friedkin's next leveledness is now totally confirmed
Mel [17|May 03:21 AM]:   Some monkeys: http://pic.twitter.com/kciZjN2zvw and http://pic.twitter.com/c8PXKqpdH1
Mel [17|May 03:22 AM]:   And yet another panda: http://pic.twitter.com/BgDRNCY4mc

wilder


wilder

William Friedkin To Direct TV Series Version Of His 'To Live And Die In L.A.'
via The Playlist



"The only thing I'm interested in now is long form, which is what you'd call television," William Friedkin said last year, upon revealing TV series for his films "To Live And Die In L.A." and "Killer Joe" were in the works. "...I don't want to make a feature film, because I don't want to make a movie about a guy in a mask and a spandex suit flying around and saving the world." And now one of those movies is pressing forward to the small screen.

Deadline reports that Friedkin will helm the TV series iteration of "To Live And Die In L.A." Bobby Moresco ("Crash") is penning the script for the show that has been snapped up by WGN, with a straight to series order expected. It will be a "reimagining" of the movie, but will still involve the Secret Service and the dark underbelly of Los Angeles. No word yet if Wang Chung will reunite to score the series.

OpO1832

Wow i am so elated to see folks discussing the brilliance of Sorcerer!

One guy Lottery broke it down so well !Thank you! I do not know why this movie bombed but perhaps at the time in America the movie audience had enough of pessimistic movies, rocky hit and star wars and the 80s were coming...

I fucking love the style of Sorcerer so much, it has such a great feeling to it, you can tell the d.p has an background shooing docs, just in the coverage of the mid east section and the scene were roy gets away from that bloody mess!

Wes Anderson had to have seen the movie cause he used the music from the French guy's last hurrah with his wife for the opening title and character introductions in Royal Tenebaums, when i heard that for 1st time I was so happy.

I wonder what happened to that french actor he was interesting. I wanna read more about the Sorcerer production any good resources ?

To Live and Die in L.A is also so fucking great. Forget the performance by William L Peterson who is perhaps the most badass man next to Michael Biehn, (can you tell I am man/child who grew up watching movies from the 80s on cable in the 90s?) How cool would it have been to see Peterson in Heat and Saving Private Ryan! !!!!
instead he was in The Contender ( he basically gets owned by Jeff Bridges, hard role to play for Peterson, and he'd did a good job and The Skulls in the 90s)

I always felt the departed ripped off to live and die in L.A with the whole QUICK GUNSHOT TO the head of the main guy, but nothing beats to live and die and L.A... ( YOUR UNDER ARREST ASSHOLE! ) The chase scene and the fact that ROBERT MOTHERFUCKING DOWNEY plays the chief wow! If your a boogie nights fan and  a fan of  RD its worth watching just for him, Downey basically causes Peterson to go rouge because he wouldn't give him the buy money he needed to nail masters. I thought Downey was going to tell Peterson this is a Y.P NOT AN M.P ! ;P

speaking on a little bit of everything boys in the band just got a release on KINO i haven't seen that but i will check it out.

Crusising is such a haunting movie, it was shot so well! Ive said it before and I will say it again its like the best looking grind house movie even though its not a real grind house movie, the cinematography is on another level! The end is so haunting.
   

wilder

William Friedkin To Direct Don Winslow Novel 'The Winter Of Frankie Machine'
via Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: William Friedkin will develop to direct The Winter Of Frankie Machine, an adaptation of the 2007 Don Winslow bestselling novel that once had Martin Scorsese and then Michael Mann attached to direct, and Robert De Niro attached to star. The project, which shook free of Paramount some time ago, hasn't yet been set up anywhere. They'll start fresh with a script that Winslow will either write or co-write. This comes after Winslow made a monster Fox deal for his current bestseller The Cartel, which continued the characters from Winslow's 2006 novel The Power Of The Dog. The commitment to book rights and writing fees was around $6 million and Ridley Scott is aboard to direct a script that is being written by Shane Salerno, who co-wrote one of the Avatar sequels with James Cameron. Fox is courting Leonardo DiCaprio to play DEA agent Art Keller, whose blood feud with Mexican cartel kingpin Adan Berrera fuels a story that covers the start of the war on drugs and brings it to the present. For Winslow, getting Friedkin on his book is a dream. He "made the decision to become a writer after seeing The French Connection," he said. "That how strong of an impact it had on me."

While the stakes and the budget of The Cartel will be commensurate with what a studio like Fox spends on an impact film with Scott at the helm, Friedkin tells me he is eager to approach Frankie Machine similar to the way he did Killer Joe, that gritty adaptation of the Tracy Letts play that starred Matthew McConaughey and was one of the indie building blocks that got the actor to his Oscar performance in Dallas Buyers Club, followed by the classic HBO series turn True Detective. Friedkin said he wants to make this down and dirty, on a low budget. While those past Paramount incarnations of Frankie Machine bore budgets in the $70 million range, Friedkin wants to do this for under $15 million. The hope is for it to have the bite and burst of violence in films like Eastern Promises and A History of Violence.

The drama revolves around Frank Machianno, a mob hitman who has retired to run a bait shop. He agrees to help the son of a mob boss resolve a dispute with another Mafioso but is forced to turn into Frankie Machine again when he realizes he's been set up to be killed. Salerno and Winslow will be producers on this, through the Story Factory label. You can read more of Friedkin's words about this project in the lengthy interview with the director that appears right under this article, where, among other things, Friedkin said that Walton Goggins, the Justified star who moved to Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, is a prototype actor to play the hit man, and that McConaughey would also nail it. They won't approach an actor, or a financier, until they've got a script to show. But this is a seminal tight thriller novel by Winslow, who finally seems poised to get his due in Hollywood.

OpO1832