Filmmaker William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, Sorcerer, French Connection and Killer Joe, died at the age of 87.
Winner of the Oscar for Best Director in 1972 for French Connection, American director William Friedkin has died at the age of 87. His wife, Sherry Lansing, announced the death of the filmmaker to the media The Hollywood Reporter.
William Friedkin learned the job of director on television sets from the age of 17. He specialized in documentaries, then directed an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series. He was 27 when he made his first feature film, Good Times, in 1967. Between 1968 and 1970, he adapted three successful plays: L’Anniversaire, The Night they raided Minsky’s and Les Garçons de la bande, which deals with the subject of homosexuality.
But it was French Connection that propelled it to the fore in 1971. This detective film set against a backdrop of drug trafficking received five Oscars, including those for Best Film and Best Director. Following this success, the scenario writer has considerable means to turn The Exorcist (1973). This classic horror film ranks at the top of all box offices and brings the genre up to date. William Friedkin seems to turn everything he touches into gold. However, he suspended his activities for a few years.
It was with The Convoy of Fear, an American remake of Wages of Fear by Henri-Georges Clouzot, that he returned behind the camera in 1977. Unfortunately, the film was a commercial failure. On the private side, Friedkin married the French actress Jeanne Moreau, from whom he quickly divorced.
At the turn of the 70s and 80s, he reoriented himself towards the detective register, taking different paths such as comedy (Empty heads seek full coffers with Peter Falk), scandal and provocation (La Chasse – Cruising which raised indignation among the New York homosexual community in 1980) or even realism (Los Angeles Federal Police, in which we find a car chase scene as memorable as that of French Connection).
Back in the realm of horror, he signed Le Sang du Châtiment (1988) and La Nurse (1990), which did not meet with the expected success. The same goes for Jade (1995), which is part of the movement of the erotic thriller.
After the very controversial military trial film The Hell of Duty released in 2000, William Friedkin manages to reconcile with the critics by directing the effective and nervous Hunted (2003), thriller in which Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro, as well as adaptations of plays by Tracy Letts: the behind closed doors Bug, presented at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes in 2006, and the thriller Killer Joe, in Competition at the Venice Film Festival in 2011.
In 2017, Friedkin directed The Devil and Father Amorth, a documentary on exorcism, by the director of… The Exorcist! His latest film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, will be shown at the Venice Film Festival. This will be his last feature film before his death on August 7, 2023 at the age of 87.