William Friedkin
William Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director. Some of his other films include Sorcerer, Cruising, To Live and Die in L.A., Jade, Rules of Engagement, The Hunted, Bug, and Killer Joe...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth29 August 1935
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
I believe it's true that there's good and evil in everyone and it's a constant struggle to have your better angels prevail.
When you go to a studio with something you want to make, or they come to you with something they want to make, more often than not, it's a tent pole. Not something one single person is really passionate about on a creative level.
The thing that interests me is the good and evil in everybody. I don't have conventional heroes in the films that I directed, because I believe there's good and evil in everybody.
God knows, as a minority, gay people have taken serious lumps for their sexual preferences. As has every minority.
The studios mostly threw away the negatives of the classic films. They had no interest in their legacy.
Star Wars is one of a handful of films that changed the zeitgeist forever.
If Star Wars had failed, you wouldn't have 90 percent of what's out there today.
Star Wars gave birth to all the computer-generated superhero films.
I don't go to the movies much anymore. There's very little that draws me. I watch mostly the older stuff, and I often don't sit through the new films.
I can't sit through the superhero films. But I watched Draft Day, and it was kind of sweet in an old-fashioned way.
There is a thin line between the policeman and the criminal. The best cops are always crossed. The best cops are the ones who are able to think like criminals. But for a quirk of fate, they might have been criminals.
All of the films I have made, that I have chosen to make, are all about the thin line between good and evil. And also the thin line that exists in each and every one of us. That's what my films are about.
With The Exorcist we said what we wanted to say. Neither one of us view it as a horror film. We view it as a film about the mysteries of faith. It's easier for people to call it a horror film. Or a great horror film. Or the greatest horror film ever made. Whenever I see that, I feel a great distance from it.
You don't need great actors to do a 3D picture. All of this condescending stuff that they put out? "Oh, we will always need actors." Bullshit! They are able to take anybody and put some markers on them, and have them walk through an empty room. Then they paint in the background.