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
The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor's work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.
I really think that sex always looks kind of funny in a movie.
The digital process gives me total control over how I want the film to look. The films look like they did when I was first looking through the viewfinder.
I have control over every single frame on Blu-ray. If I want a scene bluer, I get that scene bluer. Originally, there was some fluctuation with the prints. If you made a thousand, or a few thousand prints, there is no control over any of that. But now I can make a master using the digital process.
I've seen my own films close to a thousand times in one form or another. When you edit them. When you shoot them. Then you run them over and over again for sound and music. Then you'd go to premiere screenings, and have to do promotional screenings in other cities. I can't watch any of my old films.
There are films that I've made that I like a little bit more than the others. But the films that I mostly watch, and see over and over again, are not my own.
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.
The studios are making fewer films. They are making more expensive films. Profits are tougher to come by. Not only because of the expense of production. But also because of the expense of promotion and hype. To boil that all down, it's more about hype than it is about filmmaking.
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.
You are always cheating for the audience.
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.