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
almost american-director life pressed share tense
I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel pressed and tense almost every day of my life about something or other. And I think it's the one thing, as I look into people's eyes, that I think I share with almost everybody.
determine dice high money next number people plaything roll rollers sleeping today
To me, film right now is dormant. It's a sleeping giant. It's the plaything of corporations. The people who determine what American film is today are no different from high rollers who go to Las Vegas. They just want to take all the money and put it on one big number and roll the dice on that number and if it craps out, next number. Next case.
audience cop court hands hold law ready type
The audience was ready for that type of character, a cop who would take the law into his own hands and hold court in the street,
angeles cardinals catholic chicago church depiction drive embraced endorsed exists exorcism exorcist faith leaders literal los power promoted represents ritual roman virtually york
The leaders of the Catholic Church endorsed The Exorcist ; virtually promoted it as much as they could. The Cardinals of New York and Los Angeles and Chicago and the other big cities, all over the world, they endorsed it because it represents a literal depiction of the Roman ritual of exorcism which still exists in the Catholic faith. It's still there. The power of faith to drive out demons. And this film showed that and they embraced it.
sweet superhero way
I can't sit through the superhero films. But I watched Draft Day, and it was kind of sweet in an old-fashioned way.
hero believe evil
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.
giving want digital
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.
running thinking media
Every time you run a 35mm print, it picks up scratches. It picks up dirt. Sometimes it breaks, and you have to re-splice it. You lose frames. This doesn't happen with digital or Blu-ray. I think that's great. Because I love the new media.
empty-rooms bullshit needs
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.
eye sweaters knitting
None of the chase scenes that I did had any opticals. We had to do all of that physically. The first thing you have to do is see it in your mind's eye. You have to envision it. Imagine someone knitting a sweater or a scarf. They either have a pattern in front of them, or they see a pattern in their mind's eye. Then it's one stitch at a time. That's what shooting a chase is like.
scene whole
I have to see the whole scene in my head before I go out and do it. Which I do. I will envision the entire scene before I shoot it.
want digital rays
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.
littles rays victim
When you make a Blu-ray, its not the same as the print process was. You have little or no control over any print that was ever made. You are a victim of the 35mm printing process.
school kids college
I had absolutely no focus as a kid. I never paid attention at school, I never went to college. Not because we were too poor; we were. But if I wanted to go to college, I would have found a way.