🎬 #131 A Life In Pictures.
This week’s is short, sharp and to the point. Much like the director featured in this week’s solo recommendation. He’s one of my favourite filmmakers and also one of my favourite filmmakers to listen to when discussing filmmaking. So it’s a bit of a no-brainer to recommend this documentary about his life’s work, featuring him in his own words.
Happy viewing
Bry
FILM: FRIEDKIN UNCUT
2018 Dir Francesco Zippel
1 hr 47 mins
Listening to all the heavyweight filmmakers weigh in on Friedkin’s career is truly inspiring. Not to mention how self-aware he is of his decisions as a filmmaker looking back. Even going so far as to say that they shouldn’t have pulled off the driving sequence in The French Connection, saying that it was reckless, in so few words. If you’re a Friedkin fan this is such a good portrait but also kind of an autobiography of the filmmaker. Because unlike other documentaries of this type, he’s interviewed in it.
He talks about his love of cinema, as you’d imagine, but also pulls no punches when talking about his own work. He’s honest, straightforward and deftly brutal in describing what filmmaking is and what he was trying to do with each project. There’s a no-bullshit, no time for non-sense aura about him at all times. There’s real pragmatism, real kind of story engineering to his way of approaching filmmaking, which I really admire. It’s really worth watching to get a little insight into how he contributed so much to popular imagination.
TL;DR: Get an inside look into the workings of a maverick filmmaker.
*Available for a small rental fee on Amazon in the US and Apple and Amazon in the UK.
Fact: He considered Sorcerer his career low point because of how critics and audiences reacted.