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 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.
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.
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.
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.
There are many untalented people making millions of dollars in the film business.
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.
If you're a movie star, the studios don't want you to act. They just want you to show up and look good and chase girls and have a lot of laughs.
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.
I don't look back or analyze my films. I just make them. It's for someone else to look at.
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'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.
With all of my films that are on DVD and Blu-ray, I have spent weeks with them in a color timing room. Just changing or enhancing them. I have been desaturating the color. Sometimes I will make a scene bluer or redder. I do use the new medium. I believe in it.
In the case of a film like The Exorcist or To Live and Die in L.A., I saw the whole movie in my head before I went to shoot it. I never did storyboards, or anything like that. I had the film in my head.