Paul Crump (April 2, 1930 – October 11, 2002) was a death row inmate who gained international notoriety and parole after writing the novel Burn, Killer, Burn .
76-470: William David Friedkin ( / ˈ f r iː d k ɪ n / ; August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023) was an American film, television and opera director, producer, and screenwriter who was closely identified with the " New Hollywood " movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in documentaries in the early 1960s, he is best known for his crime thriller film The French Connection (1971), which won five Academy Awards , including Best Picture and Best Director , and
152-420: A 4-page article on Paul Crump, "Facing Death, A New Life Perhaps Too Late". William Friedkin produced and directed a documentary for television titled The People vs. Paul Crump in 1962, when Crump had been on death row for nine years. The program was not aired, due to content regarded as controversial. Nizer's involvement with attorney Donald Moore in the legal battle to have Crump's death sentence commuted
228-480: A connection to the "art films" of Europe, the studios hired a host of young filmmakers and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control. Some of whom, like actor Jack Nicholson and director Peter Bogdanovich , were mentored by "King of the Bs" Roger Corman while others like celebrated cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond worked for lesser-known B movie directors like Ray Dennis Steckler , known for
304-622: A gritty style more suited for documentaries than Hollywood features, the film won five Academy Awards , including Best Picture and Best Director . Friedkin's next film was 1973's The Exorcist , based on William Peter Blatty 's best-selling novel, which revolutionized the horror genre and is considered by some critics to be one of the greatest horror movies of all time. The Exorcist was nominated for 10 Academy Awards , including Best Picture and Best Director. It won for Best Screenplay and Best Sound . Following these two pictures, Friedkin, along with Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich ,
380-601: A job with producer David L. Wolper . He also made the football-themed documentary Mayhem on a Sunday Afternoon (1965). As mentioned in his voice-over commentary on the DVD re-release of Alfred Hitchcock 's Vertigo , Friedkin directed one of the last episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1965, called "Off Season". Hitchcock admonished Friedkin for not wearing a tie while directing. In 1965, Friedkin moved to Hollywood and two years later released his first feature film, Good Times starring Sonny and Cher . He has referred to
456-416: A new generation of filmmakers came to prominence. They influenced the types of film produced, their production and marketing, and the way major studios approached filmmaking. In New Hollywood films, the film director, rather than the studio, took on a key authorial role. The definition of "New Hollywood" varies, depending on the author, with some defining it as a movement and others as a period. The span of
532-469: A practice inspired by European art films and classical Hollywood directors such as D. W. Griffith and Alfred Hitchcock . Films with unorthodox editing included Easy Rider ' s use of jump cuts (influenced by the works of experimental collage filmmaker Bruce Conner ) to foreshadow the climax of the movie, as well as subtler uses, such as those to reflect the feeling of frustration in Bonnie and Clyde ,
608-500: A rough cut of Bonnie and Clyde in the summer of 1967, he hated it. Distribution executives at Warner Brothers agreed, giving the film a low-key premiere and limited release. Their strategy appeared justified when Bosley Crowther , middlebrow film critic at The New York Times , gave the movie a scathing review. "It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy," he wrote, "that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as
684-578: A splash in the United States – the huge market of disaffected youth seemed to find relevance and artistic meaning in movies like Michelangelo Antonioni 's Blowup , with its oblique narrative structure and full-frontal female nudity. The desperation felt by studios during this period of economic downturn, and after the losses from expensive movie flops, led to innovation and risk-taking, allowing greater control by younger directors and producers. Therefore, in an attempt to capture that audience that found
760-421: Is a chronological list of notable films that are generally considered to be "New Hollywood" productions. Paul Crump Crump served 39 years in prison for killing a security guard in the armed robbery of a Chicago meatpacking plant in 1953. His four accomplices received prison sentences, but Crump was sentenced to die in the electric chair and had 15 execution dates before Louis Nizer took on his case and
836-520: The 68th Venice International Film Festival , prior to its North American debut at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival . It opened in U.S. theaters in July 2012, to some favorable reviews from critics but did poorly at the box office, possibly because of its restrictive NC-17 rating. In April 2013, Friedkin published a memoir, The Friedkin Connection . He was presented with a lifetime achievement award at
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#1732855000929912-551: The 70th Venice International Film Festival in September. In 2017, Friedkin directed the documentary The Devil and Father Amorth about the ninth exorcism of a woman in the Italian village of Alatri . In August 2022, it was announced officially that Friedkin would be returning to film directing to helm an adaptation of the two-act play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial with Kiefer Sutherland starring as Lt. Commander Queeg. The film
988-701: The FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes Film Festival . Later, Friedkin directed an episode of the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled "Cockroaches", which re-teamed him with To Live and Die in L.A. star William Petersen . He directed again for CSI ' s 200th episode, "Mascara". In 2011, Friedkin directed Killer Joe , a black comedy written by Tracy Letts based on Letts' play , and starring Matthew McConaughey , Emile Hirsch , Juno Temple , Gina Gershon , and Thomas Haden Church . Killer Joe premiered at
1064-513: The Julie Andrews vehicle Star! , each failed attempts to replicate the success of Mary Poppins , Doctor Zhivago and The Sound of Music , put great strain on the studios. By the time the Baby Boomer generation started to come of age in the 1960s, " Old Hollywood " was rapidly losing money; the studios were unsure how to react to the much-changed audience demographics. The change in
1140-479: The 1950s "the horrible decade" for Hollywood. It was dubbed a "New Hollywood" by a press. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Hollywood was dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films that benefited from the larger screens, wider framing, and improved sound. However, audience shares continued to dwindle, and had reached alarmingly low levels by the mid-1960s. Several costly flops, including Tora! Tora! Tora! , Gene Kelly 's adaptation of Hello, Dolly! and
1216-572: The 1962 Arch Hall Jr. vehicle Wild Guitar and the 1963 horror musical flick The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies . This, together with the breakdown of the Hays Code following the Freedman v. Maryland court case in 1965 and the new ratings system in 1968 (reflecting growing market segmentation) set the scene for the New Hollywood. A defining film of
1292-517: The 1999 documentary series The Directors ). Sorcerer was shortly followed by the crime-comedy The Brink's Job (1978), based on the real-life Great Brink's Robbery in Boston , Massachusetts, which was also unsuccessful at the box-office. In 1980, Friedkin directed an adaptation of the Gerald Walker crime thriller Cruising , starring Al Pacino , which was protested during production and remains
1368-672: The Beach Boys and Hal Ashby as the Kinks ). Los Angeles Times article film critic Manohla Dargis described New Hollywood as the "halcyon age" of 1970s filmmaking, that "was less revolution than business as usual, with rebel hype". She also pointed out in her New York Times article that the era's enthusiasts insist this was "when American movies grew up (or at least starred underdressed actresses); when directors did what they wanted (or at least were transformed into brands); when creativity ruled (or at least ran gloriously amok, albeit often on
1444-493: The Hollywood Golden Age, which deals with the relationship of characters and plot. He argues that plot in classical Hollywood films (and some of the earlier New Hollywood films like The Godfather ) "tended to emerge more organically as a function of the drives, desires, motivations, and goals of the central characters". However, beginning with mid-1970s, he points to a trend that "characters became plot functions". During
1520-444: The New Hollywood generation was Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Produced by and starring Warren Beatty and directed by Arthur Penn , its combination of graphic violence and humor, as well as its theme of glamorous disaffected youth, was a hit with audiences. The film eventually won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress ( Estelle Parsons ) and Best Cinematography . When Jack L. Warner , then-CEO of Warner Bros. , first saw
1596-407: The New Hollywood movement marked a significant shift towards independently produced and innovative works by a new wave of directors, but that this shift began to reverse itself when the commercial success of Jaws and Star Wars led to the realization by studios of the importance of blockbusters , advertising and control over production (even though the success of The Godfather was said to be
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#17328550009291672-399: The anti-everything cynicism... Was everything a bummer? Was everything a drag? Was every movie about some guy with problems?" In 1980, film historian/scholar Robert P. Kolker examined New Hollywood film directors in his book A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick, Coppola, Scorsese, Altman , and how their films influenced American society of the 1960s and 1970s. Kolker observed that "for all
1748-453: The art cinema movement as a significant industry force with its peak in 1974–75 with Nashville and Chinatown . Geoff King sees the period as an interim movement in American cinema where a conjunction of forces led to a measure of freedom in filmmaking, while Todd Berliner says that 70s cinema resists the efficiency and harmony that normally characterize classical Hollywood cinema and tests
1824-561: The audience off balance at Bonnie and Clyde . The brutality that comes out of this innocence is far more shocking than the calculated brutalities of mean killers." Kael also noted the reaction of audiences to the violent climax of the movie, and the potential to empathize with the gang of criminals in terms of their naiveté and innocence reflecting a change in expectations of American cinema. The cover story in Time magazine in December 1967, celebrated
1900-628: The business from the producer-driven Hollywood system of the past as Todd Berliner has written about the period's unusual narrative practices. The 1970s, Berliner says, marks Hollywood's most significant formal transformation since the conversion to sound film and is the defining period separating the storytelling modes of the studio era and contemporary Hollywood. New Hollywood films deviate from classical narrative norms more than Hollywood films from any other era or movement. Their narrative and stylistic devices threaten to derail an otherwise straightforward narration. Berliner argues that five principles govern
1976-407: The challenge and adventure, their films speak to a continual impotence in the world, an inability to change and to create change." John Belton points to the changing demographic to even younger, more conservative audiences in the mid 1970s (50% aged 12–20) and the move to less politically subversive themes in mainstream cinema, as did Thomas Schatz, who saw the mid- to late 1970s as the decline of
2052-502: The counterculture of the late 1960s." Easy Rider also affected the way studios looked to reach the youth market. The success of Midnight Cowboy , in spite of its "X" rating, was evidence for the interest in controversial themes at the time and also showed the weakness of the rating system and segmentation of the audience. For Peter Biskind, the new wave was foreshadowed by Bonnie and Clyde and began in earnest with Easy Rider . Biskind's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls argues that
2128-670: The darker elements of humanity and society within the context of the American Dream in the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, with themes that were reflective of sociocultural issues and were centered around the potential meaninglessness of pursuing the American Dream as generation upon generation was motivated to possess it. In comparison, American Eccentric Cinema does not have a distinct context, its films show characters who are very individual and their concerns are very distinctive to their own personalities. The following
2204-476: The early '60s, so that was really the first sign of a kind of off-Hollywood movement. – Peter Bogdanovich Following the Paramount Case (which ended block booking and ownership of theater chains by film studios) and the advent of television (where Rod Serling , John Frankenheimer , Arthur Penn , Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet worked in their earlier years) both of which severely weakened both
2280-487: The film as "unwatchable". Several other films followed: The Birthday Party , based on an unpublished screenplay by Harold Pinter , which he adapted from his own play; the musical comedy The Night They Raided Minsky's , starring Jason Robards and Britt Ekland ; and the adaptation of Mart Crowley 's play The Boys in the Band . His next film, The French Connection , was released to wide critical acclaim in 1971. Shot in
2356-672: The film to be re-released, thus proving its commercial success and reflecting the move toward the New Hollywood. The impact of this film is important in understanding the rest of the American New Wave, as well as the conditions that were necessary for it. These initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to these innovative young filmmakers. In the mid-1970s, idiosyncratic, startling original films such as Paper Moon , Dog Day Afternoon , Chinatown , and Taxi Driver , among others, enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by
William Friedkin - Misplaced Pages Continue
2432-476: The film until 1960, when he was 25 years old. Only then, Friedkin said, did he become a true cineaste . Among the movies that he also saw as a teenager and young adult were Les Diaboliques , The Wages of Fear (which many consider he remade as Sorcerer ), and Psycho (which he viewed repeatedly, like Citizen Kane ). Televised documentaries such as 1960's Harvest of Shame were also important to his developing sense of cinema. Friedkin began working in
2508-470: The film's period setting, was inspired by the Martin Scorsese classics Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy while Alexander Payne 's 2023 film The Holdovers took inspiration from Ashby's works. American Eccentric Cinema has been noted as influenced by this era. Both traditions have similar themes and narratives of existentialism and the need for human interaction. New Hollywood focuses on
2584-568: The height of the studio system, films were made almost exclusively on set in isolated studios. The content of films was limited by the Motion Picture Production Code, and though golden-age film-makers found loopholes in its rules, the discussion of more taboo content through film was effectively prevented. The shift towards a "new realism" was made possible when the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system
2660-421: The horror film The Exorcist (1973), which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Friedkin's other films in the 1970s and 1980s include the drama The Boys in the Band (1970), considered a milestone of queer cinema ; the originally deprecated, now lauded thriller Sorcerer (1977); the crime comedy drama The Brink's Job (1978); the controversial thriller Cruising (1980); and
2736-433: The impact of critic Pauline Kael in her positive review of the film (October 1967, New Yorker ) led other reviewers to follow her lead and re-evaluate the film (notably Newsweek and Time ). Kael drew attention to the innocence of the characters in the film and the artistic merit of the contrast of that with the violence in the film: "In a sense, it is the absence of sadism — it is the violence without sadism — that throws
2812-471: The jazz-age cut-ups in Thoroughly Modern Millie ..." Other notices, including those from Time and Newsweek magazines, were equally dismissive. Its portrayal of violence and ambiguity in regard to moral values, and its startling ending, divided critics. Following one of the negative reviews, Time magazine received letters from fans of the movie, and according to journalist Peter Biskind ,
2888-458: The limits of Hollywood's classical model. According to author and film critic Charles Taylor ( Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You ), he stated that "the 1970s remain the third — and, to date, last — great period in American movies". Author and film critic David Thomson also shared similar sentiment to the point of dubbing the era "the decade when movies mattered". Author A.D. Jameson ( I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing ), on
2964-486: The mail room at WGN-TV immediately after high school. Within two years (at the age of 18), he started his directorial career doing live television shows and documentaries. His efforts included The People vs. Paul Crump (1962), which won an award at the San Francisco International Film Festival and contributed to the commutation of Crump's death sentence . Its success helped Friedkin get
3040-586: The market during the period went from a middle-aged high school-educated audience in the mid-1960s to a younger, more affluent, college-educated demographic: by the mid-1970s, 76% of all movie-goers were under 30, 64% of whom had gone to college. European films, both arthouse and commercial (especially the Commedia all'italiana , the French New Wave , the Spaghetti Western ), and Japanese cinema were making
3116-423: The members of the New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience. The new generation of Hollywood filmmakers was most importantly, from the studios' view, young, therefore able to reach the youth audience they were losing. This collective of actors, screenwriters and directors, dubbed the "New Hollywood" by the press, briefly changed
William Friedkin - Misplaced Pages Continue
3192-455: The movie and innovation in American New Wave cinema. This influential article by Stefan Kanfer claimed that Bonnie and Clyde represented a "New Cinema" through its blurred genre lines, and disregard for honored aspects of plot and motivation, and that "In both conception and execution, Bonnie and Clyde is a watershed picture, the kind that signals a new style, a new trend." Biskind states that this review and turnaround by some critics allowed
3268-536: The music video for Barbra Streisand 's rendition of the West Side Story song " Somewhere ", which she recorded for her twenty-fourth studio LP, The Broadway Album . He later appears as Streisand's interviewer (uncredited) on the television special, "Putting It Together: The Making of the Broadway Album". The action/crime movie To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), starring William Petersen and Willem Dafoe ,
3344-419: The narrative strategies characteristic of Hollywood films of the 1970s: Seventies cinema also dealt with masculine crises featuring flawed male characters, downbeat conclusions and pessimistic subject matters alongside hard-nosed depictions of a America reeling from tense conflicts like The Vietnam War and President Richard Nixon 's Watergate scandal . Thomas Schatz points to another difference with
3420-590: The neo-noir thriller To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). Although Friedkin's works suffered an overall commercial and critical decline in the late 1980s, his last three feature films, all based on plays, were positively received by critics: the psychological horror film Bug (2006), the crime film Killer Joe (2011), and the legal drama film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023), released two months after his death. He also worked extensively as an opera director from 1998 until his death, and directed various television films and series episodes for television. Friedkin
3496-679: The other hand, claimed that Star Wars was New Hollywood's finest achievement that actually embodied the characteristics of the respected "serious, sophisticated adult films". Steven Hyden, writing for Grantland , called the Movie Brats the "cinematic version" of classic rock (to the point of roll calling Spielberg as the Beatles , Scorsese as the Velvet Underground , Coppola as Bob Dylan , Lucas as Pink Floyd , Robert Altman as Neil Young , Brian De Palma as Led Zeppelin , Bogdanovich as
3572-402: The period is also a subject of debate, as well as its integrity, as some authors, such as Thomas Schatz, argue that the New Hollywood consists of several different movements. The films made in this movement are stylistically characterized in that their narrative often deviated from classical norms. After the demise of the studio system and the rise of television, the commercial success of films
3648-408: The precursor to the blockbuster phenomenon). Writing in 1968, critic Pauline Kael argued that the importance of The Graduate was in its social significance in relation to a new young audience, and the role of mass media, rather than any artistic aspects. Kael argued that college students identifying with The Graduate were not too different from audiences identifying with characters in dramas of
3724-455: The premiere of an opera titled An Inconvenient Truth to debut in 2011, but he later departed from it when creative differences arose between him and the librettist. In 2013, it was reported that he would helm a stage production of Harold Pinter 's The Birthday Party (which he had already directed as a feature film in 1968 ), for Geffen Playhouse . A cast including Katie Amess , Frances Barber , Steven Berkoff , Tim Roth and Nick Ullett
3800-481: The previous decade. She also compared this era of cinema to "tangled, bitter flowering of American letters in the 1850s". Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino identified in his 2022 book Cinema Speculation that: "regular moviegoers were becoming weary of modern American movies. The darkness, the drug use, the embrace of sensation-the violence, the sex, and the sexual violence. But even more than that, they became wear of
3876-455: The production code enabled New Hollywood films to feature anti-establishment political themes, the use of rock music, and sexual freedom deemed "counter-cultural" by the studios. The youth movement of the 1960s turned anti-heroes like Bonnie and Clyde and Cool Hand Luke into pop-culture idols, and Life magazine called the characters in Easy Rider "part of the fundamental myth central to
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#17328550009293952-462: The relationship ended about 1972. Friedkin began a four-year relationship with Australian dancer and choreographer Jennifer Nairn-Smith in 1972. Although they announced an engagement twice, they never married. They had a son, Cedric, on November 27, 1976. Friedkin and his second wife, Lesley-Anne Down, also had a son, Jack, born in 1982. Friedkin was raised Jewish, but called himself an agnostic later in life, although he said that he strongly believed in
4028-621: The right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell, 'Cut!' The films of New Hollywood influenced future mainstream and independent filmmakers such as Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and Noah Baumbach . They also influenced both the Poliziotteschi genre films in Italy and a decade later the Cinéma du look movement in France. Todd Phillips 's 2019 DC Comics adaptation Joker , alongside
4104-502: The same success. Sorcerer (1977), a $ 22 million American remake of the French classic The Wages of Fear , co-produced by both Universal and Paramount, starring Roy Scheider , was overshadowed by the blockbuster box-office success of Star Wars , which had been released exactly one week prior. Friedkin considered it his finest film, and was personally devastated by its financial and critical failure (as mentioned by Friedkin himself in
4180-440: The sentence was commuted to 119 years by Gov. Otto Kerner . He was paroled in 1993. He returned to prison after being convicted of harassing a family member and violating an order of protection. His novel Burn, Killer, Burn! is autobiographical and was published by the black-owned Johnson Publishing Company in 1962. It is about a murderer who commits suicide rather than be executed. Life magazine on July 27, 1962, featured
4256-425: The studio's dime)." This era was also infamous for its excessive decadence and on-set mishaps. Incidents plaguing the behind-the-scenes of some of the horror films from this era (such as Rosemary's Baby , The Exorcist , Twilight Zone: The Movie and The Omen ) were also the subjects for the docuseries Cursed Films . Even Spielberg, who co-directed/co-produced Twilight Zone with John Landis ,
4332-477: The subject of heated debate. It was a critically assailed financial disappointment. Friedkin had a heart attack on March 6, 1981, due to a genetic defect in his circumflex left coronary artery , and nearly died. He spent months in rehabilitation. His next picture was 1983's Deal of the Century , a satire about arms dealing starring Chevy Chase , Gregory Hines , and Sigourney Weaver . In 1985, Friedkin directed
4408-882: The subjectivity of the protagonist in The Graduate and the passage of time in the famous match cut from 2001: A Space Odyssey . Also influential were the works of experimental filmmakers Arthur Lipsett , Stan Brakhage , Bruce Baillie , Jordan Belson , John Whitney , Scott Bartlett , Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger with their combinations of music and imagery and each were cited by George Lucas , Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese as influences. The New Hollywood generation of directors and screenwriters (each educated at either USC , UCLA , NYU and AFI ) such as Coppola, Lucas, Scorsese, Steven Spielberg , John Milius and Paul Schrader were sometimes jokingly labeled as "Movie Brats" or " Young Turks ". The end of
4484-500: The teachings of Jesus Christ . Friedkin died from heart failure and pneumonia at his home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles on August 7, 2023. Narrative films Documentary films Music videos TV series TV movies Operas Plays An LA Opera production of Wagner 's Tannhäuser was announced by Friedkin, but a spokesperson revealed it had been delayed indefinitely. Friedkin had also been set to direct
4560-551: The traditional studio system and Motion Picture Production Code (or the Hays Code ) Hollywood studios initially used spectacle to retain profitability. Technicolor developed a far more widespread use, while widescreen processes and technical improvements, such as CinemaScope , stereo sound, and others, such as 3-D , were invented to retain the dwindling audience and compete with television. However, these were generally unsuccessful in increasing profits. By 1957, Life magazine called
4636-460: Was a critical favorite and drew comparisons to Friedkin's own The French Connection (particularly for its car chase sequence), while his courtroom drama/thriller Rampage (1987) received a fairly positive review from Roger Ebert . He next directed the cult classic horror film The Guardian (1990) and the thriller Jade (1995), starring Linda Fiorentino . Though the latter received an unfavorable response from critics and audiences, he said it
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#17328550009294712-527: Was assembled, but the production was soon postponed for an unknown reason, and never revived. New Hollywood The New Hollywood , Hollywood Renaissance , American New Wave , or New American Cinema (not to be confused with the New American Cinema of the 1960s that was part of avant-garde underground cinema ), was a movement in American film history from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when
4788-566: Was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 29, 1935, the son of Rachael (née Green) and Louis Friedkin. His father was a semi-professional softball player, merchant seaman, and men's clothing salesman. His mother, whom Friedkin called "a saint," was a nurse. His parents were Jewish emigrants from Ukraine , in the Russian empire. His grandparents, parents, and other relatives fled Russia during a particularly violent anti-Jewish pogrom in 1903. Friedkin's father
4864-758: Was cheaper (no sets need to be built) New Hollywood filmmakers rapidly developed the taste for location shooting, resulting in a more naturalistic approach to filmmaking, especially when compared to the mostly stylized approach of classical Hollywood musicals and spectacles made to compete with television during the 1950s and early 1960s. The documentary films of D.A. Pennebaker , the Maysles Brothers and Frederick Wiseman , among others, also influenced filmmakers of this era. However, in editing, New Hollywood filmmakers adhered to realism more liberally than most of their classical Hollywood predecessors, often using editing for artistic purposes rather than for continuity alone,
4940-506: Was completed before Friedkin's death, and debuted in September 2023 in the out-of-competition category at the Venice Film Festival . Friedkin cited Jean-Luc Godard , Federico Fellini , François Truffaut , and Akira Kurosawa as influences. Friedkin named Woody Allen as "the greatest living filmmaker". In regard to influences of specific films on his films, Friedkin noted that The French Connection ['s] documentary-like realism
5016-466: Was deemed one of the premier directors of New Hollywood . In 1973, the trio announced the formation of an independent production company at Paramount Pictures , The Directors Company . Whereas Coppola directed The Conversation and Bogdanovich, the Henry James adaptation, Daisy Miller , Friedkin abruptly left the company, which was soon closed by Paramount. Friedkin's later movies did not achieve
5092-519: Was diminished. Successful films of the early New Hollywood era include Bonnie and Clyde , The Graduate , Rosemary's Baby , Night of the Living Dead , The Wild Bunch , and Easy Rider while films that failed at the box office such as New York, New York , Sorcerer , Heaven's Gate , They All Laughed and One from the Heart marked the end of the era. In fact, The Wild Angels
5168-442: Was going on as you do in a documentary. My first films were documentaries too. So I understood what he was doing but I never thought you could do that in a feature at that time until I saw Z . Friedkin was married four times: While filming The Boys in the Band in 1970, Friedkin began a relationship with Kitty Hawks , daughter of director Howard Hawks . It lasted two years, during which the couple announced their engagement , but
5244-537: Was introduced and location shooting was becoming more viable. New York City was a favorite spot for this new set of filmmakers due to its gritty atmosphere. Because of breakthroughs in film technology (e.g. the Panavision Panaflex camera, introduced in 1972; the Steadicam , introduced in 1976), the New Hollywood filmmakers could shoot 35mm camera film in exteriors with relative ease. Since location shooting
5320-525: Was kind of a... it was a big success for the New Hollywood . It was Roger Corman , it was Peter Fonda , Nancy Sinatra , it was a New Hollywood kind of movie, and it was very anti-the Old Hollywood, it was very hard-edged, violent, you know, it was not at all an Old Hollywood movie. And I didn't, I wasn't particularly aware of it. Then the following year was Bonnie and Clyde . Shadows had come out in
5396-412: Was not a serious student and barely received grades good enough to graduate, which he did at the age of 16. He said this was because of social promotion and not because he was bright. Friedkin began going to movies as a teenager, and cited Citizen Kane as one of his key influences. Several sources claim that Friedkin saw this motion picture as a teenager, but Friedkin himself said that he did not see
5472-416: Was one of the favorite films he directed. In 2000, The Exorcist was re-released in theaters with extra footage and grossed $ 40 million in the U.S. alone. Friedkin directed the 2006 film Bug due to a positive experience watching the stage version in 2004. He was surprised to find that he was, metaphorically, on the same page as the playwright and felt that he could relate well to the story. The film won
5548-432: Was so disgusted by the latter's handling of a deadly helicopter accident that resulted in the death of three actors, that he ended their friendship and publicly called for the end of New Hollywood. When approached by the press about the accident, he stated: "No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now, than ever before, to producers and directors who ask too much. If something isn't safe, it's
5624-424: Was somewhat uninterested in making money, and the family was generally lower middle class while he was growing up. According to film historian Peter Biskind , "Friedkin viewed his father with a mixture of affection and contempt for not making more of himself." After attending public schools in Chicago, Friedkin enrolled at Senn High School , where he played basketball well enough to consider turning professional. He
5700-425: Was the direct result of the influence of having seen Z , a French film by Costa-Gavras : After I saw Z , I realized how I could shoot The French Connection . Because he shot Z like a documentary. It was a fiction film but it was made like it was actually happening. Like the camera didn't know what was gonna happen next. And that is an induced technique. It looks like he happened upon the scene and captured what
5776-560: Was the subject of Robert Drew 's 1963 documentary The Chair . Folk singer Phil Ochs wrote a song entitled "Paul Crump" that chronicled Crump's life. The song appears on three albums by Ochs: The Early Years , A Toast to Those Who Are Gone , and On My Way . Crump died of cancer at age 72, on October 12, 2002, at the Chester Mental Health Center in Chester, Illinois . This biographical article related to crime
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