From Crashes to Exorcism, His Own Cut

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/books/the-friedkin-connection-a-memoir-by-william-friedkin.html

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When William Friedkin was doing research for his controversial film “Cruising,” he showed up on jockstrap night at the Mine Shaft, the famed gay bar in Manhattan, dressed for the occasion. When he shot the car chase in “The French Connection,” he took few precautions for the safety of drivers and bystanders. And when he prepped for “Rampage,” about a bizarre serial killer, he watched a Rorschach test being given to a man convicted of killing his mother. The killer saw angels and butterflies; Mr. Friedkin saw monsters.

Perhaps his dark side helps explain why “The Friedkin Connection” includes a picture of the demon Pazuzu — and why Pazuzu is a major player in what Mr. Friedkin calls “the film for which I’ll probably be remembered.”

That’s “The Exorcist.” And while he probably would prefer to be thought of for other works as well, his has been an uncommonly difficult career, with the high points coming far too early for him to keep his bearings. The dizzying effects experienced by Linda Blair, who played the girl afflicted by demonic possession, were nothing compared to the head-spinning that Mr. Friedkin went through. Even now, in writing a book that acknowledges his vast hubris, he manages to mention being referred to as “a national treasure.”

With both arrogance and acuity, Mr. Friedkin has modeled his book on “Elia Kazan: A Life,” the most candid and introspective of show business memoirs. There is at least one crucial difference: while Kazan unsparingly dissected his personal life and the pain he inflicted on loved ones, Mr. Friedkin waits until Page 402 to even touch on his (“I had been unhappily married and divorced three times”), and only vis-à-vis his fourth, happiest marriage, to Sherry Lansing, the former chief executive of Paramount Pictures.

But “The Friedkin Connection” does follow Kazan’s lead in reassessing the caliber of its subject’s work, acknowledging mistakes that were made. In that regard, it’s a fascinating appraisal — and a reminder of how much of a maverick Mr. Friedkin, now 77, has turned out to be, willingly or otherwise.

He was a few years younger than the great directors of live television drama in the 1950s, a few years older than the whiz kids of the ’70s. Raised in Chicago, he got his first big break in 1960, when at a cocktail party a prison chaplain told him about an innocent man on death row. In high dudgeon, he made a documentary, “The People vs. Paul Crump,” that he modestly envisioned as “a kind of American ‘J’Accuse.’ ” Paul Crump was freed, but Mr. Friedkin now believes he was guilty.

“I was looking for a subject to film; he was looking for a get-out-of-jail card,” he writes. “I don’t dwell on the question because it would mean we both gamed the system. Paul got his freedom, I got my career.”

A couple of flops followed, and then “The Boys in the Band,” his 1970 breakthrough. In the same way Kazan could never adequately explain his political decisions to some readers, Mr. Friedkin caricatured gay behavior and self-dramatization to an extent that this book does not even try to justify. But so began a rapid hot streak — a best picture Oscar for “French Connection,” a blockbuster hit in “The Exorcist” — that lasted until 1977, when the costly failure of “Sorcerer” knocked him off the A-list. He still blames himself for preferring the right shooting location to Steve McQueen, who wouldn’t leave his new flame Ali McGraw for a prolonged stint in a faraway jungle.

Some of “The Friedkin Connection” is about triumphs and recriminations; some is about playing tricks on studio executives, because Mr. Friedkin believes that it’s better to appear crazy than malleable. (William Peter Blatty, who wrote “The Exorcist,” was his collaborator in some of these stunts.) Much amazing film minutiae gets explained, from improvised special effects to the way Mr. Friedkin solved acting problems (killing off Max von Sydow earlier than expected in “The Exorcist” because the actor’s atheism and shrill voice were counterproductive).

Yes, this is the book that explains exactly how Ms. Blair’s projectile vomiting was done. There are remarkable stories about the vocal effects that conveyed demonic possession, mostly the work of the actress Mercedes McCambridge. (Note: In the restored version now available on video, it is Mr. Friedkin himself who dubbed “Your mother still rots in hell” to replace a similar-sounding, much raunchier line and make the film acceptable for television.) Why was the crash sequence in “French Connection” so dramatic? The smack of a hammer hitting an anvil was added to the ambient sound.

Mr. Friedkin can be unsparing in his assessment of character. He explains why, when making “Good Times” (1967) with Sonny and Cher, he did not portray the couple’s real relationship on camera (he was too dominant, she was too passive). He calls Frank Wells, an otherwise highly regarded studio executive at Warner Brothers in the ’70s, “a prime practitioner of the situational ethics that prevail in the film business.” And he questions his decision to turn Jason Miller — who had written one play, “That Championship Season” — into a movie star as the lead in “The Exorcist.” When he read Miller’s obituary, describing a career that never worked out, he wondered if he was responsible for part of that unhappiness.

Some of the most interesting material in “The Friedkin Connection” is about music. Mr. Friedkin’s taste has always been eclectic, and he reminds his readers of some of his more unusual soundtrack choices, like turning down the composers Bernard Herrmann and Lalo Schifrin and using Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” for “The Exorcist.” He has since gone on to direct operas — because he likes the challenge of staging them and dislikes having to pitch himself as a moviemaker, he relates.

But in either realm, and throughout acute health crises in recent years, he remains both his own best friend and worst enemy. “I embody arrogance, insecurity and ambition that spur me on as they hold me back,” he writes. “And while I’ve been healed of physical wounds, my character flaws remain for the most part unhealed. There’s no point in saying I’ll work on them.”

But there is a point to immortalizing them, which this book so colorfully does.