The Friedkin Connection

He wrote a memoir

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Updated On: 4/15/13 at 11:34 AM

I know of do too. I feel like I have read a lot about him and found myself really enthralled when he said the evil he covered in the Exorcist is the same evil that goes into the various serial killers in Cruising and continues on into the rest of his movies. Something about this really captured me.

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"He clearly takes himself VERY seriously but..."

Oh his director audio commentaries are unlistenable for that reason. In fact, I feel like the less I read from what he had to say about certain movies the more I could enjoy them. My initial coldness toward Killer Joe was partly due to the fact I found what he had to say about it and the characters to not really translate on screen. I still feel like Killer Joe as a script does not completely succeed in switching to and back from extremes but damn, was McConaughey and Temple good in those roles.

Read it. Pretty entertaining if awfully dry. It's interesting what he leaves out of the book, like his affair with Burstyn. Also not mentioned even in passing are his two worst movies, DEAL OF THE CENTURY and THE GUARDIAN, probably because they are both justly forgotten.

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