The Oscar-winning filmmaker looks back as the movie marks its 50th anniversary.
That’s why directorWilliam Friedkinsays that if he were to remakeThe French Connectiontoday, not much would change.
“I don’t think I’d make a cop film today,” he tells EW.
William Friedkin on the set of ‘The French Connection’.20th Century Studios
“But if I did, it wouldn’t be much different.
And I would have a go at capture the action and the dialogue that persists and exists today.
You’d be amazed how very close it is to what it was.”
Roy Scheider and Gene Hackman in ‘The French Connection’.Everett Collection
“But I’m fascinated by it.”
To mark the 50th anniversary ofThe French Connection, Friedkin will joinTurner Classic Movieson Nov. 13 for a conversation.
WILLIAM FRIEDKIN:Oh no.
In those days we couldn’t think about 50 years on.
There was no real television for movies, there was no streaming.
The networks were making their own films, for the most part.
And there was no Blu-ray or DVD.
We had all these other platforms between now and when we started.
But it was the film that got me going.
That’s a complete lie.
I met Howard Hawks.
I was living with his daughter Kitty Hawks.
She hadn’t seen him for 16 years.
Last time she saw him she was a little girl, and now she’s a woman.
She gets a wire that he’d love to see her.
So the two of us made a trip out to California.
I saw him for lunch once, and we didn’t discuss film at all.
Hawks gave me no advice whatsoever.
So how did you decide to make the film?
It just came along.
The producer, Phil D’Antoni, had the rights.
In those days the stories would somehow come to you.
You didn’t have to go and seek them out.
He told me the story.
I went from California to New York and met the two original cops, and that was that.
Nothing from Howard Hawks.
I don’t mean to diss Howard Hawks, but I don’t know that he ever said that.
But it was not true.
SomeLiberty Valenceprinting the legend there.
How essential were the real cops, Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, to the making of the film?
I had never read Robin Moore’s book.
I’ve never read it.
I just met Egan and Grosso.
I was so fascinated by them and their dynamic.
We can’t discuss this film without talking about the iconic chase scene.
We decided to keep walking various streets until [something] occurred to us.
And that’s what happened.
We walked through 55 blocks.
I went out and shot that scene that we had just made up in one afternoon.
It was very dangerous.
I can’t tell you how much.
We just blew through traffic, as it’s possible for you to see.
Do you think any chases since have rivaled it?
I don’t know.
I can’t speak about that.
Steve McQueen was a friend of mine, and he had doneBullitta few years before.
We had a friendly attitude about it.
They’re extremely different and hard to rate one over the other.
But the greatest chase scenes ever were made in the silent film era by Buster Keaton.
I don’t know how he did them.
They are really works of art.
I fortunately never saw one of his chase scenes before I didThe French Connection.
What was the most difficult part of the film?
The chase, or another aspect?
No, it was the chase.
That was very difficult.
Because we did it without permission and without control.
We had permission to use those particular areas, but not the chase.
There’s quite the list of actors who were purportedly considered for Popeye besides Gene Hackman.
But I’m most intrigued by the idea of Paul Newman.
Why was he someone you thought would’ve been a good fit?
We talked about him, but then we didn’t have enough money.
He was making in salary what it cost to make our picture.
One day he would be great.
On the last day, Friday, I knew I had to get rid of him.
But he came to me and he said, “Is there a car chase in this movie?”
And I said, “Yeah.”
I said, “You’re fired.”
He looked in the mirror and saw Cary Grant, and Mel Brooks saw Young Frankenstein.
Going back to Jimmy Breslin for a second, where did that idea come from?
Had he expressed an interest in acting to you?
No, he had no interest in acting, but I saw him as the character.
Was that something you were cognizant of at the time and actively wanted to comment on?
No, I wasn’t a part of the conversation.
I had my own set of friends, most of them outside the business.
I had no concern then, nor do I now, for the film business in general.
I had my own vision of the films I wanted to make.
I didn’t care about the awards.
Although there were many.
I was very fortunate being able to make a lot of films that I really wanted to make.
But I wasn’t competing with anyone.
Some of the friends I had Francis Coppola,Peter Bogdanovich we were very good friends.
We met, but we seldom talked about film.
What did you talk about?
Many things: music, things that were going on in the world.
We did have discussions about things like whose films would survive, Federico Fellini or Jean-Luc Godard?
Because those were our heroes in those days.
Stairs and falling down them seem to be a major motif in your work.
Why is that an image that holds so much fascination for you?
I’m not aware of this.
You may be on to something of which I’m not aware.
They play a prominent role in at least two of your major works.
You’re talking aboutThe Exorciststeps.The Exorciststeps are iconic, of course.
There’s now a plaque on them, it has my name on it.
They’re now officially designated asThe Exorciststeps.
And inThe French Connectionthe chase ends on the subway steps.
Yes, there is that.
That just sort of happens.
Those sequences that you’re talking about are very important to those films.
But I have no particular fascination with stairs.
You really strive to show the moral ambiguity of these men.
Popeye is no hero he’s racist, he shoots a man in the back, etc.
Does that change your perception of the film and the characters at all?
It was a different time.
What those guys were doing back then was largely an act to stay alive in the street.
If they didn’t act like the bullies that they appear to be, they wouldn’t be alive.
All of their cohorts on the police department had to act that way, especially in the narcotics areas.
Today it’s somewhat different.
Cop are still often out of control.
But these guys were not bigots.
They were acting that to stay alive.
If you were tasked with telling this story now, how would you tell it differently?
My uncle was a very famous Chicago cop.
His name was Harry Lang.
From that point I formed an opinion about cops that persists to this day.
I don’t think I would make it much different than now.
Now they can’t do the kind of things they did before.
They went too far.
The times have changed around them.
