William Friedkin: Directing is like jazz improvisation

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

IN 2012, WILLIAM FRIEDKIN celebrated 50 years as a filmmaker. In 1962, his very first film, a documentary called The People vs. Paul Crump, examined the case of a man sentenced to the electric chair for murdering a security guard during a robbery, although his accomplices received only prison sentences. Friedkin’s film was a contributing factor in Crump’s sentence ultimately being commuted. Following this auspicious project (made when Friedkin was only 27), the director went on to become one of the most audacious and lauded filmmakers of the 1970s, with The French Connection and The Exorcist helping to establish the gritty, boundary-pushing filmmaking that characterized the decade. After winning an Oscar for directing The French Connection and the massive success of The Exorcist, Friedkin admits (in his new memoir,The Friedkin Connection) to falling into a period of hubris. Yet he has remained a productive, creatively restless, innovative filmmaker, putting out another dozen or so pictures since: the 1977 box-office flop Sorcerer has recently been the subject of renewed interest and critical praise; To Live and Die in L.A. is considered to be one of the very best police thrillers of the 1980s; and last year’s Killer Joe — a rollicking, skanky noir-comedy — elicits outstanding performances from a very game cast, notably Matthew McConaughey in what is easily his darkest role to date. In the meantime, Friedkin has also developed a parallel career as a director of operas on stages around the world.

Chris Ware: Loneliness has its merits

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:46:00 +0000

AS HE DEMONSTRATES with every one of his droll, moving, meticulous publications, Chris Ware is one of the most fascinating storytellers we have, one dedicated to extending and elasticizing the medium of cartooning. His new “publishing experiment,” as he calls it, is Building Stories, a book Publishers Weekly declared “one of the year’s best arguments for the survival of print.” Building Stories is both a collection and a magnum opus, a mosaic both intimate and epic. Within a large, decorative box are fourteen separate but inter-related “units” of different formats — pamphlets, newspapers, hardcover books, and even a Little Golden Book-style children’s book — across which Ware depicts the stories of a group of apartment dwellers, each of whom develops distinct emotional mechanisms for dealing with loneliness, regret, and memory. Ware spoke to the Los Angeles Review of Books about his process, his ideas, and his belief in the supremacy of the book.

Salon.com > Casey Burchby

William Friedkin: Directing is like jazz improvisation

Chris Ware: Loneliness has its merits