William Friedkin, RIP

[Wellesnet]

R.I.P. William Friedkin (1935-2023)
Friedkin was a vocal admirer of Orson Welles and was an advisor on the upcoming "The Lost Print: The Making of Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons."
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/wil ... 06787.html

[tonyw]

Friedkin was champion of international cinema, appears on the box set of Fukasaku's THE YAJKUZA PAPERS so it ias not surprising that he championed Welles.

[Steve Paradis]

But it was a cinematic experience around the same time that proved formative. One afternoon in the early 60s, Friedkin went to see Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane for the first time, entering the cinema at noon and not leaving until late that evening, having watched the movie five times back-to-back: “No film I’ve seen before or since meant so much to me. I thought, ‘Whatever that is, that’s what I want to do…’ On that Saturday, just three years younger than Welles when he created Kane, I resolved to become a film-maker.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/a ... n-obituary

[tonyw]

Another important testimony of Welles's influence on an upcoming generation. Yet, as Jonathan Rosenbaum, points out he was a threat to the System and the current system wishes to erase his significance as much as possible.

[Wich2]

Some truth there...

But also, like Orson (though by most accounts, including his own later admission, maybe even worse?) Friedkin was one_prickly_customer.

Art is fine; but by the end of a life, just how that life was lived starts to factor in to the Overall, too.

- Craig