The Films of William Friedkin

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by Steve Choe

Type

Film Reviews

Subject

Director > William Friedkin

Keywords

William Friedkin

Publishing date

2023

Publisher

Edinburgh University Press

Collection

ReFocus: The American Directors Series

1st publishing

2021

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 224 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN

978-1-4744-3138-5

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Book Presentation:
William Friedkin is the director of genre-defining works such as The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973), controversial productions like Cruising (1980) and Killer Joe (2011), as well as understudied films including The Birthday Party (1968), Sorcerer (1977) and The Hunted (2003). This book, the first scholarly study of Friedkin’s films, reveals how they confront the ambiguities of law and morality, issues of subjectivity and problems of faith, while raising key questions around emotion and narrative in the cinema.
Placing his work in the historical contexts of the Vietnam War and Nixon’s presidency, ReFocus: The Films of William Friedkin also examines the director’s representations of sex and violence after the dismantling of the Production Code and in light of the rise and fall of New Hollywood cinema.

About the Author:
Dr Steve Choe is Associate Professor of Film Studies at San Francisco State University

Press Reviews:
This is a closely reasoned argument for William Friedkin as a filmmaker of transcendent faith and existential authenticity. It provides a sophisticated re-interpretation of his work through the lenses of thinkers as varied as Frederic Jameson, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Soren Kierkegaard, and legal theorist Carl Schmitt, not to mention film scholars like Tom Gunning, Linda Ruth Williams, Michel Chion, and Robin Wood. Skillfully written and exhaustively researched, the book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the American cinema and the American film industry in the last three decades of the twentieth century. ― Dr David Cook, UNC Greensboro

This is a closely reasoned argument for William Friedkin as a filmmaker of transcendent faith and existential authenticity. It provides a sophisticated re-interpretation of his work through the lenses of thinkers as varied as Frederic Jameson, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Soren Kierkegaard, and legal theorist Carl Schmitt, not to mention film scholars like Tom Gunning, Linda Ruth Williams, Michel Chion, and Robin Wood. Skillfully written and exhaustively researched, the book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the American cinema and the American film industry in the last three decades of the twentieth century. -- Dr David Cook, UNC Greensboro

See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press

See the complete filmography of William Friedkin on the website: IMDB ...