Sorcerer (15.)
Directed by William Friedkin. 1977.
Starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou, Ramon Bieri, Peter Capell, Karl John, Frederick Ledebur, Chico Martínez, Joe Spinell. 40th Anniversary re-release. 121 mins.
Peter Biskind's essential book, “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,” a sensational account of 70s New Hollywood, is a tome filled almost exclusively with monsters. William Friedkin isn't its biggest monster (that would be Dennis Hopper) but of all its tales of success going to people's head, his was the biggest success, and his was the head most bloated by it. Every director in that book is hurtling towards a megaflop and this would be Friedkin's 1941/ One From The Heart/ New York, New York/ Popeye/ Heaven's Gate. After The French Connection (best film Oscar) and The Exorcist (an all-time box office success) he thought he would do a remake of Clouzot 1953 French classic The Wages of Fear, squandering $22.5 million and all the goodwill his two mega-hits had earned in doing so.
The plot has four desperate men trying to drive two lorries packed with unstable nitroglycerine, likely to explode at any sudden jolt, through a stretch of jungle terrain. It's a dynamite premise, you can't go wrong with it, but Friedkin does his best. It feels slapdash and rushed, slackly edited. It's so concerned with its corporate exploitation of the third world subtext, it often muddles or squanders the simple dramatic potential of the material. The globetrotting prologue introducing the four characters, also feels like pure bloat, spending money for the sake of spending money. For the viewer the production's misplaced energy is so infuriating, you'd almost think it was your $22.5 million he was wasting.
Still, none of that stops the scene where they try to get a lorry over a rickety rope bridge in driving rain being insanely tense and nerve-shredding. Sorcerer isn't the lost masterpiece some critics would have you believe but there are few films as gritty, as intense or unrelentingly bleak as Sorcerer. It's so sordid, so sweaty, so grimy, you may find yourself involuntarily speculating on the state of the characters' underwear.
Plus Friedkin was the first man to get Tangerine Dream to score a Hollywood movie, so we thank him for that.
Directed by William Friedkin. 1977.
Starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou, Ramon Bieri, Peter Capell, Karl John, Frederick Ledebur, Chico Martínez, Joe Spinell. 40th Anniversary re-release. 121 mins.
Peter Biskind's essential book, “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,” a sensational account of 70s New Hollywood, is a tome filled almost exclusively with monsters. William Friedkin isn't its biggest monster (that would be Dennis Hopper) but of all its tales of success going to people's head, his was the biggest success, and his was the head most bloated by it. Every director in that book is hurtling towards a megaflop and this would be Friedkin's 1941/ One From The Heart/ New York, New York/ Popeye/ Heaven's Gate. After The French Connection (best film Oscar) and The Exorcist (an all-time box office success) he thought he would do a remake of Clouzot 1953 French classic The Wages of Fear, squandering $22.5 million and all the goodwill his two mega-hits had earned in doing so.
The plot has four desperate men trying to drive two lorries packed with unstable nitroglycerine, likely to explode at any sudden jolt, through a stretch of jungle terrain. It's a dynamite premise, you can't go wrong with it, but Friedkin does his best. It feels slapdash and rushed, slackly edited. It's so concerned with its corporate exploitation of the third world subtext, it often muddles or squanders the simple dramatic potential of the material. The globetrotting prologue introducing the four characters, also feels like pure bloat, spending money for the sake of spending money. For the viewer the production's misplaced energy is so infuriating, you'd almost think it was your $22.5 million he was wasting.
Still, none of that stops the scene where they try to get a lorry over a rickety rope bridge in driving rain being insanely tense and nerve-shredding. Sorcerer isn't the lost masterpiece some critics would have you believe but there are few films as gritty, as intense or unrelentingly bleak as Sorcerer. It's so sordid, so sweaty, so grimy, you may find yourself involuntarily speculating on the state of the characters' underwear.
Plus Friedkin was the first man to get Tangerine Dream to score a Hollywood movie, so we thank him for that.
