The French Connection
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2 I MICHAEL SHEDLIN Police Oscar: The French Connection AND AN INTERVIEWWITH WILLIAMFRIEDKIN A film does not have to be made by Leni Rief- the relationshipbetween interpersonalcommu- enstahl or the USIA to be a propaganda film. nication and social functioning. All dramatic movies contain elements that Since propaganda,whether blatant or subtle, either reinforce or reject dominant cultural and whether "left" or "right,"works primarily phenomena. If prevailing social relations are through the emotions and not the intellect, it is reinforced or suggested as the normal state of not necessarily the explicit or easily recogniz- affairs, then the film becomes propaganda for able elements of a film that produce the strong- existing mores and institutions. While the film- est effect on the consciousness of the viewer. maker may not deliberately set out to make an Such is the case with a film like The French explicit political statement, he or she will Connection. The explicit values are evident. select countless situations, settings, and visual The film is exquisitely made. An unnerving details which point out the surrounding social tension is maintained, not by the plot or context as either natural (virtuous) or unnat- the music, but by our fascination with Pop- ural (unjust). Most films, of course, are com- eye's dementia, by the garish sound track of mitted to the former mode. The great majority screeching tires, screaming engines, slamming of commercial films are produced not to ex- doors and smashing flesh (Pauline Kael called press a particular artist's passions, but to insure the film "an aggravated case of New York"), immediate cash income to the producers. To and by the expert movement of the film'svisual annoy the audience by rejecting or questioning elements. The sequence in the nightclub where its conception of reality would be bad busi- Popeye first smells the dope smugglers; the ness and therefore just isn't done. sequence when Charnier, the French connec- Liberal directors often make "social com- tion, eludes Popeye's tail; and the tearing apart ment" films that criticize egregious dysfunctions of the dirty Lincoln are masterful examples of like capital punishment, bigotry, or even aliena- visual story telling. Throughout, the acting is tion, but these works nearly always imply that excellent, the script efficient, the camerawork the overall social environment is valid and that bright and fast. Director William Friedkin is the immorality comes from individual psycho- quite good at ensemble movement, his cutting logical weakness or deviation from essentially is nervous and harsh, his use of locations sur- sound Western ideals. Certain directors of passingly acute. As a director of action, Fried- American films, such as Chaplin, Renoir, Lang, kin seems more complicated and technically Kazan, Penn, Kubrick, and Perry, have con- superior to Don Siegel, Jack Smight, Peter sistently displayed a humane commitment to Yates, and Richard Fleischer, but less formally the broader social implications of their works- sophisticated than Peckinpah or Penn. Stylis- beyond the promulgation of liberal stereotypes tically, Friedkin resembles Arthur Penn most or the condemnation of obvious injustice (cf. closely among American directors, although Stanley Kramer and Norman Jewison). Euro- Friedkin is more New York-orientedand less pean film-makers, from Vigo and Bufiuel to prone to lyrical interludes. Antonioni and Godard, have consistently moved Beneath the brilliant and diverting surface beyond "social comment" into an exploration of of The French Connection, however, is a net- THE FRENCH CONNECTION .. work of implications and assumptions that transmit rightist propaganda. The film itself is not especially complicated, but these implicit messages have a wide and equivocal signifi- cance. It is necessary to stress again that an Amer- ican studio production like The French Con- nection is only secondarily art. It is, above all, a product, a commodity, a consumer item. The French Connection was selected over all other available stories because its producers felt that it would appeal to enough filmgoers to make money. Friedkin, far from being the creator of the film, was a worker hired by big money to THE FRENCH CONNECTION direct a package that was handed to him. Re- gardless of Friedkin's embellishments, the in- The French Connection is actually devoid of stigators, the originators of The French Con- social commitment because it refuses to take nection control its essential meanings. seriously the issues it raises. Through the util- Who are these people and what are they up ization of a comic-book format, the inhumanity to? The film's executive producer was G. David of the characters is minimized and turned into Schine, once notorious as a member of the late amusing mannerisms. Thus Popeye's leering Senator Joseph McCarthy's staff. Producer Phil male supremacism eventuates in a quirky fling D'Antoni's last effort, Bullitt, one of the big with a willing young girl. When Popeye raids commercial hits of all time, was about a hip the black bar, our attention is drawn to his wise- cop, certainly one of the most pernicious and cracks and bullying rather than to the reality of opportunistic distortions ever devised. The final colonized minorities who must use drugs to es- script was apparently written by Ernest Tidy- cape the effects of their oppression. Popeye's man, who wrote Shaft, and was based on a book homey ethnic slurs draw laughs from the audi- by Robin Moore, who wrote The Green Berets. ence-racism becomes a gag. By playing on the confused fantasies of a There is no reason to expect all movies to re- frightened and schizophrenic culture, the mak- flect an anti-establishment analysis or to chal- ers of The French Connection have built a lenge injustice; however, since The French Con- product that addresses itself directly to the nection purports to deal with social issues, it major issues of our society-racism, corrupt can be discussed as a serious film, a film with a power, brutality, drugs-and yet manages to message. When Gene Hackman and the "real subsume all social significance beneath an ex- Popeye" appeared on the Dick Cavett TV show, plosion of gaudy adventurism that ultimately they talked about the tragedy of the junkie on reinforces the heroism of the authorities it the street rather than police malfeasance. The seems to be criticizing. basic assumption of the film is that heroin The French Connection is a prime example traffic must be stopped at all costs. By objecti- of the cinema of manipulation over engage- fying evil in the form of heroin and heroin deal- ment. The final selective principle is not "What ers, the authorities-be they police or studios- does this say?" but "Will it work?" The film divert the public's attention from the essential is manufactured for eloquence of effect rather cultural patterns that caused the drug use in than communication of insight. While seeming- the first place. They analyze the symptoms ly rampant with realism and social comment rather than the sources. (gritty locations, funky language, white cops Popeye is fighting not just Frog One, but evil brutalizing black citizens, police detail, etc.), itself. Like Dirty Harry, who hunts a sadistic 4 4 THE FRENCHCONNECTION random sniper, Popeye is protecting society with," a "real character." This assertion of Pop- from unimaginablemenace. Thus the principal eye's "humanity" extends beyond a sense of ir- subliminalmessage of the film: arbitrarypower rascible but strong-minded fallibility. Popeye is good because it keeps the society from fall- is a kind of primal sentry at lonely odds with ing apart; authoritarianaction is necessary to the innate human tendencies toward wrong- protect us from the inferiors among us who doing. Charnier represents more than a super- would become criminals and drug addicts if criminal, he represents heartless and elusive unchecked by the incorruptible executors of evil. He is a profiteer without conscience, a law and reason. That this attitude is congruent manipulator and a murderer; his suavity and so- with two of the pillars of Western political phi- phisticated demeanor simply emphasize his pro- losophy-the theory of innate aggressiveness fessionalism. He is a threat to the national se- and the lesser-of-two-evils strategy-indicates curity and his specter is used to justify system- how inextricably the film is linked to broader atic brutality and repression in the same way as issues. Irwin Silber points out three furthersub- the threat of domination by a foreign ideology tle messages contained in The French Connec- is manufactured or promoted to strengthen tion: (1) it is implied that police brutality is state chauvinism. more the outgrowthof personalpsychosis rather In the famous car-train chase sequence, the than the logical result of deliberate policy; (2) terrified and powerless public is literally rail- it is implied that heroin traffichas nothing to do roaded by opposing forces of control. Their fate with internationalcapitalism, and that it is en- is out of their hands, they are at the mercy of tirely a "criminal"venture; (3) it is implied unknown agents who are performing an elab- that foreigners and American minorities are orate ballet of violence and power through the ultimately no match for the dogged white in- dark halls of their own barbarous existence. Of nocent out there battling a crooked world. course Popeye swerves to avoid the woman If we didn't know something about the pro- with the baby carriage, but one feels that this ducers of The French Connection, we might is simply because an accident would slow him assume that it is consciously about the replace- down, interrupt his turn. ment of responsibilitywith ritual among author- The car chase becomes the central propagan- itarian figures, about the psychopathology of da device of the film.