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. The essential evil of the power. Popeye, as a cop, is literally a represen- dark forces is heightened by a rapid escalation tative of the authority of the state. He exists, of wanton murder; the essential goodness of like the state, to protect society from the hor- Popeye (and the authorities) is emphasized by rors of disorder, invasion, and corruption. In the extreme sacrifices made on behalf of the the film, these dark energies are embodied in public. Popeye works so hard to protect us from Frog One, the French connection. As the huge harm that he falls down from exhaustion after dope dealer, Charnieris the incarnationof pro- apprehending and executing the French thug. fessional wickedness, carrying a foreign plague It is during the car chase that we are manipu- to American cities, arrogantly flaunting our lated into an excited state where we will be customs and laws and spreading immeasurable susceptible to influences which would ordinar- misery. Here, then, is a battle between two ily be subject to scrutiny. We must take sides powers, two agents of control. One, Popeye at this point; it would be nearly impossible to America, signifies shrewdness, determination, resist the assumption that Popeye's actions are incorruptibility, brashness, independence, pa- heroic while the assassin's actions are abjectly triotism,highly developed driving skills, and in felonious. As Andrew Sarris points out, "In the general, guts ball. His minor character flaws, American cinema, one must ultimately root for such as fascism, homicidal compulsion and one side or another." The meaning of this crit- white supremacy,are emphasized to make him ical sequence, which is consciously non-intel- "more human," "someone we can identify lectual and non-dialogue, is precisely what it THE FRENCHCONNECTION THE FRENCH CONNECTION 5 seems to be and serves to define the overall in- it successfully mixes reactionary and liberal tentions of the film itself: regardless of Pop- propaganda,turns immoralityinto heroism, so- eye's crudities, he hunts evil and gets the job cial psychopathology into personal idiosyn- done. cracy, and art into amusement. Although The At the end of the film, after additional dis- French Connection may appear to be critical plays of police efficiency and daring (complete of the law enforcement mentality, it is, like with amusing snafus), we are informedthat the Dirty Harry, very much a police movie. The courts have acquitted nearly everybody in- "real Popeye" of course appears as Hackman's volved in the dope smuggling and that Char- boss. The "realCloudy," Sonny Grosso,worked nier escaped altogether. Popeye's game has as a production assistant. All the actors in the come to naught. In the final frames he is shoot- black bar that Popeye raided were off-duty ing at ghosts. In a very real sense, he does not New York narcs. The background detail, the get the job done. As William Burroughs re- police garage and other official touches cer- marks, the higher-ups on the heroin pyramid tainly required the cooperation of the NYPD. are infinitely replaceable, but as long as there Eddie Egan is now a story consultant at Par- are junkies on the street, dope traffic will ex- amount and has a three-picturecontract as an ist to serve them. Popeye's job is ineffectual, actor. Perhaps Eddie, who used to refer to sus- meaningless; his manner is grotesque. His ab- pects or potential suspects as "germs,"will be- surdity distinguishes The French Connection come a producer or a production chief him- from conventional cop films; however, one has self and then all the frills and fagotty artists the suspicion that the producers injected this can be done away with and the police can run device with impure motives. As Pauline Kael the studios directly .... notes: "Popeye'slow characteris used to make the cops-and-robbersmelodrama superficially Regardless of my ambivalence toward The modern by making it meaningless."Popeye, es- French Connection as a cultural event, I feel sentially a moronic and obsessive robot, is el- that William Friedkin is one of the best young evated to the privileged position of Existential Americandirectors. I visited him in his austere Hero. It is an indication of the extreme cul- office at Fox in December 1971. At 32, he is tural polarization in America that the same friendly, vain and slender. He speaks quickly character is seen as a monster and a guardian and precisely, anticipating the questions, by different segments of the population. In the glancing at Varietyduring his responses. longer run, perhaps the dangerous undercur- rents of a film like The French Connection will How did you come to direct The French prove less significantthan the fact that it por- Connection? trayed a policeman as a psycho. Perhaps Fried- The producer owned the rights to the book, kin and Hackman and the scriptwriterdeserve which he brought to me in galleys more than approbation for taking a rightist propaganda two years ago. He had known that I had project and turning it into a film of cold social wanted to do a thriller, and I was very inter- criticism. ested in the story. I thought it was marvelous. In any case, The French Connectionremains I had done a lot of documentariesthat had sort a triumph of American commercialism.Open- of delved into this area. But I really wasn't ing in two theaters in New York City on Oc- hooked on it until I went back to New York tober 7, 1971, it grossed $302,648 in 19 days. and met Egan and Grosso and started to hang By November 24 it was at the top of Variety's out with them. Then we went through two dis- weekly box-office list at $6,000,000. Fox esti- astrous screenplays over about nine months. mates that the eventual world-wide revenue They didn't work out at all, didn't have the will be $30,000,000. Such are the rewards the chase in them, the writer just wasn't sympa- American consciousnessindustry obtains when thetic to the characters, the atmosphere, the 6 6 THE FRENCH CONNECTION life, etc. He got nothin' on paper. So the proj- about a guy who was going to the electric ect was dead. National General went out of chair in Chicago, a black guy who had been production right in the middle of all these lousy on death row for 10 years. I made this film scripts we had. The project was dead for about without knowing anything about how to make ten months. No studio would touch it. We a movie. The cameraman and myself did every- finally got a script that we were happy with and thing. The film won an award at the San Fran- took it to Fox. Dick Zanuck and David Brown, cisco Film Festival in 1962 and was instru- who were running Fox, liked the script, met mental in getting the prisoner a reprieve. Dave with us, and said Go. We started shooting No- Wolper saw that picture in San Francisco and vember 30 of 1970. Principal photography was we started to correspond, and a couple of years about 65 days. The budget was $2,200,000. later I went to work for Wolper out here. I What is your background? How did you get came right from Chicago television, where by started in the motion picture business? that time I had done a half a dozen more local I started in live television in Chicago when documentaries for TV. I did one about Red I was 17. I graduated from high school at 16 Grange the football player, a documentary and answered an ad in the paper for a job about Chicago, another one with the Second in the mail room of WGN television. I had not City actors, another about the Presbyterian read a book from beginning to end. Education Church's Ministry to Institutions. was a joke, it meant nothing. This was 1955. Then, in 1965, at 26, I left Chicago. I did Live TV was very new then in Chicago. No- three documentaries for Wolper on the ABC body knew anything about it. You had to go network. One was called A Thin Blue Line, to school to be an engineer but not to be in about law enforcement. Then Mayhem on a production. It was a local station, and they Sunday Afternoon about pro football, and the weren't taking any shows from the networks, first was The Bold Men, about men who risked there were no filmed shows or reruns or any- their lives for money, adventure, science, etc. thing. You had a live station and you pro- I had an offer to direct a feature film. My grammed it live. I didn't know anybody or any- first feature was Good Times with Sonny and thing. I just hung around in the evenings Cher. This was in 1967. That led to The Night after my job and watched the control rooms They Raided Minsky's. Then The Birthday work. I used to go out and get sandwiches for Party, The Boys in the Band, and The French the guys, and they took a liking to me. I was Connection. Everything I've done, really, has promoted out of the mail room after 8 or 9 been a kind of a sketch for The French Con- months to a job as floor manager, like assistant nection. This film pretty much sums up most of director. Then, after 6 or 7 months I was di- my attitudes, abilities, and interests at this recting. I directed about 2000 live shows over point. It was the first film I've done where I an 8-year period. Every kind of show: game really felt I could control the medium. shows, variety shows, quiz shows, the Chicago How did you prepare for The French Con- Symphony Orchestra, baseball games, the first nection? courtroom show on live TV-They Stand Ac- I spent a year riding around with Egan in cused, and so on. I was directing four and five the 81st Precinct, that's Bedford-Stuyvesant, shows a day, starting in the morning with a and in the 28th Precinct with Grosso. They had kid's show, lunchtime little theater, Bozo the been split up at the time that I got into the Clown, an afternoon quiz show, then an eve- project. They worked as partners for about 12 ning news show, which is really good for a years, and then they were split up after the director to do. The news is fast, a lot of things French Connection case. Both worked in the happening. You've got to coordinate it and get it highest crime areas in New York, black areas. done on the clock. It gives you a sense of pace. I spent the better part of a year taking notes Then I did my first documentary in 1961, and making tape recordings. THE FRENCHCONNECTION THE FRENCH CONNECTION 7

The first week I met Egan, he said to me: Narcoticscontrol is an impossiblejob. There's "No matter how long you stay with me or how too many ways to bring stuff into the country, well you get to know me, you'll find that there's too many people who want it. Obviously the only three things about me that you need to only sensible thing to do is to legalize it. It's know: I drink beer, I fuck broads, and I break obvious to any fool that it has to be legalized. heads." He was right. There is very little else A store in New York like Bloomingdale'sloses to the guy. He's a kind of super-patriot. He somethinglike $22 million a year in theft, that's really believes in what he's doing. He's really risen like 80 per cent since narcotics addiction dedicated and he thinks it means something. has become widespread. The federal and local These guys really work hard, kill themselves authoritiesestimate that 75 per cent of all theft and sometimes other people, yet basically relates to narcotics. In a place like Bedford- they're involved in a line of work that is frus- Stuyvesant, dope is not a problem, it is an in- trated, ineffectual. This underlined my ap- sufferable plague. I think that a goodly per- proach to the film, the ineffectualnessof what centage of the population of New York City is they do. It becomes a game, a kind of quest on drugs, hard or soft. These cops are doing a or hunt, where they're playing parts like actors, job that they can't function in. Everything they or grown-up children, except that the guns are do is useless. But, given the fact that society at real. The outcome doesn't often warrantall the the moment wants the job done, the way Doyle work that went into the case, as happened in and Russo in the picture and Egan and Grosso The French Connection. The sentences those in real life do it is the only way possible. You people should have received and the ones they gotta be tough, you've got to have the in- actually did receive were quite disparate.What stincts of the people you're dealing with. we didn't bring out in the film is that Frog One, I was obviously trying to make the audience Charnierin the film (his real name is Jehan), identify with Charnier. I felt the only way to somehow slipped through a 50-man dragnet to get into the story was not to regard Charnier France. They went to France with extradition as a prick, but to see him as a businessman,a papers, but his extradition was refused by man with charm and taste, devoted to his wom- deGaulle because Jehan had been one of the an in France, etc. Then you have Doyle, who leaders of the Corsican Mafia during World has no taste, no charm, he's a brutalizer of War II, and they had cooperated with the Re- women, he lives out of his car. Charnier em- sistance. In return for those favors, he received bodies almost all the qualities that people are a pass on his extradition papers. He was 71 brought up to think are virtuous. The intention years old when he pulled this caper; 6'6", was to mix up these elements. It's not about shock of white hair, a great-looking guy. He black and white. lived a totally legitimate life, he was just into Do you see this film as an extensionof themes smuggling. that you've been concerned with throughout A tremendouslythin line exists between cops your work? and criminals. I've known a lot of cops and Definitely. In The Birthday Party, for in- criminals, my uncle was a famous cop in Chi- stance, you have irrationalfear. Everybody has cago, and I can't understand this absolutely this. And people oppress, they take advantage cavalier attitude that these people have. I don't of these fears because of their own insecurity, have a key to it. They're completely amoral needs, drives, ambitions. Everything I've done people. I made The French Connectionin open- has had aspects of this irrationalfear and this mouthed awe at the way both the cops and the oppression, this manipulation of the irrational smugglers regarded their efforts. As someone fears of other people. This includes even Good who had been brought up with certain hang- Times. But I was never conscious of this until up morals, I have no idea how they can do recently. In fact, for the most part, every film this, how they can live with themselves. I've done, except for The Birthday Party and 8 8 THE FRENCHCONNECTION

The French Connection, has been a kind of We really didn't have any stunts coordinated. career step. I really got into this business not All the guy did was drive fast. And Gene Hack- because I had an enormous drive to communi- man drove half of it. I laid the thing out shot- cate on film, but because it was a good job, for-shot, I saw the whole thing very clearly in frankly. My father never made more than $50 my head. We shot between Bay Parkway and a week in his life. I was brought up in Chicago 62nd Avenue on Stillwell Avenue. The script to think that you start somewhere and you doesn't contain any of the shots, essentially. It work your way to the top, to president of the just indicates that there is a chase. We had big United States. I grew up with the American meetings-the drivers, Hackman, the police- Dream. I always liked movies, and it always man who controlledthe trafficfor me, everyone. seemed like a good paying job. After a while I We divided it up into days on which we could began to feel certain responsibilities about what shoot the stuff, and we built it up block by I was doing. I became a great deal more se- block. It really was not that difficult to shoot. lective. But Good Times, Minsky's and The The effect is the result of editing and, particu- Boys in the Band were pictures I did to ad- larly, sound. The sound was all added after- vance my career, period. It isn't that I didn't wards. I went back to New York after I had like them or that I thought they were a shuck, shot everything and recorded all the tracks for but I wasn't driven by anything to do them. the thing, just myself and the sound recordist. The Birthday Party was something I believed Shooting the chase was just a matter of put- in very strongly. Now I'm in a position where ting the camera in the car with Hackman or I can do what I want on film, and I'm inter- mounting it on the hood, or on the front bump- ested in doing films that are primarily enter- er. There are no opticals in the chase. You can't tainment. Without pandering to the audience undercrank it or everybody would look like I want principally to involve their emotions. I Mickey Mouse. It's all done at real speed. The really would like to stay with the suspense film, two shots that really give you the sense of ter- because they're the kind of pictures I enjoy rific speed are the shots from inside the car seeing the most, they're the most fun to do, looking out and the shot from the bumper. Bill and they're the most fun for people in other Hickman drove those shots, and he drove be- countries. Less than half the picture has dia- tween 70 and 90 mph with a siren on top of logue. A chase is terrifying in any language. the car .... That's all we had, we had no con- Suspense is something I think is pure film. I trols for those shots. I had wide-angle lenses so don't want to do essays on film, I'd rather write I could see both sides of the street. I operated. the essay. We went for 26 blocks, two takes. Once I hand- When did you decide to use Eddie Egan in held it, once we set the camera inside and we the film? had a bumper camerawhich I set off by remote At one time I had considered using Egan to control. Those were the most difficult shots to play himself, but I disregarded that because I make. There'sa crash in the thing where Hack- knew that I had a different view of him than he man's car gets hit broadsideby a white Dodge. had of himself. But I always thought that what That was a real accident, that wasn't intended. he was doing in his work, in the street, was It was supposed to be a swerve and they acting. I hung around him long enough to missed.... know that he could be an actor. Gene Hack- Were there any good scenes that didn't get man rehearsed him and we auditioned him. He into the final version? was damn good. Yes, a number of them. They were cut be- What are the mechanics of the car chase? cause they did not further the story. Character You worked with Billy Hickman, who coordi- stuff. There's a scene where Popeye picks up a nated the stunts for Bullitt? black hooker and fucks her in his car. There's THE FRENCHCONNECTION 3 9

a scene with Frog Two, the killer, and an actual will hang around for 15 minutes of exposition $100-an-hour sadomasochist. She does a full without getting bored. leather and whips number on him. It's one of Also, people don't think you can put a car the best things I've ever put on film. At the end back together in 22 hours after you've stripped of the scene he gives her $50, not knowing the it like we did. But that's what happened. I had currency. She comes on heavy with him. He an hour's worth of film on the tearing apart of grabs her by the throat and literally holds her the car, and then they actually put it back to- life in his hand. It's a complete reversal of roles gether in a couple of hours. I didn't spend a in an instant. I had scenes of Hackman sitting lot of time explaining that the police garage is in Moochie's Bar talking with actual criminals, the most fully equipped in the country. They ad lib. I shot for two days on that scene. The can build a car faster than Ford. . . . How- only thing left of it is Doyle waking up in the ever, the picture was not previewed at all. It bar the next morning. I also shot the scene opened two days after I approvedthe last print where he picks up the girl on the bike, where out of the lab. now all you see is him looking at her. Originally What are you going to do now? that was a long scene where he gets out of the I'm making The Exorcist for Warners. It's car and says, "You got a peddler's license?" She about a 12-year-oldgirl possessed by a demon. says, "What?" "You got a license to peddle that Her mother takes her through medicine and thing?" He gets on the bike and rides it back- psychiatry and she gets progressively worse. wards all around her and sings Raindrops Keep Finally she's taken to the Jesuits in Georgetown Fallin on My Head. She says, "Gimme my bike where they attempt to exorcise the demon. Ex- back." He jumps off and whips out his badge; orcism still exists in the Catholic ritual. This then cut to the next day. The original cut was is a case history, it happened in 1947. I intend 232 hours, but I always wanted a 100-minute to do it as a straightforward,realistic film about film. inexplicable things, which I think most of my What aspects of The French Connection are work is sort of about.... you least pleased with? I don't think things are as totally clear as they could be. People all over the place ask me what the last shot means. I thought it was really clear what the last shot was in there for. Transcendental Style in Film: Popeye is shooting at ghosts. He's just killed a federal agent, he's a borderline psycho, who perhaps has become a total psycho; he's like Ozu Ahab after the whale. He no longer is con- -Bresson -Dreyer cerned about human life, so he's shooting at By Paul Schrader anything he sees. On a practical level, the movie ends with a bang, a gunshot, it was "This extremely fine book, one of the most there for effect, it doesn't really mean anything. important film studies of the decade, de- If you like the picture, don't bother about what fines the major and most neglected attribute it meant. I wouldn't have put it in if I could of the cinema -that very quality which have foreseen that people would get upset makes it an art: its ability to transcend real- about it. ity." -DONALD RICHIE Also, I never made it clear in the opening that the guy who was killed was a detective. I University of California Press have a theory about thrillers. If you open with Berkeley 94720 a murder in the first two minutes, the audience $10.00