Podcast appearances and mentions of owen roizman

Julian, Madeline, and Emilio are joined by Brendan McDonald, the producer of 'WTF with Marc Maron,' to finish off their cycle of New York City movies with a "Close-Up" on the works of legendary cinematographer Owen Roizman. A versatile visual talent ready for whatever came his way, Roizman burst out of the gate with William Friedkin's crime drama "The French Connection" (1971), in which he unforgettably and frantically photographed a plethora of New York locales. This showcase of his skills made him the perfect choice to shoot "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (1974), the Joseph Sargent-directed, subway-set thriller infused with workplace humor that indelibly captures a timeless spirit of New York. But Roizman's aptitude also extended beyond the grimy streets and subway tunnels, and rose up to the broadcasting towers of Midtown Manhattan in "Network" (1976), the darkly prescient media satire written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. Blending their eyes for detail with their lived experience as New Yorkers, the group get into how Roizman's visual sense cemented the iconic status of these films, and why they stand the test of time even as they were made just a few years apart from one another. To hear Brendan discuss movies and other topics regularly, subscribe to the WTF bonus feed, "The Full Maron," for access to The Friday Show and other bonus material. Learn more at https://www.wtfpod.com/If you enjoy our podcast, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice.  This really helps us find new listeners and grow!Follow us on IG and TikTok: @sleeplesscinematicpodSend us an email at sleeplesscinematicpod@gmail.comOn Letterboxd? Follow Julian at julian_barthold and Madeline at patronessofcats

This week, I'll explore the peculiar true story that inspired William Peter Blatty to write the  book and screenplay for the 1973 hit film "The Exorcist."  This is the story of a boy around 14 years old who experienced something truly bizarre back in 1949. And unlike Regan in the exorcist, whose story is completely fabricated, this one is well documented, with lots of credible witnesses. And while we've known his story for quite some time, we only just learned his identity a few years ago. And he's not at all what you'd expect. Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the PatreonBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Father Raymond Bishop's Case Files The Washington Post "Priest Frees Mount Rainier Boy Reported Held in Devil's Grip"Skeptical Inquirer "Who is Roland Doe, the Boy Who Inspired the Exorcist?"Saint Louis University "SLU Legends and Lore: the 1949 St. Louis Exorcism"The Guardian "Boy whose case inspired The Exorcist is named by US magazine"Wikipedia "The Exorcist"Collider "What is the Highest Grossing Horror Movie of All Time?"The American Society of Cinematographers "Owen Roizman on Filming The Exorcist"The New York Post "Deaths, injuries, and a fire: How the original "Exorcist" set was its own horror movie"The New York Post "What really happened to Ronald Hunkeler, who inspired 'The Exorcist?'"Shoot me a message! Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law EnforcementHost: Clint McNear and Tyler Owen discussing topics, issues, and stories within the...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

We're speeding away at breakneck speed with another installment of our That Was Then series. This time Paul and Arlo are witnesses to The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, a 1974 subway heist thriller that is exactly what it says on the tin. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But our boys do struggle to find much to say, choosing to highlight David Shire's jazz-funk score and Owen Roizman's gritty cinematography while mostly being puzzled by the script's wasted potential. It's a fun Noo Yawk movie, and that's okay, folks!   NEXT: NO FUCKING MERLOT! That's right, it's another That Was Then, this time focusing on Alexander Payne's 2004 buddy dramedy Sideways.     BREAKDOWN 00:00:30  -  Intro / The Year That Was 1974 00:21:38  -  The Taking of Pelham One Two Three 01:20:30  -  Outro / Next     MUSIC “Sure Shot” by Beastie Boys, Ill Communication (1994) “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne, Blizzard of Ozz (1980)     GOBBLEDYCARES National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/  Abortion Funds in Every State: https://bit.ly/AbortionFundsTwitter Support AAPI communities and those affected by anti-Asian violence: https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/stop-aapi-hate Support the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund: https://aapifund.org/ Support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ The Trevor Project provides information and support to LGBTQ youth: thetrevorproject.org Trans Lifeline: https://translifeline.org/  National Center for Transgender Equality: transequality.org Advocate for writers who might be owed money due to discontinuance of royalties: https://www.writersmustbepaid.org/  Help teachers and classrooms in need: https://www.donorschoose.org/ Do your part to remove the burden of medical debt for individuals, families, and veterans: https://ripmedicaldebt.org/ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/  

Billy Friedkin's iconic 1971 game-changing NYC police procedural/car chase classic 'The French Connection' has a fascinating backstory and making-of history, and, hey: that's what I'm here for! To bring you all the best stories behind the scenes on the streets of New York and all the context and color that helps place this movie in the pantheon of the films that came before and after it.   The NY Times article about this summer's censorship of the film is linked here. Mark Kermode's very well made BBC documentary about the making of The French Connection can be seen on YouTube. Owen Roizman, the film's brilliant and prolific cinematographer's IMDB page is here. Do yourself a favor and watch the films of the brilliant French director Jean-Pierre Melville. Listen to David Shire's iconic score for The Taking of Pelham 123 on YouTube. Don Ellis' haunting end credits music from The French Connection.  

Thriller pionero en muchos aspectos, French Connection refundó el género. La mirada documental de Friedkin y su operador Owen Roizman, con el grano gordo en la fotografía, y la labor del cameraman Ricky Bravo. Las calles de madrugada en el bajo Manhattan, los tugurios malolientes de humo y tipos con los bolsillos cargados de estupefacientes, la persecución seminal en las calles de Brooklyn entre un Pontiac prestado por un tipo que pasaba por allí al inefable Popeye, y un tren elevado. Friedkin busca la acción con personajes directos y el juego entre el ratón y el gato de dos policías y un ladrón de guante blanco, Charnier, -excelente Fernando Rey- y su contacto y tapadera en New York Sal Boca -Tony Lo Bianco-. Escenas rodadas con tráfico real, Friedkin rodó sin storyboards buscando la espontaneidad, lo imprevisto. Gene Hackman crea uno de sus mejores personajes, Popeye, inspirado en el polizonte real Eddie Egan, de métodos poco ortodoxos, andares desgarbados, un sombrero redondo y una obsesión malsana por su trabajo, y su colega Cloudy Russo, estupendo Roy Scheider, el policía más sosegado. Mediante la cámara al hombro, temblorosa, planos desenfocados, y también clasicismo de cine negro, Friedkin recrea el ritmo asmático. el aire viciado y el sudor de unos barrios, unas avenidas que no pegan ojo y retumban en los estertores del Hudson. Popeye las conoce bien, ha hecho la la ronda muchas veces por callejuelas y rincones en los que los soplones, los narcos de poca monta y las mujeres de alterne pululan, pasan frío y fuman con desesperación. Acaba de enterarse de la entrada de un cargamento de heroína importante,y tiene una corazonada. La secuencia de la persecución la filmaron con tráfico real, llegando a crear un atasco en medio de Brooklyn. Otro momento memorable, el desguace del deportivo de Deveraux, las tripas de un automóvil pueden esconder kilos de droga, y ese coche no estaba limpio, Popeye lo sabía. Esta noche saludamos a Papa Noel, arreando ostias a un camello… Zacarías Cotán, David Velázquez, Raúl Gallego y Salvador Limón

On this week's episode, we remember William Friedkin, who passed away this past Tuesday, looking back at one of his lesser known directing efforts, Rampage. ----more---- From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it’s The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. Originally, this week was supposed to be the fourth episode of our continuing miniseries on the 1980s movies released by Miramax Films. I was fully committed to making it so, but then the world learned that Academy Award-winning filmmaker William Friedkin passed away on Tuesday. I had already done an episode on his best movie from the decade, 1985’s To Live and Die in L.A., so I decided I would cover another film Friedkin made in the 80s that isn’t as talked about or as well known as The French Connection or The Exorcist or To Live and Die in L.A. Rampage. Now, some of you who do know the film might try and point that the film was released in 1992, by Miramax Films of all companies, and you’d be correct. However, I did say I was going to cover another film of his MADE in the 80s, which is also true when it comes to Rampage. So let’s get to the story, shall we? Born in Chicago in 1935, William Friedkin was inspired to become a filmmaker after seeing Citizen Kane as a young man, and by 1962, he was already directing television movies. He’d make his feature directing debut with Good Times in 1967, a fluffy Sonny and Cher comedy which finds Sonny Bono having only ten days to rewrite the screenplay for their first movie, because the script to the movie they agreed to was an absolute stinker. Which, ironically, is a fairly good assessment of the final film. The film, which was essentially a bigger budget version of their weekly variety television series shot mostly on location at an African-themed amusement park in Northern California and the couple’s home in Encino, was not well received by either critics or audiences. But by the time Good Times came out, Friedkin was already working on his next movie, The Night They Raided Minsky’s. A comedy co-written by future television legend Norman Lear, Minsky’s featured Swedish actress Britt Ekland, better known at the time as the wife of Peter Sellers, as a naive young Amish woman who leaves the farm in Pennsylvania looking to become an actress in religious stage plays in New York City. Instead, she becomes a dancer in a burlesque show and essentially ends up inventing the strip tease. The all-star cast included Dr. No himself, Joseph Wiseman, Elliott Gould, Jack Burns, Bert Lahr, and Jason Robards, Jr., who was a late replacement for Alan Alda, who himself was a replacement for Tony Curtis. Friedkin was dreaming big for this movie, and was able to convince New York City mayor John V. Lindsay to delay the demolition of an entire period authentic block of 26th Street between First and Second Avenue for two months for the production to use as a major shooting location. There would be one non-production related tragedy during the filming of the movie. The seventy-two year old Lahr, best known as The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, would pass away in early December 1967, two weeks before production was completed, and with several scenes still left to shoot with him. Lear, who was also a producer on the film, would tell a reporter for the New York Times that they would still be able to shoot the rest of the film so that performance would remain virtually intact, and with the help of some pre-production test footage and a body double, along with a sound-alike to dub the lines they couldn’t get on set, Lahr’s performance would be one of the highlights of the final film. Friedkin and editor Ralph Rosenblum would spend three months working on their first cut, as Friedkin was due to England in late March to begin production on his next film, The Birthday Party. Shortly after Friedkin was on the plane to fly overseas, Rosenblum would represent the film for a screening with the executives at United Artists, who would be distributing the film. The screening was a disaster, and Rosenblum would be given carte blanche by the studio heads to save the film by any means necessary, since Friedkin was not available to supervise. Rosenblum would completely restructure the film, including creating a prologue for the story that would be retimed and printed on black and white film stock. The next screening would go over much better with the suits, and a mid-December 1968 release date was set up. The Birthday Party was an adaptation of a Harold Pinter play, and featured Robert Shaw and Patrick Magee. Friedkin had seen the play in San Francisco in 1962, and was able to get the film produced in part because he would only need six actors and a handful of locations to shoot, keeping the budget low. Although the mystery/thriller was a uniquely British story, Harold Pinter liked how Friedkin wanted to tell the story, and although Pinter had written a number of plays that had been adapted into movies and had adapted a number of books into screenplay, this would be the first time Pinter would adapt one of his own stories to the silver screen. To keep the budget lower still, Friedkin, Pinter and lead actor Robert Shaw agreed to take the minimum possible payments for their positions in exchange for part ownership in the film. The release of Minsky’s was so delayed because of the prolonged editing process that The Birthday Party would actually in theatres nine days before Minsky’s, which would put Friedkin in the rare position of having two movies released in such a short time frame. And while Minsky’s performed better at the box office than Birthday Party, the latter film would set the director up financially with enough in the bank where he could concentrate working on projects he felt passionate about. That first film after The Birthday Party would make William Friedkin a name director. His second one would make him an Oscar winner. The third, a legend. And the fourth would break him. The first film, The Boys in the Band, was an adaptation of a controversial off-Broadway play about a straight man who accidentally shows up to a party for gay men. Matt Crowley, the author of the play, would adapt it to the screen, produce the film himself with author Dominick Dunne, and select Friedkin, who Crowley felt best understood the material, to direct. Crowley would only make one demand on his director, that all of the actors from the original off-Broadway production be cast in the movie in the same roles. Friedkin had no problem with that. When the film was released in March 1970, Friedkin would get almost universally excellent notices from film critics, except for Pauline Kael in the New York Times, who had already built up a dislike of the director after just three films. But March 1970 was a different time, and a film not only about gay men but a relatively positive movie about gay men who had the same confusions and conflicts as straight men, was probably never going to be well-received by a nation that still couldn’t talk openly about non-hetero relationships. But the film would still do about $7m worth of ticket sales, not enough to become profitable for its distributor, but enough for the director to be in the conversation for bigger movies. His next film was an adaptation of a 1969 book about two narcotics detectives in the New York City Police Department who went after a wealthy French businessman who was helping bring heroin into the States. William Friedkin and his cinematographer Owen Roizman would shoot The French Connection as if it were a documentary, giving the film a gritty realism rarely seen in movies even in the New Hollywood era. The film would be named the Best Picture of 1971 by the Academy, and Friedkin and lead actor Gene Hackman would also win Oscars in their respective categories. And the impact of The French Connection on cinema as a whole can never be understated. Akira Kurosawa would cite the film as one of his favorites, as would David Fincher and Brad Pitt, who bonded over the making of Seven because of Fincher’s conscious choice to use the film as a template for the making of his own film. Steven Spielberg said during the promotion of his 2005 film Munich that he studied The French Connection to prepare for his film. And, of course, after The French Connection came The Exorcist, which would, at the time of its release in December 1973, become Warner Brothers’ highest grossing film ever, legitimize the horror genre to audiences worldwide, and score Friedkin his second straight Oscar nomination for Best Director, although this time he and the film would lose to George Roy Hill and The Sting. In 1977, Sorcerer, Friedkin’s American remake of the 1953 French movie The Wages of Fear, was expected to be the big hit film of the summer. The film originally started as a little $2.5m budgeted film Friedkin would make while waiting for script revisions on his next major movie, called The Devil’s Triangle, were being completed. By the time he finished filming Sorcerer, which reteamed Friedkin with his French Connection star Roy Scheider, now hot thanks to his starring role in Jaws, this little film became one of the most expensive movies of the decade, with a final budget over $22m. And it would have the unfortunate timing of being released one week after a movie released by Twentieth Century-Fox, Star Wars, sucked all the air out of the theatrical exhibition season. It would take decades for audiences to discover Sorcerer, and for Friedkin, who had gone some kind of mad during the making of the film, to accept it to be the taut and exciting thriller it was. William Friedkin was a broken man, and his next film, The Brinks Job, showed it. A comedy about the infamous 1950 Brinks heist in Boston, the film was originally supposed to be directed by John Frankenheimer, with Friedkin coming in to replace the iconic filmmaker only a few months before production was set to begin. Despite a cast that included Peter Boyle, Peter Falk, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands and Paul Sorvino, the film just didn’t work as well as it should have. Friedkin’s first movie of the 1980s, Cruising, might have been better received in a later era, but an Al Pacino cop drama about his trying to find a killer of homosexual men in the New York City gay fetish underground dance club scene was, like The Boys in the Band a decade earlier, too early to cinemas. Like Sorcerer, audiences would finally find Cruising in a more forgiving era. In 1983, Friedkin made what is easily his worst movie, Deal of the Century, an alleged comedy featuring Chevy Chase, Gregory Hines and Sigourney Weaver that attempted to satirize the military industrial complex in the age of Ronald Reagan, but somehow completely missed its very large and hard to miss target. 1985 would see a comeback for William Friedkin, with the release of To Live and Die in LA, in which two Secret Service agents played by William L. Petersen and John Pankow try to uncover a counterfeit money operation led by Willem Dafoe. Friedkin was drawn to the source material, a book by former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, because the agency was almost never portrayed on film, and even less as the good guys. Friedkin would adapt the book into a screenplay with Petievich, who would also serve as a technical consultant to ensure authenticity in how Petersen and Pankow acted. It would be only the second time Friedkin was credited as a screenwriter, but it would be a nine-minute chase sequence through the aqueducts of Los Angeles and a little used freeway in Wilmington that would be the most exciting chase sequence committed to film since the original Gone in 60 Seconds, The French Connection, or the San Francisco chase sequence in the 1967 Steve McQueen movie Bullitt. The sequence is impressive on Blu-ray, but on a big screen in a movie theatre in 1985, it was absolutely thrilling. Which, at long last, brings us to Rampage. Less than two months after To Live and Die in LA opened to critical raves and moderate box office in November 1985, Friedkin made a deal with Italian mega-producer Dino DeLaurentiis to direct Rampage, a crime drama based on a novel by William P. Wood. DeLaurentiis had hired Friedkin for The Brinks Job several years earlier, and the two liked working for each other. DeLaurentiis had just started his own distribution company, the DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group, which we’ll shorten to DEG for the remainder of this episode, and needed some big movies to fill his pipeline. We did an episode on DEG back in 2020, and if you haven’t listened to it yet, you should after you finish this episode. At this time, DEG was still months away from releasing its first group of films, which would include Maximum Overdrive, the first film directed by horror author Stephen King, and Blue Velvet, the latest from David Lynch, both of which would shoot at the same time at DEG’s newly built studio facilities in Wilmington, North Carolina. But Friedkin was writing the screenplay adaptation himself, and would need several months to get the script into production shape, so the film would not be able to begin production until late 1986. The novel Rampage was based on the real life story of serial killer Richard Chase, dubbed The Vampire Killer by the press when he went on a four day killing spree in January 1978. Chase murdered six people, including a pregnant woman and a 22 month old child, and drank their blood as part of some kind of ritual. Wood would change some aspects of Chase’s story for his book, naming his killer Charles Reece, changing some of the ages and sexes of the murder victims, and how the murderer died. But most of the book was about Reece’s trial, with a specific focus on Reece’s prosecutor, Anthony Fraser, who had once been against capital punishment, but would be seeking the death penalty in this case after meeting one of the victims’ grieving family members. William L. Petersen, Friedkin’s lead star in To Live and Die in LA, was initially announced to star as Fraser, but as the production got closer to its start date, Petersen had to drop out of the project, due to a conflict with another project that would be shooting at the same time. Michael Biehn, the star of James Cameron’s The Terminator and the then recently released Aliens, would sign on as the prosecutor. Alex McArthur, best known at the time as Madonna’s baby daddy in her Papa Don’t Preach music video, would score his first major starring role as the serial killer Reece. The cast would also include a number of recognizable character actors, recognizable if not by name but by face once they appeared on screen, including Nicholas Campbell, Deborah Van Valkenberg, Art LaFleur, Billy Greenbush and Grace Zabriskie. Friedkin would shoot the $7.5m completely on location in Stockton, CA from late October 1986 to just before Christmas, and Friedkin would begin post-production on the film after the first of the new year. In early May 1987, DEG announced a number of upcoming releases for their films, including a September 11th release for Rampage. But by August 1987, many of their first fifteen releases over their first twelve months being outright bombs, quietly pulled Rampage off their release calendar. When asked by one press reporter about the delay, a representative from DEG would claim the film would need to be delayed because Italian composer Ennio Morricone had not delivered his score yet, which infuriated Friedkin, as he had turned in his final cut of the film, complete with Morricone’s score, more than a month earlier. The DEG rep was forced to issue a mea culpa, acknowledging the previous answer had been quote unquote incorrect, and stated they were looking at release dates between November 1987 and February 1988. The first public screening of Rampage outside of an unofficial premiere in Stockton in August 1987 happened on September 11th, 1987, at the Boston Film Festival, but just a couple days after that screening, DEG would be forced into bankruptcy by one of his creditors in, of all places, Boston, and the film would be stuck in limbo for several years. During DEG’s bankruptcy, some European companies would be allowed to buy individual country rights for the film, to help pay back some of the creditors, but the American rights to the film would not be sold until Miramax Films purchased the film, and the 300 already created 35mm prints of the film in March 1992, with a planned national release of the film the following month. But that release had to be scrapped, along with the original 300 prints of the film, when Friedkin, who kept revising the film over the ensuing five years, turned in to the Weinsteins a new edit of the film, ten minutes shorter than the version shown in Stockton and Boston in 1987. He had completely eliminated a subplot involving the failing marriage of the prosecutor, since it had nothing to do with the core idea of the story, and reversed the ending, which originally had Reece committing suicide in his cell not unlike Richard Chase. Now, the ending had Reece, several years into the future, alive and about to be considered for parole. Rampage would finally be released into 172 theatres on October 30th, 1992, including 57 theatres in Los Angeles, and four in New York City. Most reviews for the film were mixed, finding the film unnecessarily gruesome at times, but also praising how Friedkin took the time for audiences to learn more about the victims from the friends and family left behind. But the lack of pre-release advertising on television or through trailers in theatres would cause the film to perform quite poorly in its opening weekend, grossing just $322,500 in its first three days. After a second and third weekend where both the grosses and the number of theatres playing the film would fall more than 50%, Miramax would stop tracking the film, with a final reported gross of just less than $800k. Between the release of his thriller The Guardian in 1990 and the release of Rampage in 1992, William Friedkin would marry fellow Chicago native Sherry Lansing, who at the time had been a successful producer at Paramount Pictures, having made such films as The Accused, which won Jodie Foster her first Academy Award, and Fatal Attraction. Shortly after they married, Lansing would be named the Chairman of Paramount Pictures, where she would green light such films as Forrest Gump, Braveheart and Titanic. She would also hire her husband to make four films for the studio between 1994 and 2003, including the basketball drama Blue Chips and the thriller Jade. Friedkin’s directing career would slow down after 2003’s The Hunted, making only two films over the next two decades. 2006’s Bug was a psychological thriller with Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd, and 2012’s Killer Joe, a mixture of black comedy and psychological thriller featuring Matthew McConaughey and Emile Hirsch, was one of few movies to be theatrically released with an NC-17 rating. Neither were financially successful, but were highly regarded by critics. But there was still one more movie in him. In January 2023, Friedkin would direct his own adaptation of the Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial for the Paramount+ streaming service. Updating the setting from the book’s World War II timeline to the more modern Persian Gulf conflict, this new film starred Keifer Sutherland as Lieutenant Commander Queeg, alongside Jason Clark, Jake Lacy, Jay Duplass, Dale Dye, and in his final role before his death in March, Lance Reddick. That film will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in Italy next month, although Paramount+ has not announced a premiere date on their service. William Friedkin had been married four times in his life, including a two year marriage to legendary French actress Jean Moreau in the late 70s and a two year marriage to British actress Lesley-Anne Downe in the early 80s. But Friedkin and Lansing would remain married for thirty-two years until his death from heart failure and pneumonia this past Tuesday. I remember when Rampage was supposed to come out in 1987. My theatre in Santa Cruz was sent a poster for it about a month before it was supposed to be released. A pixelated image of Reece ran down one side of the poster, while the movie’s tagline and credits down the other. I thought the poster looked amazing, and after the release was cancelled, I took the poster home and hung it on one of the walls in my place at the time. The 1992 poster from Miramax was far blander, basically either a entirely white or an entirely red background, with a teared center revealing the eyes of Reece, which really doesn’t tell you anything about the movie. Like with many of his box office failures, Friedkin would initially be flippant about the film, although in the years preceding his death, he would acknowledge the film was decent enough despite all of its post-production problems. I’d love to be able to suggest to you to watch Rampage as soon as you can, but as of August 2023, one can only rent or buy the film from Amazon, $5.89 for a two day rental or $14.99 to purchase. It is not available on any other streaming service as of the writing and recording of this episode. Thank you for joining us. We’ll talk again soon, when I expect to release the fourth part of the Miramax miniseries, unless something unexpected happens in the near future. Remember to visit this episode’s page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Rampage and the career of William Friedkin. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.

On this week's episode, we remember William Friedkin, who passed away this past Tuesday, looking back at one of his lesser known directing efforts, Rampage. ----more---- From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it’s The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. Originally, this week was supposed to be the fourth episode of our continuing miniseries on the 1980s movies released by Miramax Films. I was fully committed to making it so, but then the world learned that Academy Award-winning filmmaker William Friedkin passed away on Tuesday. I had already done an episode on his best movie from the decade, 1985’s To Live and Die in L.A., so I decided I would cover another film Friedkin made in the 80s that isn’t as talked about or as well known as The French Connection or The Exorcist or To Live and Die in L.A. Rampage. Now, some of you who do know the film might try and point that the film was released in 1992, by Miramax Films of all companies, and you’d be correct. However, I did say I was going to cover another film of his MADE in the 80s, which is also true when it comes to Rampage. So let’s get to the story, shall we? Born in Chicago in 1935, William Friedkin was inspired to become a filmmaker after seeing Citizen Kane as a young man, and by 1962, he was already directing television movies. He’d make his feature directing debut with Good Times in 1967, a fluffy Sonny and Cher comedy which finds Sonny Bono having only ten days to rewrite the screenplay for their first movie, because the script to the movie they agreed to was an absolute stinker. Which, ironically, is a fairly good assessment of the final film. The film, which was essentially a bigger budget version of their weekly variety television series shot mostly on location at an African-themed amusement park in Northern California and the couple’s home in Encino, was not well received by either critics or audiences. But by the time Good Times came out, Friedkin was already working on his next movie, The Night They Raided Minsky’s. A comedy co-written by future television legend Norman Lear, Minsky’s featured Swedish actress Britt Ekland, better known at the time as the wife of Peter Sellers, as a naive young Amish woman who leaves the farm in Pennsylvania looking to become an actress in religious stage plays in New York City. Instead, she becomes a dancer in a burlesque show and essentially ends up inventing the strip tease. The all-star cast included Dr. No himself, Joseph Wiseman, Elliott Gould, Jack Burns, Bert Lahr, and Jason Robards, Jr., who was a late replacement for Alan Alda, who himself was a replacement for Tony Curtis. Friedkin was dreaming big for this movie, and was able to convince New York City mayor John V. Lindsay to delay the demolition of an entire period authentic block of 26th Street between First and Second Avenue for two months for the production to use as a major shooting location. There would be one non-production related tragedy during the filming of the movie. The seventy-two year old Lahr, best known as The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, would pass away in early December 1967, two weeks before production was completed, and with several scenes still left to shoot with him. Lear, who was also a producer on the film, would tell a reporter for the New York Times that they would still be able to shoot the rest of the film so that performance would remain virtually intact, and with the help of some pre-production test footage and a body double, along with a sound-alike to dub the lines they couldn’t get on set, Lahr’s performance would be one of the highlights of the final film. Friedkin and editor Ralph Rosenblum would spend three months working on their first cut, as Friedkin was due to England in late March to begin production on his next film, The Birthday Party. Shortly after Friedkin was on the plane to fly overseas, Rosenblum would represent the film for a screening with the executives at United Artists, who would be distributing the film. The screening was a disaster, and Rosenblum would be given carte blanche by the studio heads to save the film by any means necessary, since Friedkin was not available to supervise. Rosenblum would completely restructure the film, including creating a prologue for the story that would be retimed and printed on black and white film stock. The next screening would go over much better with the suits, and a mid-December 1968 release date was set up. The Birthday Party was an adaptation of a Harold Pinter play, and featured Robert Shaw and Patrick Magee. Friedkin had seen the play in San Francisco in 1962, and was able to get the film produced in part because he would only need six actors and a handful of locations to shoot, keeping the budget low. Although the mystery/thriller was a uniquely British story, Harold Pinter liked how Friedkin wanted to tell the story, and although Pinter had written a number of plays that had been adapted into movies and had adapted a number of books into screenplay, this would be the first time Pinter would adapt one of his own stories to the silver screen. To keep the budget lower still, Friedkin, Pinter and lead actor Robert Shaw agreed to take the minimum possible payments for their positions in exchange for part ownership in the film. The release of Minsky’s was so delayed because of the prolonged editing process that The Birthday Party would actually in theatres nine days before Minsky’s, which would put Friedkin in the rare position of having two movies released in such a short time frame. And while Minsky’s performed better at the box office than Birthday Party, the latter film would set the director up financially with enough in the bank where he could concentrate working on projects he felt passionate about. That first film after The Birthday Party would make William Friedkin a name director. His second one would make him an Oscar winner. The third, a legend. And the fourth would break him. The first film, The Boys in the Band, was an adaptation of a controversial off-Broadway play about a straight man who accidentally shows up to a party for gay men. Matt Crowley, the author of the play, would adapt it to the screen, produce the film himself with author Dominick Dunne, and select Friedkin, who Crowley felt best understood the material, to direct. Crowley would only make one demand on his director, that all of the actors from the original off-Broadway production be cast in the movie in the same roles. Friedkin had no problem with that. When the film was released in March 1970, Friedkin would get almost universally excellent notices from film critics, except for Pauline Kael in the New York Times, who had already built up a dislike of the director after just three films. But March 1970 was a different time, and a film not only about gay men but a relatively positive movie about gay men who had the same confusions and conflicts as straight men, was probably never going to be well-received by a nation that still couldn’t talk openly about non-hetero relationships. But the film would still do about $7m worth of ticket sales, not enough to become profitable for its distributor, but enough for the director to be in the conversation for bigger movies. His next film was an adaptation of a 1969 book about two narcotics detectives in the New York City Police Department who went after a wealthy French businessman who was helping bring heroin into the States. William Friedkin and his cinematographer Owen Roizman would shoot The French Connection as if it were a documentary, giving the film a gritty realism rarely seen in movies even in the New Hollywood era. The film would be named the Best Picture of 1971 by the Academy, and Friedkin and lead actor Gene Hackman would also win Oscars in their respective categories. And the impact of The French Connection on cinema as a whole can never be understated. Akira Kurosawa would cite the film as one of his favorites, as would David Fincher and Brad Pitt, who bonded over the making of Seven because of Fincher’s conscious choice to use the film as a template for the making of his own film. Steven Spielberg said during the promotion of his 2005 film Munich that he studied The French Connection to prepare for his film. And, of course, after The French Connection came The Exorcist, which would, at the time of its release in December 1973, become Warner Brothers’ highest grossing film ever, legitimize the horror genre to audiences worldwide, and score Friedkin his second straight Oscar nomination for Best Director, although this time he and the film would lose to George Roy Hill and The Sting. In 1977, Sorcerer, Friedkin’s American remake of the 1953 French movie The Wages of Fear, was expected to be the big hit film of the summer. The film originally started as a little $2.5m budgeted film Friedkin would make while waiting for script revisions on his next major movie, called The Devil’s Triangle, were being completed. By the time he finished filming Sorcerer, which reteamed Friedkin with his French Connection star Roy Scheider, now hot thanks to his starring role in Jaws, this little film became one of the most expensive movies of the decade, with a final budget over $22m. And it would have the unfortunate timing of being released one week after a movie released by Twentieth Century-Fox, Star Wars, sucked all the air out of the theatrical exhibition season. It would take decades for audiences to discover Sorcerer, and for Friedkin, who had gone some kind of mad during the making of the film, to accept it to be the taut and exciting thriller it was. William Friedkin was a broken man, and his next film, The Brinks Job, showed it. A comedy about the infamous 1950 Brinks heist in Boston, the film was originally supposed to be directed by John Frankenheimer, with Friedkin coming in to replace the iconic filmmaker only a few months before production was set to begin. Despite a cast that included Peter Boyle, Peter Falk, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands and Paul Sorvino, the film just didn’t work as well as it should have. Friedkin’s first movie of the 1980s, Cruising, might have been better received in a later era, but an Al Pacino cop drama about his trying to find a killer of homosexual men in the New York City gay fetish underground dance club scene was, like The Boys in the Band a decade earlier, too early to cinemas. Like Sorcerer, audiences would finally find Cruising in a more forgiving era. In 1983, Friedkin made what is easily his worst movie, Deal of the Century, an alleged comedy featuring Chevy Chase, Gregory Hines and Sigourney Weaver that attempted to satirize the military industrial complex in the age of Ronald Reagan, but somehow completely missed its very large and hard to miss target. 1985 would see a comeback for William Friedkin, with the release of To Live and Die in LA, in which two Secret Service agents played by William L. Petersen and John Pankow try to uncover a counterfeit money operation led by Willem Dafoe. Friedkin was drawn to the source material, a book by former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, because the agency was almost never portrayed on film, and even less as the good guys. Friedkin would adapt the book into a screenplay with Petievich, who would also serve as a technical consultant to ensure authenticity in how Petersen and Pankow acted. It would be only the second time Friedkin was credited as a screenwriter, but it would be a nine-minute chase sequence through the aqueducts of Los Angeles and a little used freeway in Wilmington that would be the most exciting chase sequence committed to film since the original Gone in 60 Seconds, The French Connection, or the San Francisco chase sequence in the 1967 Steve McQueen movie Bullitt. The sequence is impressive on Blu-ray, but on a big screen in a movie theatre in 1985, it was absolutely thrilling. Which, at long last, brings us to Rampage. Less than two months after To Live and Die in LA opened to critical raves and moderate box office in November 1985, Friedkin made a deal with Italian mega-producer Dino DeLaurentiis to direct Rampage, a crime drama based on a novel by William P. Wood. DeLaurentiis had hired Friedkin for The Brinks Job several years earlier, and the two liked working for each other. DeLaurentiis had just started his own distribution company, the DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group, which we’ll shorten to DEG for the remainder of this episode, and needed some big movies to fill his pipeline. We did an episode on DEG back in 2020, and if you haven’t listened to it yet, you should after you finish this episode. At this time, DEG was still months away from releasing its first group of films, which would include Maximum Overdrive, the first film directed by horror author Stephen King, and Blue Velvet, the latest from David Lynch, both of which would shoot at the same time at DEG’s newly built studio facilities in Wilmington, North Carolina. But Friedkin was writing the screenplay adaptation himself, and would need several months to get the script into production shape, so the film would not be able to begin production until late 1986. The novel Rampage was based on the real life story of serial killer Richard Chase, dubbed The Vampire Killer by the press when he went on a four day killing spree in January 1978. Chase murdered six people, including a pregnant woman and a 22 month old child, and drank their blood as part of some kind of ritual. Wood would change some aspects of Chase’s story for his book, naming his killer Charles Reece, changing some of the ages and sexes of the murder victims, and how the murderer died. But most of the book was about Reece’s trial, with a specific focus on Reece’s prosecutor, Anthony Fraser, who had once been against capital punishment, but would be seeking the death penalty in this case after meeting one of the victims’ grieving family members. William L. Petersen, Friedkin’s lead star in To Live and Die in LA, was initially announced to star as Fraser, but as the production got closer to its start date, Petersen had to drop out of the project, due to a conflict with another project that would be shooting at the same time. Michael Biehn, the star of James Cameron’s The Terminator and the then recently released Aliens, would sign on as the prosecutor. Alex McArthur, best known at the time as Madonna’s baby daddy in her Papa Don’t Preach music video, would score his first major starring role as the serial killer Reece. The cast would also include a number of recognizable character actors, recognizable if not by name but by face once they appeared on screen, including Nicholas Campbell, Deborah Van Valkenberg, Art LaFleur, Billy Greenbush and Grace Zabriskie. Friedkin would shoot the $7.5m completely on location in Stockton, CA from late October 1986 to just before Christmas, and Friedkin would begin post-production on the film after the first of the new year. In early May 1987, DEG announced a number of upcoming releases for their films, including a September 11th release for Rampage. But by August 1987, many of their first fifteen releases over their first twelve months being outright bombs, quietly pulled Rampage off their release calendar. When asked by one press reporter about the delay, a representative from DEG would claim the film would need to be delayed because Italian composer Ennio Morricone had not delivered his score yet, which infuriated Friedkin, as he had turned in his final cut of the film, complete with Morricone’s score, more than a month earlier. The DEG rep was forced to issue a mea culpa, acknowledging the previous answer had been quote unquote incorrect, and stated they were looking at release dates between November 1987 and February 1988. The first public screening of Rampage outside of an unofficial premiere in Stockton in August 1987 happened on September 11th, 1987, at the Boston Film Festival, but just a couple days after that screening, DEG would be forced into bankruptcy by one of his creditors in, of all places, Boston, and the film would be stuck in limbo for several years. During DEG’s bankruptcy, some European companies would be allowed to buy individual country rights for the film, to help pay back some of the creditors, but the American rights to the film would not be sold until Miramax Films purchased the film, and the 300 already created 35mm prints of the film in March 1992, with a planned national release of the film the following month. But that release had to be scrapped, along with the original 300 prints of the film, when Friedkin, who kept revising the film over the ensuing five years, turned in to the Weinsteins a new edit of the film, ten minutes shorter than the version shown in Stockton and Boston in 1987. He had completely eliminated a subplot involving the failing marriage of the prosecutor, since it had nothing to do with the core idea of the story, and reversed the ending, which originally had Reece committing suicide in his cell not unlike Richard Chase. Now, the ending had Reece, several years into the future, alive and about to be considered for parole. Rampage would finally be released into 172 theatres on October 30th, 1992, including 57 theatres in Los Angeles, and four in New York City. Most reviews for the film were mixed, finding the film unnecessarily gruesome at times, but also praising how Friedkin took the time for audiences to learn more about the victims from the friends and family left behind. But the lack of pre-release advertising on television or through trailers in theatres would cause the film to perform quite poorly in its opening weekend, grossing just $322,500 in its first three days. After a second and third weekend where both the grosses and the number of theatres playing the film would fall more than 50%, Miramax would stop tracking the film, with a final reported gross of just less than $800k. Between the release of his thriller The Guardian in 1990 and the release of Rampage in 1992, William Friedkin would marry fellow Chicago native Sherry Lansing, who at the time had been a successful producer at Paramount Pictures, having made such films as The Accused, which won Jodie Foster her first Academy Award, and Fatal Attraction. Shortly after they married, Lansing would be named the Chairman of Paramount Pictures, where she would green light such films as Forrest Gump, Braveheart and Titanic. She would also hire her husband to make four films for the studio between 1994 and 2003, including the basketball drama Blue Chips and the thriller Jade. Friedkin’s directing career would slow down after 2003’s The Hunted, making only two films over the next two decades. 2006’s Bug was a psychological thriller with Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd, and 2012’s Killer Joe, a mixture of black comedy and psychological thriller featuring Matthew McConaughey and Emile Hirsch, was one of few movies to be theatrically released with an NC-17 rating. Neither were financially successful, but were highly regarded by critics. But there was still one more movie in him. In January 2023, Friedkin would direct his own adaptation of the Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial for the Paramount+ streaming service. Updating the setting from the book’s World War II timeline to the more modern Persian Gulf conflict, this new film starred Keifer Sutherland as Lieutenant Commander Queeg, alongside Jason Clark, Jake Lacy, Jay Duplass, Dale Dye, and in his final role before his death in March, Lance Reddick. That film will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in Italy next month, although Paramount+ has not announced a premiere date on their service. William Friedkin had been married four times in his life, including a two year marriage to legendary French actress Jean Moreau in the late 70s and a two year marriage to British actress Lesley-Anne Downe in the early 80s. But Friedkin and Lansing would remain married for thirty-two years until his death from heart failure and pneumonia this past Tuesday. I remember when Rampage was supposed to come out in 1987. My theatre in Santa Cruz was sent a poster for it about a month before it was supposed to be released. A pixelated image of Reece ran down one side of the poster, while the movie’s tagline and credits down the other. I thought the poster looked amazing, and after the release was cancelled, I took the poster home and hung it on one of the walls in my place at the time. The 1992 poster from Miramax was far blander, basically either a entirely white or an entirely red background, with a teared center revealing the eyes of Reece, which really doesn’t tell you anything about the movie. Like with many of his box office failures, Friedkin would initially be flippant about the film, although in the years preceding his death, he would acknowledge the film was decent enough despite all of its post-production problems. I’d love to be able to suggest to you to watch Rampage as soon as you can, but as of August 2023, one can only rent or buy the film from Amazon, $5.89 for a two day rental or $14.99 to purchase. It is not available on any other streaming service as of the writing and recording of this episode. Thank you for joining us. We’ll talk again soon, when I expect to release the fourth part of the Miramax miniseries, unless something unexpected happens in the near future. Remember to visit this episode’s page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Rampage and the career of William Friedkin. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.

Bienvenidos a Podcastwood. El hogar de las estrellas, el podcast sobre los pilares del cine y donde solo las películas consideradas como obras maestras del séptimo arte son analizadas e invitadas a esta selecta hora de la podcastfera cinéfila española. 1️⃣✖1️⃣2️⃣ | THE FRENCH CONNECTION Dirigida por William Friedkin y protagonizada por Gene Hackman y Roy Scheider, nos presenta a Jimmy Doyle y Buddy Rosso dos policías neoyorquinos que siguen la pista de una red de traficantes de drogas. El guión, obra de Ernest Tidyman, adapta la novela de Robin Moore. Don Ellis pone la banda sonora, mientras que la fotografía, importantísima en este film debido a la dificultad de rodaje de las escenas de persecución, estuvo en manos de Owen Roizman. ¿Sabías que Doyle y Rosso están inspirados en personajes reales?. ¿Conoces los problemas de rodaje de la mítica escena de la persecución?. ¿Cuánta realidad hay en el trabajo policial que se ve en la película?. ¿Es Popeye Doyle realmente un héroe? Camina junto a Fran Maestra y Gonzalo Cuélliga por El Paseo de la Fama escuchando este podcast de cine clásico que homenajea a The French Connection. SECCIONES ▪️ Contexto ▪️ Las inspiraciones para Doyle y Rosso ▪️ Qué salió mal durante la persecución ▪️ Trabajo policial: realidad vs ficción ▪️ ¿Es Popeye Doyle realmente un héroe? ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ LISTA DE PELÍCULAS CITADAS EN EL PROGRAMA: https://letterboxd.com/podcastwood/list/1x12-podcastwood-the-french-connection/ ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ ⭐ ÚNETE AL PASEO DE LA FAMA DE PODCASTWOOD Si te gusta Podcastwood y quieres ayudarnos a seguir progresando con este proyecto convertirte en fan y parte de nuestra comunidad activando el botón "APOYAR" en ivoox. Con ello recibirás las siguientes ventajas: ▪️ Acceso al grupo privado de Telegram de Podcastwood ▪️ Acceso en ivoox a los programas exclusivos para fans ▪️ Capacidad para elegir contenidos para los programas exclusivos para fans ▪️ Enlaces privados para asistir a las grabaciones de los programas para fans ▪️ Críticas semanales de los estrenos de la semana en salas y/o servicios de streaming Comparte día a día tu pasión por el cine junto a nosotros y otros amigos cinéfilos enamorados del séptimo arte. Acomódate, ¡te estábamos esperando! ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ SÍGUENOS EN TWITTER: @podcastwood @fran_maestra @gcuelliga INSTAGRAM: podcastwood BLOGGER: podcastwood.blogspot.com ✉ CONTACTANOS EN podcastwoodmail@gmail.com ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ DISFRUTA DE LA BSO DE PODCASTWOOD EN SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2FYBsPmqMxvs9gtgrUtQ62 ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ CREW ▪️Producción: Fran Maestra y Gonzalo Cuélliga ▪️ Redacción: Fran Maestra y Gonzalo Cuélliga ▪️ Sonido y grafismo: Fran Maestra ▪️ Entorno digital: Gonzalo Cuélliga ▪️ Conducción: Fran Maestra y Gonzalo Cuélliga ▪️ Locución: Marta Navas Podcastwood | 2023

En este episodio conversamos sobre la película del año 1976, “Network” (Poder Que Mata) del director Sidney Lumet, protagonizada por Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden y Robert Duvall.

En una nueva edición de Página 13, la última conversación del día, que los viernes está dedicada al cine, Kike Mujica conversó con los columnistas Ascanio Cavallo y Antonio Martínez, respecto a los estrenos de los últimos días, “La araña sagrada”, “Ruido”, “Terrifier, el payaso asesino”, “Ofrenda al demonio” y “El closet”. Además, el obituario de esta edición estuvo dedicado al director de fotografía Owen Roizman, fallecido a los 86 años.

En una nueva edición de Página 13, la última conversación del día, que los viernes está dedicada al cine, Kike Mujica conversó con los columnistas Ascanio Cavallo y Antonio Martínez, respecto a los estrenos de los últimos días, “La araña sagrada”, “Ruido”, “Terrifier, el payaso asesino”, “Ofrenda al demonio” y “El closet”. Además, el obituario de esta edición estuvo dedicado al director de fotografía Owen Roizman, fallecido a los 86 años.

With the help of regular collaborators Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach leaves the big city - and reality - behind for his ambitious adaptation of Don DeLillo's WHITE NOISE. An absurdist meditation on death nested in a consumerist satire (or vice versa?) that riffs on Elvis, Hitler, car crashes, pharmaceuticals, marriage, and family life, Adam and Josh agree that Baumbach's big swing is a mostly successful one. Also on the show, a revisit of 2017's Top 5 Noah Baumbach Characters (originally paired with "The Meyerowitz Stories") and thoughts on the passing of five-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Owen Roizman. 1:08 - Review: "White Noise" 34:58 - Polls / Notes / Owen Roizman 49:44 - Top 5 Noah Baumbach Characters (2017) 1:23:56 - Outro Times may fluctuate due to inserted ads. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NBA News, NFL News, MLB News, WNBA News, NHL News, Coronavirus impact on the sports & entertainment, ABC's Abbott Elementary, Good Lawyer, CBS's Fire Country, Workaholics, A Farewell to Nate Colbert, Fay Weldon, Owen Roizman, Adam Rich, Bernard Kalb, Quinn Redeker, Mike Hill & Bill Campbell. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/on-the-radar/support

Vaccine for Bees?... Ovidio Guzman arrested again… Computer lawyer?... META fined by EU… Ireland is pregnant… Alec message to Ireland… NFL headed to playoffs… ChewingTheFat@theblaze.com College National Championship… www.blazetv.com/jeffy ...Promo Code Jeffy ...Obesity Week… Who Died Today: Jamie Lopez 37 / Ken Block 55 / Owen Roizman 86 / Adam Rich 54… Jeremy Renner lucky to be alive… Transmaxxing / Where we're at today… Joke of the day…   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gay homosexuals Nick and Joseph discuss Prick Up Your Ears - a 1987 British film, directed by Stephen Frears, starring Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Wallace Shawn, and Vanessa Redgrave. Additional topics include: The Renfield and Barbie trailers, Noah Schnapp, Ed Norton, the deaths of Anita Pointer and Owen Roizman, and too many films to mention. Want to send them stuff? Fish Jelly PO Box 461752 Los Angeles, CA 90046 Find merch here: https://fishjellyfilmreviews.myspreadshop.com/all Venmo @fishjelly Find them on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/ragingbells/, https://letterboxd.com/joroyolo/ Nick's Apple Music playlist: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/lamour-de-nico/pl.u-PDb4zlpsLVrvqE1 Joseph's Apple Music playlist: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/josephs-vibe/pl.u-6mo448yuBWzNE1 Check them out on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChVV6ezEYnPv9XaLZtUlZdw Nick's IG: ragingbells Joseph's IG: joroyolo --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/fish-jelly/support

Recorded at the ASC Clubhouse in Hollywood, M. David Mullen, ASC and associate members Rob Hummel and Jay Holben talk about the process of writing and editing the 11th edition of the American Cinematographer Manual. 

Recorded at the ASC Clubhouse in Hollywood, M. David Mullen, ASC and associate members Rob Hummel and Jay Holben talk about the process of writing and editing the 11th edition of the American Cinematographer Manual.

Almost 50 years after its release, why is The Exorcist such an enduring, powerful horror film? I am obviously the first to ever ask this question about this cinematic classic, so allow me to answer: the time it takes to layout what's at stake and Owen Roizman's objective, documentary approach to the cinematography.

The Movie Geeks celebrate the 45th anniversary of The Exorcist with a replay of our interviews with the film's director William Friedkin and cinematographer Owen Roizman.  The conversation with Mr. Roizman was conducted by our sibling podcast Back By Midnight and its host Aaron Aradillas.  For more information on the Movie Geeks United! Anniversary Series, visit http://www.moviegeeksunited.net. Support this podcast

The Movie Geeks celebrate the 45th anniversary of The Exorcist with a replay of our interviews with the film's director William Friedkin and cinematographer Owen Roizman.  The conversation with Mr. Roizman was conducted by our sibling podcast Back By Midnight and its host Aaron Aradillas.  For more information on the Movie Geeks United! Anniversary Series, visit http://www.moviegeeksunited.net.

It’s pretty rare for a film to come along that has such a visceral effect on people when they’re watching it where they faint or throw up because it’s so overwhelming. When “The Exorcist” was released just after Christmas in 1973, it had that effect. People flocked to it in droves and seemed to have these heightened reactions to it, whether because they were so scared or they felt it was truly evil. It’s a fascinating case study in how religion and horror draws people to the theatre. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we continue our Ellen Burstyn series with William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist.” We talk about what makes this film so good and so horrific — something having to do with the sense of naturalism that William Peter Blatty, the screenwriter and author of the original novel, wanted in it and that Friedkin brought to it. We talk about the performances — Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max Von Sydow, Jason Miller, Lee J. Cobb and the demonic vocal stylings of Mercedes McCambridge — and look at what they each bring to the table in this story about a mother trying to protect her little girl from things she doesn’t understand. We chat about Friedkin and his insane directing style that seems to put actors in harm’s way in his quest for the perfect film, a frightening look at the ends justifying the means. We discuss the perfect cinematography brought to the story by Owen Roizman, lending touches to create both bright and dark shots that work in tandem. We look at the amazing makeup effects by Dick Smith, working well in both areas of makeup — creature effects and age makeup. We also touch on the amazing sound design and music — Tubular Bells anyone? And we chat about how well this film did, despite outlandish claims that the film was evil. It’s truly a terrifying film that deserves the praise it gets. It’s one of our favorites and we have a great time talking about it. Tune in! Hey! You know what would be awesome? If you would drop us a positive rating on iTunes! If you like what we’re doing here on TNR, it really is the best way to make sure that this show appears when others search for it, plus, it’s just a nice thing to do. Thanks!! The Next Reel on iTunes The Next Reel on Facebook The Next Reel on Twitter The Next Reel on Flickchart The Next Reel on Letterboxd Guess the Movie with The Next Reel on Instagram Check out the Posters with The Next Reel on Pinterest And for anyone interested in our fine bouquet of show hosts: Follow Andy Nelson on Twitter Follow Pete Wright on Twitter Follow Steve Sarmento on Twitter Check out Tom Metz on IMDB Follow Mike Evans on Twitter Follow Chadd Stoops on Twitter Follow Steven Smart on Letterboxd

It's pretty rare for a film to come along that has such a visceral effect on people when they're watching it where they faint or throw up because it's so overwhelming. When “The Exorcist” was released just after Christmas in 1973, it had that effect. People flocked to it in droves and seemed to have these heightened reactions to it, whether because they were so scared or they felt it was truly evil. It's a fascinating case study in how religion and horror draws people to the theatre. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we continue our Ellen Burstyn series with William Friedkin's “The Exorcist.” We talk about what makes this film so good and so horrific — something having to do with the sense of naturalism that William Peter Blatty, the screenwriter and author of the original novel, wanted in it and that Friedkin brought to it. We talk about the performances — Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max Von Sydow, Jason Miller, Lee J. Cobb and the demonic vocal stylings of Mercedes McCambridge — and look at what they each bring to the table in this story about a mother trying to protect her little girl from things she doesn't understand. We chat about Friedkin and his insane directing style that seems to put actors in harm's way in his quest for the perfect film, a frightening look at the ends justifying the means. We discuss the perfect cinematography brought to the story by Owen Roizman, lending touches to create both bright and dark shots that work in tandem. We look at the amazing makeup effects by Dick Smith, working well in both areas of makeup — creature effects and age makeup. We also touch on the amazing sound design and music — Tubular Bells anyone? And we chat about how well this film did, despite outlandish claims that the film was evil. It's truly a terrifying film that deserves the praise it gets. It's one of our favorites and we have a great time talking about it. Tune in! Hey! You know what would be awesome? If you would drop us a positive rating on iTunes! If you like what we're doing here on TNR, it really is the best way to make sure that this show appears when others search for it, plus, it's just a nice thing to do. Thanks!! The Next Reel on iTunes The Next Reel on Facebook The Next Reel on Twitter The Next Reel on Flickchart The Next Reel on Letterboxd Guess the Movie with The Next Reel on Instagram Check out the Posters with The Next Reel on Pinterest And for anyone interested in our fine bouquet of show hosts: Follow Andy Nelson on Twitter Follow Pete Wright on Twitter Follow Steve Sarmento on Twitter Check out Tom Metz on IMDB Follow Mike Evans on Twitter Follow Chadd Stoops on Twitter Follow Steven Smart on Letterboxd

It's pretty rare for a film to come along that has such a visceral effect on people when they're watching it where they faint or throw up because it's so overwhelming. When “The Exorcist” was released just after Christmas in 1973, it had that effect. People flocked to it in droves and seemed to have these heightened reactions to it, whether because they were so scared or they felt it was truly evil. It's a fascinating case study in how religion and horror draws people to the theatre. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we continue our Ellen Burstyn series with William Friedkin's “The Exorcist.” We talk about what makes this film so good and so horrific — something having to do with the sense of naturalism that William Peter Blatty, the screenwriter and author of the original novel, wanted in it and that Friedkin brought to it. We talk about the performances — Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max Von Sydow, Jason Miller, Lee J. Cobb and the demonic vocal stylings of Mercedes McCambridge — and look at what they each bring to the table in this story about a mother trying to protect her little girl from things she doesn't understand. We chat about Friedkin and his insane directing style that seems to put actors in harm's way in his quest for the perfect film, a frightening look at the ends justifying the means. We discuss the perfect cinematography brought to the story by Owen Roizman, lending touches to create both bright and dark shots that work in tandem. We look at the amazing makeup effects by Dick Smith, working well in both areas of makeup — creature effects and age makeup. We also touch on the amazing sound design and music — Tubular Bells anyone? And we chat about how well this film did, despite outlandish claims that the film was evil. It's truly a terrifying film that deserves the praise it gets. It's one of our favorites and we have a great time talking about it. Tune in!* * *Hey! You know what would be awesome? If you would drop us a positive rating on iTunes! If you like what we're doing here on TNR, it really is the best way to make sure that this show appears when others search for it, plus, it's just a nice thing to do. Thanks!!- [The Next Reel on iTunes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-next-reel/id478159328?mt=2)- [The Next Reel on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/TheNextReel)- [The Next Reel on Twitter](http://twitter.com/thenextreel)- [The Next Reel on Flickchart](http://www.flickchart.com/thenextreel)- [The Next Reel on Letterboxd](http://letterboxd.com/thenextreel/)- [Guess the Movie with The Next Reel on Instagram](http://instagram.com/thenextreel)- [Check out the Posters with The Next Reel on Pinterest](http://pinterest.com/thenextreel)And for anyone interested in our fine bouquet of show hosts:- [Follow Andy Nelson on Twitter](http://twitter.com/sodacreekfilm)- [Follow Pete Wright on Twitter](http://twitter.com/petewright)- [Follow Steve Sarmento on Twitter](https://twitter.com/mr_steve23)- [Check out Tom Metz on IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1224453/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1)- [Follow Mike Evans on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ubersky)- [Follow Chadd Stoops on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ChaddStoops)- [Follow Steven Smart on Letterboxd](http://letterboxd.com/steamrobot/)

It's pretty rare for a film to come along that has such a visceral effect on people when they're watching it where they faint or throw up because it's so overwhelming. When “The Exorcist” was released just after Christmas in 1973, it had that effect. People flocked to it in droves and seemed to have these heightened reactions to it, whether because they were so scared or they felt it was truly evil. It's a fascinating case study in how religion and horror draws people to the theatre. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we continue our Ellen Burstyn series with William Friedkin's “The Exorcist.” We talk about what makes this film so good and so horrific — something having to do with the sense of naturalism that William Peter Blatty, the screenwriter and author of the original novel, wanted in it and that Friedkin brought to it. We talk about the performances — Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max Von Sydow, Jason Miller, Lee J. Cobb and the demonic vocal stylings of Mercedes McCambridge — and look at what they each bring to the table in this story about a mother trying to protect her little girl from things she doesn't understand. We chat about Friedkin and his insane directing style that seems to put actors in harm's way in his quest for the perfect film, a frightening look at the ends justifying the means. We discuss the perfect cinematography brought to the story by Owen Roizman, lending touches to create both bright and dark shots that work in tandem. We look at the amazing makeup effects by Dick Smith, working well in both areas of makeup — creature effects and age makeup. We also touch on the amazing sound design and music — Tubular Bells anyone? And we chat about how well this film did, despite outlandish claims that the film was evil. It's truly a terrifying film that deserves the praise it gets. It's one of our favorites and we have a great time talking about it. Tune in!* * *Hey! You know what would be awesome? If you would drop us a positive rating on iTunes! If you like what we're doing here on TNR, it really is the best way to make sure that this show appears when others search for it, plus, it's just a nice thing to do. Thanks!!- [The Next Reel on iTunes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-next-reel/id478159328?mt=2)- [The Next Reel on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/TheNextReel)- [The Next Reel on Twitter](http://twitter.com/thenextreel)- [The Next Reel on Flickchart](http://www.flickchart.com/thenextreel)- [The Next Reel on Letterboxd](http://letterboxd.com/thenextreel/)- [Guess the Movie with The Next Reel on Instagram](http://instagram.com/thenextreel)- [Check out the Posters with The Next Reel on Pinterest](http://pinterest.com/thenextreel)And for anyone interested in our fine bouquet of show hosts:- [Follow Andy Nelson on Twitter](http://twitter.com/sodacreekfilm)- [Follow Pete Wright on Twitter](http://twitter.com/petewright)- [Follow Steve Sarmento on Twitter](https://twitter.com/mr_steve23)- [Check out Tom Metz on IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1224453/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1)- [Follow Mike Evans on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ubersky)- [Follow Chadd Stoops on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ChaddStoops)- [Follow Steven Smart on Letterboxd](http://letterboxd.com/steamrobot/)

It's easy for us on this show to talk at great length about Sidney Lumet's 1976 film "Network" as it's one of our all-time favorites. Both a scathing indictment of the TV industry and a reality check for people's feelings about the times in which they were living, this film made an indelible mark on the world of film and created one of the most iconic movie lines ever. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we not only finish our series of films from 1976 but also begin a short but deliciously sweet series of films written by the amazing Paddy Chayefsky. We talk about the prescience with which Chayefsky seemed to have about the modern state of television and our media-infused culture when he wrote this film in the mid-70s, and what he's really saying with the film. We discuss the brilliant directing by Lumet and how he and his director of photography, Owen Roizman, chose to corrupt the look of the film as it progresses, taking us from a relatively normal world to one that is much more menacing. We go through the amazing cast — Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty, Beatrice Straight, and more — and talk about how pretty much every one of them is given their time to shine in this amazing script. And we look back on 1976's Oscars and pick our own winners if we were the only two people voting. We have a great time talking about this amazing film. If you haven't seen it, go watch it IMMEDIATELY, then come back and tune in!

It's easy for us on this show to talk at great length about Sidney Lumet's 1976 film "Network" as it's one of our all-time favorites. Both a scathing indictment of the TV industry and a reality check for people's feelings about the times in which they were living, this film made an indelible mark on the world of film and created one of the most iconic movie lines ever. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we not only finish our series of films from 1976 but also begin a short but deliciously sweet series of films written by the amazing Paddy Chayefsky. We talk about the prescience with which Chayefsky seemed to have about the modern state of television and our media-infused culture when he wrote this film in the mid-70s, and what he's really saying with the film. We discuss the brilliant directing by Lumet and how he and his director of photography, Owen Roizman, chose to corrupt the look of the film as it progresses, taking us from a relatively normal world to one that is much more menacing. We go through the amazing cast — Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty, Beatrice Straight, and more — and talk about how pretty much every one of them is given their time to shine in this amazing script. And we look back on 1976's Oscars and pick our own winners if we were the only two people voting. We have a great time talking about this amazing film. If you haven't seen it, go watch it IMMEDIATELY, then come back and tune in!

It's easy for us on this show to talk at great length about Sidney Lumet's 1976 film "Network" as it's one of our all-time favorites. Both a scathing indictment of the TV industry and a reality check for people's feelings about the times in which they were living, this film made an indelible mark on the world of film and created one of the most iconic movie lines ever. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we not only finish our series of films from 1976 but also begin a short but deliciously sweet series of films written by the amazing Paddy Chayefsky. We talk about the prescience with which Chayefsky seemed to have about the modern state of television and our media-infused culture when he wrote this film in the mid-70s, and what he's really saying with the film. We discuss the brilliant directing by Lumet and how he and his director of photography, Owen Roizman, chose to corrupt the look of the film as it progresses, taking us from a relatively normal world to one that is much more menacing. We go through the amazing cast — Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty, Beatrice Straight, and more — and talk about how pretty much every one of them is given their time to shine in this amazing script. And we look back on 1976's Oscars and pick our own winners if we were the only two people voting. We have a great time talking about this amazing film. If you haven't seen it, go watch it IMMEDIATELY, then come back and tune in!

It's easy for us on this show to talk at great length about Sidney Lumet's 1976 film "Network" as it's one of our all-time favorites. Both a scathing indictment of the TV industry and a reality check for people's feelings about the times in which they were living, this film made an indelible mark on the world of film and created one of the most iconic movie lines ever. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we not only finish our series of films from 1976 but also begin a short but deliciously sweet series of films written by the amazing Paddy Chayefsky. We talk about the prescience with which Chayefsky seemed to have about the modern state of television and our media-infused culture when he wrote this film in the mid-70s, and what he's really saying with the film. We discuss the brilliant directing by Lumet and how he and his director of photography, Owen Roizman, chose to corrupt the look of the film as it progresses, taking us from a relatively normal world to one that is much more menacing. We go through the amazing cast — Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty, Beatrice Straight, and more — and talk about how pretty much every one of them is given their time to shine in this amazing script. And we look back on 1976's Oscars and pick our own winners if we were the only two people voting. We have a great time talking about this amazing film. If you haven't seen it, go watch it IMMEDIATELY, then come back and tune in!

During this episode we talk to Academy Award nominated Cinematographer Owen Roizman. Mr. Roizman has photographed such films as The Exorcist, Network, The Stepford Wives, and The French Connection. Get More Legends of Film Subscribe to Legends of Film by RSS | iTunes

Owen Roizman, ASC chats about his lighting aesthetic, reveals his technique for flashing film stock and shares anecdotes from the set of the 1974 version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three with fellow ASC member Rodney Taylor.

Owen Roizman, ASC chats about his lighting aesthetic, reveals his technique for flashing film stock and shares anecdotes from the set of the 1974 version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three with fellow ASC member Rodney Taylor.