Oscar-winning director of the The Exorcist-fame William Friedkin dies at 87

William Friedkin, Oscar-winning director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, passed away in Los Angeles on Monday. He was 87.

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Celebs took to twitter to mourn the demise of the legendary filmmaker. Mexican filmmaker and author Guillermo del Toro Gómez shared, “The world has lost one of the ‘Gods of Cinema’. Cinema has lost a true scholar and I have lost a dear, loyal and true friend. William Friedkin has left us. We were blessed to have him.”

Writer producer Larry Karaszewski posted, “R.I.P. William Friedkin — no film ever meant more to me than The Exorcist… a masterpiece and still the greatest horror film of all time,” he tweeted.

During the 1970s, Friedkin achieved A-list fame bringing a lot of energy to the horror and police thriller genres, which he specialised in, by fusing his experience in television, particularly in documentary filmmaking, with a cutting-edge style of editing.

The French Connection was filmed in a documentary style and featured one of cinema’s most famous car chase sequences. The movie won several Oscars, including those for best picture, director, and actor (Gene Hackman), and it established the police genre for years to come, both in movies and television. The Exorcist, released in 1973, amassed a staggering USD 500 million at the global box-office. The Exorcist, a heavily stylized thriller based on William Peter Blatty’s book about the demonic possession of a young girl, had a similar impact on the horror subgenre as The French Connection had on police thrillers. In the category of best director, it earned him a second Oscar nomination.

Friedkin began his career in the WGN mailroom in Chicago, where he quickly worked his way up to directing television programmes and documentaries. His other films included the drama The Boys in the Band (1970), the thriller Sorcerer (1977), the crime comedy drama The Brink’s Job (1978), the crime thriller Cruising (1980, neo-noir thriller To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), the psychological horror film Bug (2006) and the black comedy Killer Joe (2011).