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  • Smack dab in the middle of the Hollywood Renaissance, William Friedkin's 1971 police thriller

  • titled The French Connection captures the gritty reality of a true crime story like

  • few films can. Over the years, detective films have certainly not been in short supply. Today,

  • we take an in-depth look at what The French Connection teaches us about filmmaking to

  • see if we can figure out why it always seems to tower above the rest.

  • The French Connection was adapted from a non-fiction novel that recounts a real narcotics case

  • that took place between 1960 and 1962 in New York City. The film was released on October

  • 9th, 1971 to great acclaim and ended up winning Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing,

  • Best Actor, Best Director, and was the first R-rated movie to win Best Picture at the Academy

  • Awards (wiki). The story follows detectives Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle and Buddy 'Cloudy'

  • Russo as they try to find a large heroin supply being snuck into New York City from France.

  • The characters Popeye and Cloudy were played by Gene Hackman and Roy Sheider respectively

  • and they were based on real detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso who actually have small

  • roles in the film. Grosso plays Klein and Egan, with a speaking part, plays Lieutenant Simonson.

  • After leaving the police force, both Grosso and Egan went on to have careers in the entertainment

  • industryGrosso became a technical advisor and a film and television producer for everything

  • from Night Heat to even Pee-wee's Playhouse. He also continued to act in small roles including

  • a police officer in The Godfather and Detective Blasio in Friedkin's 1980 film Cruising.

  • Eddie Egan became a sort of celebrity because of his fearless brazen attitude and his extremely

  • large amount of arrests and acted in several movies and TV shows during the 70s and 80s.

  • Sonny Grosso: “The French Connection meant: there were street connections, there were

  • Spanish connections, there were Black connections, there were Italian connections; the ultimate

  • connection in the drug world was the French connection.”

  • So, what can we learn?

  • First, Character Introduction.

  • The characters in The French Connection are introduced in a very exciting, eloquent, and

  • economic way. William Friedkin was quoted saying, “I have a theory about thrillers.

  • If you open with a murder in the first two minutes, the audience will hang around for

  • 15 minutes of exposition without getting bored,” (Film Quarterly) which is utilized here, but

  • our heroes are also introduced in an exciting way. The first time we see Popeye and Cloudy,

  • they are about to make a bust. We don't see their home life, getting ready for work,

  • or hanging out at the police stationwe are immediately thrust into the action. They

  • are cops; the film is about busting drug dealers, so why not introduce them busting a drug dealer?

  • This goes for the introduction of all of the main charactersthe classy French antagonist

  • classes it up, the killer kills, and the cops bust.

  • Action films often start out with an action setpiece of some sort with little weighing

  • on the plot, but what The French Connection does is offer up just a short foot chase for

  • action. This is brilliantly done because it isn't meant to be sheer spectacle. What

  • it does is it gives us a chance to see how well Popeye and Cloudy work together and sets

  • up the interesting details of the job as well as the little quirks they both have.

  • Every single choice that is made in this opening sequence sets up the characters including

  • everything from dialogue to wardrobe and setting. The first time we see Popeye, he is dressed

  • as Santa Clausit shows us that he is a little 'out-there,' but it also shows

  • us that he is willing to do whatever it takes to get his man (including running around dressed

  • as Santa) and the image of Popeye chasing a drug dealer down the street in the Santa

  • outfit is a memorable way of doing that. You won't see any other officer in the film

  • do anything similar.

  • What follows is a short interrogation scene in an empty lot, which was actually the location

  • of the real Sonny Grosso's childhood home. In the screenplay, this scene takes place

  • inside Popeye's car, but this was changed to a much more intriguing location that is

  • in keeping with the gritty presentation of New York City. It almost conjures images of

  • bombed out buildings in Europe during World War II. This scene could just as easily taken

  • place down at the precinct in an interrogation room, but instead it is on the street, which

  • shows us that Popeye and Cloudy are more comfortable out on the streets of the city. They aren't

  • eager to get back to the safety of the precinct. They are unafraid of the jungle that is New

  • York City. And we'll see how this mentality affects their decisions throughout the rest

  • of the film.

  • The production hired the writer of Shaft who adapted the screenplay for a small amount

  • of money. The script also contained fairly different dialogue in this scene except, of

  • course, for the Poughkeepsie exchange.

  • Friedkin: “The Roy Scheider character, Buddy Russo, would always ask the suspect specific

  • questions about specific things while the Eddie Egan or the Popeye Doyle character would

  • ask him non-sequiturs like if he ever sat down on the edge of the bed and picked his

  • feet. And so the suspect was caught in the middle between these two techniques. He was

  • more afraid to answer Doyle's nonsensical questions than Russo's questions that made

  • sense because he didn't know really how much trouble he was in.”

  • Hackman: “I heard Eddie do the 'do you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie' thing a

  • number of times when we were out in the streets in Harlem and all over the place. And I never

  • understood it and people on the street to this day come up to me and ask me if I pick

  • my feet in Poughkeepsie.”

  • Friedkin: “'Pick your feet in Poughkeepsie' was a phrase Eddie Egan used on almost every

  • suspect he ever interrogated just to unsettle them. It's just a non-sequitur to unsettle someone,

  • but it's asked very straight and forcefully and it's a very hard question to answer,

  • as you might imagine. And so it would cause the suspect to freeze up and wonder if he

  • had, in fact, done something in Poughkeepsie that he should be arrested for.”

  • However, the one who was really unsettled in this scene was Hackman who had a lot of

  • trouble roughing up the actor playing the dope peddler. The scene was shot in the first

  • week of production and they did 22 takes, but it wasn't working.

  • Hackman: “And so, I did, I went to him and said, 'I don't think I can do this.'

  • And to his credit, or maybe because he was in a bind, he decided not to let me go and

  • I will be eternally grateful that he didn't because it was certainly the start of my career.”

  • They went ahead and kept shooting the rest of the film and came back and shot this scene

  • much later when Hackman was in the right mindset to go through with the scene.

  • Scheider: “I mean, for instance, the first scene in the film, when we're chasing Alan

  • Weeks and we're slapping the hell out of him in that alley, well, that was the first

  • day of shooting and Gene and I were not very good. We weren't very convincing. We just

  • didn't have the fluidity and the speed and the routine of a 'good cop, bad cop'

  • We didn't have it down yet. So Billy said, 'alright, look, we'll scrap this. We'll

  • come back at the end of the movie and we'll do this. We came back and we did it in an

  • afternoon. It was a piece of cake, but by that time, we felt like cops.”

  • This seems like good advice. Much of a film hinges on the character introductions and

  • it might be a good idea to shoot the first scenes later in the productionespecially

  • if it an intense sceneso that the actors have had more time to better get into the

  • rhythm and mindset of their character.

  • This scene introduces Popeye's anger and really relies on Hackman's ability to convey

  • the motivation Popeye has to catch the bad guys and get the information he needs to make

  • a big bust.

  • Friedkin: “I knew that he hated his father, so in order to produce anger in him, the anger

  • that was necessary for the character, I became like a harsh father. And so, the point of

  • that story is that, with every actor, the director works like a psychologist.”

  • So in a sequence lasting less than five minutes, we get a perfect introduction to Popeye and

  • Cloudy's working and personal relationship, what their motivation is, and the lengths

  • they'll go to complete their goal.

  • Number 2: building a character externally.

  • A character isn't just confined to the actor and the words on the page, it extends way

  • beyond that. We talked a bit about what wardrobe says about a character, but let's go even

  • further away from the physical embodiment of the character. For instance, Friedkin mentioned

  • that he chose Popeye's apartment building because it kind of looked like a prison.

  • Occasionally Popeye will toss a white straw hat in the back seat window of his car signifying

  • to other officers that they are undercover and on duty. I believe this hat was a nod

  • to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which was released a few years earlier. In Butch

  • Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the outlaws are chased by a determined lawman named Joe

  • Lefors who would stop at nothing to catch them. In the film, he is recognized by his

  • white straw hatvery similar to the one used in The French Connection. Popeye is also

  • incredibly determined and relentless to catch the bad guys and this visual nod does a great

  • job regardless of whether it is noticed.

  • The cold says a lot about world that Popeye inhabits. New York City itself feels hostile

  • and uncaring in the French Connection and, for Popeye specifically, it seems as though

  • he is navigating a harsh world where there isn't any protection from those who live

  • outside the law. As it turns out, this aspect was a lucky accident.

  • Friedkin: “By the time the studio said, 'okay, make that film,' all of the guys

  • who said, 'go make it' were fired. If I had waited another month it would have never

  • have been made. So when we made it, it was the coldest winter on record in New York City

  • and it was literally freezing cold and that's when we had to make it.”

  • Popeye also has a bit of a fetish for girls in tall boots, which is briefly set up once

  • and then later we see him intrigued by a girl wearing boots who's riding a bike. This

  • adds to the characteristic of Popeye being a hunteralways watching and waiting to

  • pounce on his prey.

  • The aspect I really want to talk about is motivated action. The reason why the car chase

  • in The French Connection is considered one of the greatest in cinema history is that

  • it reveals more about Popeye's character than anything else in the film and yet, it

  • is an action-packed setpiece. Nowadays, it seems big spectacular setpieces only go as

  • far as furthering the plot and often not even that. What The French Connection does is it

  • uses the chase scene as a literal and metaphorical representation of Popeye's obsession with

  • catching the perpno matter the cost. People's lives are at risk, but still he is determined

  • to let nothing stand between him and catching this man. In a way, the chase is a metaphor

  • for the dynamic between the police and the criminals responsible for perpetuating the

  • drug epidemic. These criminals literally have the higher ground, able to coast along while

  • Popeye must stay grounded dodging a multitude of obstacles in his path just to keep up,

  • and the only way he can catch up to his man is to break the rules that the criminals aren't

  • obligated to follow.

  • The chase (and the sniper) didn't actually appear in the script initially and Friedkin

  • said that the original script had everything you could want from a police thriller except

  • a big setpiece like this. Friedkin had the same people who made the famous chase scene

  • for Bullitt and wanted to do something different.

  • Friedkin: “I should tell you, the origin of the chase was, you mentioned Hickman and

  • Phil D'Antoni, they had done Bullitt. And I saw Bullitt and I said, 'I can't do

  • the same thing they've done. The've done the car chase about as good as it could be

  • done then, I've got to do something different.' And D'Antoni and I started walking the streets

  • of New York and while we were talking about what we could do, I hear the subway rumbling

  • beneath my feet. The idea came to me right off the streetswhat about a car chasing

  • a train?”

  • Another good example of this dynamic is the scene where Popeye waits outside of the fancy

  • restaurant. This scene builds upon the characters in such a way that shows that crime, in fact,

  • does pay and the police are burdened by the same civility that separates them from those

  • who break the law. A side note: it was so cold while they were making this scene that

  • the cast and crew would have to go into the shoe store Popeye was standing in front of to warm up

  • in between takes.

  • Number 3: Documentary Style.

  • On another level, the 'French Connection' seems to unintentionally refer to the influence

  • that French filmmaking was having on the American film industry during the 60s and 70s. The

  • Hollywood Renaissance was rooted in the principles of the French New Wave and Auteur Theory that

  • had started a decade earlier.

  • Friedkin: “Then the next change in cinema was Godard's 'Breathless,' which changed-

  • À bout de soufflé—which changed the way films were made. All of a sudden, a guy could

  • go out with a small crew, very few lightsor no lightsand shoot with hand-held cameras

  • and tell a story that people would see in a theater and it was not formal in any way.

  • It was informal. It was like jazz music. And that changed cinema to this day.”

  • Because the story was based on actual events, Friedkin wanted to evoke a sense of realism

  • to the film. He had the actual narcotics detectives who cracked the case (Eddie Egan and Sonny

  • Grosso) working on the film as advisors and it was the cooperation of Egan and Grosso

  • as well as their friends in the police department that allowed the film to achieve this level

  • of realism.

  • Scheider: “And we just tried to make it as real as we possibly could. That was the

  • fun of it. The fun of it was making it real. We had all those mornings of coming back from

  • the night work and talking about these scenes and what was happening and what was being

  • said and how could we say it more interestingly than what's written in the script.”

  • Grosso has stated that the film is ninety percent accurate to what happened in real

  • life. Egan and Grosso were on the set at all times making sure that the actors were following

  • procedure and behaving as real narcotics detectives would. So, before every scene, Friedkin would

  • ask Egan and Grosso if what the actors were doing was the right thing to do.

  • To prepare for their roles, Hackman and Sheider would go out with Egan and Grosso on busts

  • and other police activities, which not only helped their performances but the story as well.

  • Scheider: “About two weeks we went out almost every nightSonny and Gene and myself and

  • Egan doing all the stuff that you've heard about. And then after we worked at night,

  • we would report the next morning to the French Connection office and we'd sit down with

  • Billy and transcribe everything that we heard or seen or experienced that night and we used

  • it to create scenes in this movie.”

  • Hackman: “The sequence in the bar with all the drug users and pushers, I don't think

  • I could have ever done that scene if I hadn't actually scene Eddie Egan do that.”

  • Hackman: “He went into a bar one night and he did the scene that's in the film now

  • where Popeye comes in and yells out, 'Popeye's here, get your hands on the bar.' He did

  • that, but he did it for real. I mean, there were real bad dudes in there. And so I could

  • see that was possible. If a guy was tough enough, strong enough, a real police officer

  • could get away with that.”

  • Egan and Grosso were also very well known in the NYPD and had a lot of their police

  • friends work on the film. For example, in the scene where Popeye busts up the bar, all

  • of the extras in this scene were played by actual police officers and it was the same

  • for the first bar as well. And to add to the realism, some parts were played by people

  • who actually worked on the casemost notably, the police mechanic who pulls apart the car

  • looking for the heroin was the real mechanic who did this in the actual case. Similarly,

  • in the scene where they test the heroin, this was filmed using real heroin and the real

  • chemistry test that the police use.

  • Despite this being a studio picture, the budget was only 1.5 million dollars and they ended

  • up going 300 thousand dollars over budget. Friedkin said that they agreed to do the film

  • with a million and a half dollars knowing they couldn't. So, they ended up employing

  • a great deal of guerrilla filmmaking techniques as a way to deal with the budget, but also

  • when they didn't need to, so that they could keep the documentary style that Friedkin wanted

  • for the film.

  • One of the crazier things they did was for the scene with the traffic jam on the Brooklyn

  • Bridge. They didn't have any permits to close down the bridge, so they just had some

  • people intentionally stop their cars at the other end of the bridge and created a real

  • traffic jam.

  • For the scene where Popeye follows Charnier into the subway, they didn't have any permits

  • or permission and they just had a small crew and a wheelchair for dolly shots. This way

  • the shots also wouldn't bee too smooth and would have that realistic hand-held appearance.

  • And this sequence is something that actually happened to Eddie Egan during the case, most

  • notably, the part when Charnier waves to Popeye. The real suspect waved to Egan letting him

  • know that he knew he was being followed.

  • This scene was shot on a platform in Grand Central Station and since they didn't have

  • permits to shoot, there wasn't any way to close off the location to the general public.

  • Egan and Grosso got their friends in the police force to come and help manage the location,

  • so they could shoot without too many interruptions. Now, because they were shooting the scene

  • this way they didn't use any special lighting or extras. Instead they shot the location

  • more or less as it was and this was similar for many of the other scenes in the film.

  • As far as I can tell, there wasn't even a light attached to the camera in this scene

  • because you would be able to see the glow as it moves closer to objects and glare when

  • it comes right up to the train window.

  • In an interview with the International Cameraman's Guild, Cinematographer Owen Roizman talks

  • about shooting in low lighting conditions, he said: “When you were shooting commercials

  • in those days, everything was high-key. We hardly ever shot at night or interior car

  • shots. You never wanted to make anything look grainy, low-key or realistic. It was all stylized.

  • In our early conversations, Billy said he wanted the picture to have almost a documentary

  • look. He wanted it to be very real looking. I just started thinking about that and I decided

  • to underexpose and force develop the film and then print it up. That gave a very grainy

  • look” (International Cameraman's Guild).

  • Back then pretty much all motion picture film stock was 100 ISO (or ASA), which refers to

  • the sensitivity of the film itself to light. 100 is a low ISO, so it isn't very sensitive

  • and therefore, you need a lot of light to get a proper image. What Roizman did in situations

  • with very little light was to either, in the developing process, 'push' the film to

  • be brighter than it normally would be or use a film stock that had a higher ISO, which

  • hadn't been done before on a studio film (Roizman Interview). And the higher the ISO,

  • the more grain there is, which is why The French Connection has a really gritty look

  • and feel to the film.

  • At this point, Friedkin had a background in documentary filmmaking and he took his experience

  • capturing events as they happened and applied it to The French Connection. Friedkin almost

  • never did more than one or two takes for every shot, which helped with the feeling of spontaneity

  • and realism. This wasn't just tricky for the actors, but the crew as well. Friedkin

  • didn't storyboard his shots and, to take it even further, he often didn't rehearse

  • the scenes with the crew. He would run through the scene with the actors without the camera

  • crew on the set and have Roizman light the set as if the action could take place anywhere

  • in the room.

  • Friedkin: “So, and then the camera operator was a guy named Ricky Bravo who had photographed

  • the Cuban revolution at Castro's side. He was in the mountains with Castro when they

  • came down and took Havana and he was a great documentary cameraman and so, I used to say

  • to himhe had a very thick Hispanic accentand I'd say, 'Ricky don't stop the camera

  • no matter what happens.' 'Okay, okay, chief.' I said, 'Don't stop, just keep

  • going.' And very often we would do a scene like that where he had no rehearsal. He just

  • had to follow the people as best he could and at the end of a take, I'd say to him,

  • 'So how was it, Ricky?' and he'd say, 'It was all completely blocked. I couldn't

  • I couldn't see anything.' I said, 'Why didn't you tell me?'

  • He said, 'You told me not to stop!”

  • Roizman's goal was to light the scenes in such a way that they didn't look lit.

  • He would base his lighting set-ups on a practical light

  • a lamp or whatever source light was in the room

  • and then light the scene as if that was the only light there was,

  • which worked perfectly to fool the audience into thinking that the scenes were shot with whatever light was available.

  • Roizman said, “We sometimes shot in available light and low-key situations, and stretched the exposure latitude of the film.

  • Everybody thought I shot The French Connection in available light.

  • I always joke and say yes, I shot in whatever light was available from the truck.

  • The goal was to make it look like it wasn't lit, which was a radical notion in those days” (Roizman Interview).

  • Friedkin encouraged improvisation wherever he could and nearly all of the surveillance scenes were improvised.

  • Part of what makes The French Connection such a realistic portrayal of detectives working a case

  • is that it shows the downtime and waiting involved in watching or tailing a suspect.

  • For these scenes, Friedkin would break them up by shooting them in

  • between other scenes whenever they found a good location to shoot in.

  • Roizman attained the moody feel of the night stake-out scenes in the car by experimenting with lighting set-ups

  • in his dark garage. You can see how some of these low-light scenes feel totally

  • realistic while the subjects still maintain plenty of definition.

  • In a separate article for Panavision.com, Roizman talks about shooting the scene where Popeye

  • talks to the informant in the bar's bathroom. He said, “There was one light

  • bulb; we changed the bulb, used some hairspray to tone down the hot spot on it and shot with

  • just the one light…. In the bar area, there was a row of lights over the bar, but it wasn't

  • enough to get a proper exposure, so I simpl[y] added some extra bulbs to the existing ones.”

  • The article goes on to say that “[t]he film stock they used was a slower film stock, Kodak

  • 5254, and Owen underexposed it.”

  • Roizman says this was [quote] “because I wanted it to look gritty, and it created the

  • look I wanted. Fortunately, nobody questioned me. I did what I felt was necessaryit

  • was a style I had in mindand I baked the look into the negative, so there was very

  • little extra information that could be pulled from the shadows.”

  • This was to ensure that the look of the film couldn't be altered when it reached television

  • and other mediums.

  • Some other noteworthy films to use Kodak 5254 are

  • The Godfather,

  • Barry Lyndon,

  • Cabaret,

  • and Bound for Glory.

  • A lot of sequences rely on the tempo of the action. All the characters are constantly

  • up to something. Charnier and the other antagonists are always on the move and Popeye and Cloudy

  • watch and follow to keep up almost like a dance. This is where the brilliant editing

  • comes into play. Friedkin said that he wanted the film todictate its formto him,

  • so he was open to any and all ideas from editor Gerald B. Greenberg whether or not it was

  • noted in the script. So in a way, the editing of the film was treated more or less the way

  • you would assemble a documentary from raw footage. And the results were sequences that

  • flow beautifully. Watching and tailing suspects has the potential to be very boring, but we

  • the audience are constantly getting new visuals to follow ourselves. For example, in this

  • clip, we cycle between four good guys and three bad guys. We become more involved with

  • what is going on because we feel like we are keeping track of everyone just like the police

  • are. It also builds up the audience's spatial awareness by expanding the scene outward,

  • inviting the city to play a bigger part than if we had one cop following one suspect.

  • The French Connection is one of those films where everything just perfectly came together

  • and is as much a part of American history as it is a part of cinema history. The cooperation

  • of the real-life subjects of the film and their friends in the NYPD combined with a

  • hungry cast and crew (many of whom were fairly new to feature films) provided a new and fresh

  • perspective that has since become a preserved slice of 1970s New York City and a well of

  • inspiration that filmmakers continue to return to.

  • Thanks for watching! The location video should be up soon, so stay tuned for that one. If

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  • Thanks again for watching!

Smack dab in the middle of the Hollywood Renaissance, William Friedkin's 1971 police thriller

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