William Friedkin’s THE FRENCH CONNECTION & Otto Preminger’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER (Classic Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Showtimes noted below
To juxtapose is to connect, and to see these two masterpieces so close together is an awesome chance to see how opposite approaches can end up converging. ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959, 160 min, 35mm; Saturday, 7pm) is arguably Preminger’s greatest achievement, a film simultaneously expansive (note the long running time) and tightly wound. He chose to shoot on location in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; but in typically perverse fashion, he mostly restricts the action to interiors. It’s his talkiest film, yet also his most suspenseful. It is a relentless, meticulous pile driver of a movie, catapulted along by Duke Ellington’s muscular score, and all 160 minutes exist solely to prepare you for its final moment. The camera dollies in to a medium close-up of a trash barrel, which is nearly overflowing. James Stewart takes a broken high-heeled shoe and hooks it over the edge of the barrel and walks away. Tremendous dissonance from the entire Ellington orchestra on the soundtrack, slowly, reluctantly fading away. Above it all Cat Anderson punctuates using trumpet squeaks. Impossibly high, stabbing. Fade out image then quick fade in to Saul Bass’ end title, the stylized body, finally made whole, the words THE END. Fade out. Anderson’s trumpet makes its final squeaks. Black. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971, 104 min, 35mm; Friday, 7 and 9:15pm) is every particle as relentless and meticulous as ANATOMY. But where Preminger’s tools of assault were smooth, gliding camera movements, crisp editing, and most of all a legendary star (Stewart) at his pinnacle, Friedkin embraces the exact opposites: handheld, documentary-like camerawork, jagged, quick cutting, and a soon-to-be-legendary star (Gene Hackman) who was relatively unknown at the time. The older film has young, animalistic Ben Gazzara. The newer has bourgeois, urbane Fernando Rey. Preminger’s filmscape is small town-ish, the kind of place where Jimmy Stewart can sidle up to the bar and have a leisurely glass of beer. In Friedkin’s, we’re thrust into the middle of a hellish, grubby, chaotic New York City; and the glass of beer at the bar gets drugs, cigarette butts, and junkie’s works dumped into it so Popeye Doyle can mix up his patented milkshake. The car chase may never be duplicated for sheer adrenaline, but the little offhand details are what make the film a fully formed world. The bicycle in Hackman’s apartment, ugly wallpaper in Weinstock’s living room, orange drink in the subway, nighttime steam rising from the pavement. Don Ellis’ soundtrack is also key to the atmosphere, rife with spooky horns and percussion. The shootout in a dripping, ruined warehouse serves as an abrupt, almost existential ending. Much like the conclusion of Preminger’s film, it seems to phrase the question: “Is that all there is … to life?” RC
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More info at docfilms.uchicago.edu.