Failing better every time

There must be some mix-up. I was told I would be meeting the US director William Friedkin. This was the man responsible for chilling the planet's very soul in 1974 with his horror classic The Exorcist and who was known to slap faces and discharge firearms to startle actors. Friedkin was the steely young director who took an Oscar in 1971 for his radical, hard-nosed crime saga The French Connection.

The gentleman before me is also called William Friedkin, but this man is kindly, light-hearted and yearning for some biscuits to go with his coffee. "I'm good, yeah," he beams. "And you? You're gainfully employed with a large Sunday newspaper. You know, it's pretty good -- you meet interesting people ... outside of this moment perhaps." He's a little disarming, to tell the truth.

Friedkin may bear more resemblance to a nice old American tourist these days than a censor-bothering member of Hollywood's 1970s filmmaking rat pack, but the truth is he is still as uncompromising as ever. His latest release -- Killer Joe -- will swiftly remind people of that fact. The darkly comic tale of a Texan trailer-trash family hiring a contract killer to knock off their mother has caused a stir at film festivals across the world, thrusting Friedkin back into the limelight following a career that has seen its share of peaks and troughs.

"Killer Joe was a lot of fun to make," the fresh-faced 77-year-old says in a clear, robust Chicago accent. "I loved the writing, I loved the characters. And I had a perfect cast that was virtually given to me by the Movie God."

The undulations in his career, he agrees, are a product of his unwillingness to go with the flow. "That's true. And the real reason behind that is I don't know what the flow is. And when I do get a sense of what the flow is, I usually think, 'Shit, I don't want to be a part of that'. I don't want to do comic-book movies or video-game movies.

"I've been fortunate enough to do the kind of films that interest me as a viewer. I start with that, and if by luck, by chance, by the grace of God, they interest somebody else, I'm very pleased. If they don't, I'm disappointed, but I move on to fail again."

Beckett's line about trying again, failing again and failing better is close to Friedkin's heart, to the point that he intends to use it at the start of his recently completed memoir (due for publication by HarperCollins next year). "You know that one?" he chirps. "It's very apt in terms of detailing how I feel about the work that I have done." He continues with a detailed account of how the idea of an autobiography came to life following a call out of the blue from a New York literary agent. Friedkin's first thought was why anyone would want to read it. His second was that he never kept diaries and his memory wasn't that good.

He entertained the idea, however, when this agent revealed that five publishers were already very keen to talk. Deciding that the project would be "a kind of catharsis", concentrating mostly on how he felt at significant junctures rather than being just a timeline of events, he agreed to it. He consulted old colleagues for cross-references and quickly filled 10 Moleskine books in longhand.

He has said before that film-making is therapy, a way to externalise his dark and difficult ideas on the fine line between good and evil. While this book will serve a similarly therapeutic role, Friedkin has always been a figure around whom a lot of rumour and speculation has revolved, from his 'colourful' personal life (he's currently on marriage No 4) to the mythology of his film-making (nine people died during the making of The Exorcist and the studio caught fire mysteriously). Is the book also about setting the record straight?

"Hilary, I don't know if I've set the record straight, but I've given my version of it," he says thoughtfully. "I don't spare myself with this book. I don't take credit for all my successes, but I do share the partial blame for all the failures, if not the total blame. The book is called Connections because it's about the people I met along the way, from the beginning of my career right up to the present day, who led me from one thing to another."

One example he cites was a casual invitation to see a re-run of Citizen Kane in a local cinema. At the time, Friedkin was a young television studio floor manager at Chicago's WGN (he had left high school at 16 to work in the studio's mail room). He went to see the film on a Saturday afternoon and left at midnight, having watched it five times. The Orson Welles masterwork changed his life.

Now adamant that film-directing was his destiny, he quickly rose to the position of a live-TV director, making "eight to 10 programmes a day" over eight years. His film debut came in 1962 with The People vs. Paul Crump, a documentary-style feature about an abuse of justice involving a death row inmate. It got Friedkin airborne in Hollywood, but it was only after a couple of so-so releases that 20th Century Fox offered him a film called The French Connection. The rest, as they say ...

His sons Cedric (by Australian choreographer Jennifer Nairn Smith) and Jack (by second wife, actress Lesley-Anne Down) are now planting familiar footsteps; Cedric is an editor on a US TV series, while Jack works with a reality television company. He must find the similarities interesting.

"Not especially," he shrugs. "I love them, they're good fellas, as they say, but I never encouraged them to go into the business. It's not all Gucci shoes and autographs and shades.

"But they've managed to make their way in different ways to me. I mean, I don't watch reality TV and I don't watch these television series, but when we see them, which is often, they'll give us a report about what they're doing. The paths they've taken are not identical at all to the one I took.

"When I was young, we didn't have access to equipment. Today, a young person can buy a camera, go out and shoot something if they have a vision and post it on YouTube or whatever, and someone may see it and offer them a music video or a commercial. And from that, they may get a feature film. That could never have happened in my day."

Given his refusal to get involved in any film project that doesn't stimulate his bristling curiosity for life's big issues, he's found new diversions. Since 1996, he has taken to directing operas in cities across Europe. It began following a dinner at home with renowned conductor and friend Zubin Mehta. Mehta proposed the pair collaborate. Friedkin tried to extinguish his friend's enthusiasm by suggesting they do Berg's heavy, non-melodic work Wozzeck. Mehta called his bluff and pencilled it in there and then. "I looked around the table and my wife said, 'Oh, go ahead! It'll be fun, we'll live in Florence for two months'." Wife Sherry Lansing, a former studio executive now devoted to humanitarian work, provides him with such nudges when they are needed, he says.

"She's been out of showbusiness for years. She doesn't miss it at all. She's here with me in Dublin, she travels with me, but she has no interest in showbusiness any more. She's still interested in film -- more than I am. She sees everything, I see almost nothing."

How different it all could have been for "Billy" Friedkin. Growing up in a cash-strapped Jewish household in Chicago, the son of Louis (at times a cigar-maker, semi-pro softball player and clothes salesman) and Raechel (a nurse) was always in and out of trouble, and later formed habits of shoplifting and using prostitutes. This must be why he's ever thankful for how things fell into place following his chance encounter with Orson Welles that day.

"Without a doubt," he confirms. "That's why I can get past the failures I've had. And hopefully I'll fail better next time. That's the most you can hope for."

Killer Joe is in cinemas nationwide