So the second round of the Director Showdown has now just come to a close. It saw William Friedkin facing off against the Coen Brothers. We have included the brothers together as they almost always work exclusively together.
For William Friedkin we watched: The Exorcist, and The French Connection.
For the Coen Bros. we watched: No Country For Old Men, and Fargo.
The Exorcist: Obviously this film is one of the most, if not the most, important horror films of all time. It reinvents the genre from older horror films that more closely resembled gore comics of the 1950s and brought the genre more in line thematically with dramatic films of the 1970s. The characters of Reagen, her mother, and the priest who's faith is being tested are all classically memorable and work well to write the script for similar characters well into today. Thematically Friedkin makes the horror genre relevant to a mainstream audience by melding issues of religious faith and modern society. One great example of this in the film are the scenes where the priest visits his elderly mother who is slowly deteriorating in a 70s version of a nursing home. You see a clear analogy to christ walking amongst the lepers but in this version of the story the christ-like savior is unable to save anyone. His faith is tested just as the mother's love for her daughter is tested by satan himself. The film blows away all previous attempts at horror special effects and remains today a horrific spectacle.
Genre: Horror 10/10
Characters: 7/10
Mood/Theme/Ambiance: 9/10
Innovation: 9/10
Film Quality: 8/10
Total: 43/50
No Country For Old Men: This film, much like The Exorcist, will have an indelible impact on the many films like it to come. It clearly is playing thematically on the western motifs throughout the film and spends much of the film building up a standard good vs. bad cowboy storyline. Though while the initial storyline itself may seem standard in no way does the film feel stale. In fact it feels quite the opposite bending standard plot points to its will like the chase scenes between Llewelyn Moss and Anton Chigurh right down to the heroes final shootout with the bad guy which takes place completely off camera. The characters as well feel typical and expected yet extraordinarily crisp and Anton Chigurgh may well be the best Western bad guy ever created. In my opinion the film's only fault comes in its complex themes and symbolism which one is able to recognize as important but no where near able to comprehend after a single viewing. So one is left after the initial viewing without a clear ending or understanding of what the film is about but a desire to understand what was going on.
Genre: Western 9/10
Characters: 9/10
Mood/Theme/Ambiance: 10/10
Innovations: 8/10
Film quality: 5/10
Total: 41/50
The French Connection: This film is for me a big disappointment. Winning Best Picture in 1972 and vaulting Gene Hackman into mega star status, I felt this film was set to blow me away. But instead after two failed attempts at getting through this film and finally managing to make my way through it, I was instead simply left expecting more. The first problem with the film is how slow it is. It does work hard to make everything feel real and gritty but in this it fails to make important aspects of the plot stand out or connect with the audience. Its clear that it is trying to make a realistic cop drama but in its attempts to access the banality of a typical investigation it simply succeeds in accessing the bordom cops must feel on an overnight stakeout. Its two main lead characters are interesting enough. An intelligent loving French drug dealer facing off against a gritty in your face New York cop did manage to flip the script on the typical cop drama storyline but that's about all it does. It may simply be that watching the film nearly three decades after it was made means that the topical and groundbreaking aspects fall by the wayside but there's little I can do to help that. I also will never understand how it is that Gene Hackman's portrayal of a bird-dogging gritty drunk of a cop is going to get young twenty something girls into bed. It did have an awesome chase scene though. Oh and it also had a lack of an ending which was again clearly intended but left the audience wanting more.
Genre: Cop Drama 5/10
Characters: 6/10
Mood/Theme/Ambience: 5/10
Innovations: 4/10
Film Quality: 4/10
Total: 24/50
Fargo: This films stands in stark comparison to The French Connection by doing many of the things that it did right and avoiding its pit falls. It centers around the true story of a kidnapping gone wrong in small town Wisconsin. The small town cop sent to investigate blows the audience away with her brilliance and folksy ways. The film is full of characters that you will remember and quote for days and this includes one scene characters such as the two Wisconsin bimbos that Marge interviews towards the middle of the film. As the plot unfolds the audience becomes clearly aware of how the characters internal faults lead them on into more and more precarious situations until it the film climaxes in one of the most memorable body dismembering scenes of any film.
Genre: Cop Drama 8/10
Characters: 9/10
Mood/Theme/Ambience: 8/10
Innovations: 8/10
Film Quality: 8/10
Total: 41/50
The Coen Bros won out with an average score of 41 over William Friedkin's 34 average. So the Coen bros will face Milos Forman in the second round.
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