Down to three...

...films that I've not seen before.  After this is done, it will be two, then onto the final 10.

I'm going to make it through my quest to watch the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition) in a brief period of time.  I've missed my goal of my birthday, which is fine.  I could have made it, but it didn't make sense to watch some of these without partners, and that tends to slow me down.  Somehow, Julie doesn't want to watch a movie EVERY time we see each other.  This is one I watched with a couple of friends.

Film 88

88.  "The French Connection" (AFI Rank #93)

As a goal oriented person, I enjoy little milestones on the way.  This is the last film from the "Bottom 10" films I will be watching, and the first group of 10 films (my first criteria in organizing how I'd watch these) I will have "closed out." I have AFI rank film 50 still to come, but the group of 10 it comes from is 41-50, so it is still in the "40s", technically.  Useless shit my mind enjoys.

I have been honored to have any one of you share in this journey.  Some fun discussions have come out of it, along with watching some movies with people I care about.  Whether it was sitting in a room with me, or watching and sharing through the internet, I've been privileged to feel, throughout this, that I wasn't doing it alone. This time, that was literal.  My friend Geoff said to me a while ago, "When you get to "The French Connection," I want to watch it with you."  Then, my friend Ken said, "Yeah, I want in on that, too."  Some logistics later, we were able to meet last week, enjoy some ribs, gyros, beans, cole slaw, salad, and each other's company.  Oh yeah, and we watched this film.  I didn't take it as seriously, perhaps, as I could have, as I did some "MST3K" style commentary, and paused a couple of times to crack wise, but we watched the film intently, and the conversations during it were valuable to the film as an experience.

Winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1971, along with Best Actor for Gene Hackman, and Best Director for William Friedkin, this film has a weighty reputation as a gritty crime thriller.  It is that.  It is so much more, though, and that's what makes it great.

This film, like so many other great ones I've watched on this journey, just drops us in the middle of the story already unfolding.  Starting in Marseilles, France, and taking a long time to watch a man who gets shot in the face and never appears, except in very brief conversation, again, the first 5 minutes of this film - I said aloud -were part of, "The most French film I've ever seen."  There was a languid pace to the filming, with no explanation of just what the hell was going on.  Then, a guy's face exploded, a baguette was taken, and on we went to Brooklyn.  And the film starts running, and never, ever relents.  The film then plays parallel stories, one in France, one in Brooklyn, until the two finally intertwine in one city.  Brooklyn sets introduce us to Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman, and Sonny Grosso, played by Roy Scheider.  The two are partners in the narcotics division of the New York City Police Department, working undercover to make minor arrests here and there.  While making a routine bust in a bar, Popeye is told by an informant that heroin in the city has dried up completely, and that something big is rumored to be on the way.  That's the set-up.  What we find out, eventually, is that 120 lbs. of pure heroin has come to New York in the rocker panels of a Lincoln, and that the only reason it's not on the streets yet is that the big players involved with purchasing it haven't gotten comfortable enough to pay the $500,000 price tag.  It doesn't hurt when it's revealed that the smack is worth $32 million when it's finally cut with God knows how many impurities, then distributed in smaller batches, until the supply is exhausted.  There are some seriously cool cats in charge of the deal on both sides, the French are the suppliers, the Americans are the buyers.  And two cops are figuring it all out.

While we were watching, we commented on New York City of the 70s.  What a gross, dirty place it was.  I'm sure it still is, but the filth just pours off the screen and into one's lap.  The city itself is as much a character as any human in the film.  We see, in one scene, two sides of life.  We see Doyle, the civil servant, standing outside in the bitter cold, watching as Alain Charlaine (the French kingpin, played by Fernando Rey) enjoys a multi-course meal in an opulent French retaurant.  We see Doyle choking on a slice of pizza.  We then see him disgustedly pour out his coffee, just as Alain and his dining partner are enjoying a cup from a French press.  We can see Doyle in the background of the interior shot.  It's a great scene, and it shows not only the two sides of the characters, but the two sides of New York.  Yes, it can be the city of dreams, but it can also serve a shitty cup of coffee and pizza.  It's a masterful scene.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the infamous car chase sequence.  I did not know, no matter how many times I've seen clips of the absolutely breahtaking car shots, that Popeye Doyle was chasing a train.  Researching the sequence a bit, and discovering that most of it was planned, but some of it wasn't, and some of it wasn't shot with permits, or with street closures...well.  What the hell?  Reckless is the word that comes to mind, for certain.  However, the thrill of that sequence is palpable.  That it is shot entirely without music is another coup-de-grace by the production team.  The music of the motors, squeal of tires, crashing of metal, etc., is all the scene needs, and it's executed brilliantly.  Oh, did I mention that this film won the Oscar for Best Editing also?  Because that is kind of a no-brainer when you watch this sequence.

Another major piece of brilliance happens on the train at another point in the film.  A game of cat and mouse between protagonist and antagonist ends in the bad guy getting the upper hand on Popeye, while never even letting on that he's in on the game, never looking in Doyle's direction.  He's just playing the detective for all he's worth, and he gets his man.  His smarmy wave "good-bye" to Doyle as the detective is left on the platform as the subway pulls away with his quarry on it is used to great effect later in the film, when Doyle has the upper hand.  It's a great moment, and it caps a terrific sequence.

Acting is good to great in this, but like the story itself, tends to take a while to digest.  At one point, I turned to my compatriots and said, "I'm not entirely sure I know what the hell is going on here," and we were at least halfway through the film.  Friedkin doesn't spoon-feed his audience, and relies on their ability, by film's end, to have put the pieces together.  This is a common practice in these films, and the acting on display reflects this.  Hackman is great as Doyle, part psychotic, part hero, part...psychotic. He's a man of depth, but that depth is only hinted at at times.  His porkpie hat, however, has become an iconic prop from a great film.  I will say one thing, the last moment that we see Popeye's face is chilling.  Simply chilling.

Roy Scheider plays Popeye's partner, and he is all his Roy Scheider best.  Part cool, part just tired, Scheider shows us the chops that he will put to much greater use in a film about a shark that is coming up for review soon.  We see a real connection between Doyle and Grosso, and it usually the "lesser" role that has to make that connection feel real.  Scheider is superb.  I should also mention Fernando Rey in this.  He's just dynamite as the French smuggler.  There is one other person that deserves recognition.  The real-life Popeye Doyle, a man named Eddie Egan, plays a role as the head of Doyle and Grosso's department.  He doesn't feel like a guy thrust into a film.  He feels like an actor playing a role, and playing it well.

There is a lot to digest in this film, and you need to keep your mind sharp as it progresses.  There are scenes of graphic violence that don't need to be there, but somehow make the film richer.  There are scenes that are brief that have great significance.  Time passes without us being aware of it.  Yet, if we stop and watch, there it is.  It's a film meant to be taken as a whole, rather than as a sum of its parts, and I loved that.  One thing about the ending, though.  It is fun, as the screen shows what happened to those that survive the ending, to note that the people who receive the most punishment at the end of the story are the police officers and the man who is used as a front for the whole thing.  Everyone else, for the most part, gets away with it.  That's a moral mindfuck that we have to love.  Once upon a time in Hollywood, stories weren't allowed to end with the bad guys winning.  This film, and films like this, made in the great era of the 60s and the 70s, threw that aside and said, "sometimes, sometimes, it's more interesting if the bad guys win."  That is most precisely the case with this film.

After it was over, we discussed it, and I asked my friends why they felt compelled to be there when I watched it.  Geoff mentioned the grittiness, and the very real filthy feeling that the film conveys, and that he just loves that.  Ken mentioned the final shot of the film, and how it feels like someone slammed a door in your face.  Interestingly, that gets used literally rather than figuratively in "The Godfather," the following year.  It was great fun to get to share the viewing of this film with these men, and I don't know if I'd have enjoyed it as much without them there.  I did enjoy the film a LOT, though.  It's a great one.

Ebert's take on this film is here.  It says 1971, but it references "Raiders Of The Lost Ark," so this was obviously written later.  Anyway, Ebert and I are on similar trajectories.