ReFocus: The Films of William Friedkin

Provides the first scholarly study of the films of William Friedkin

• Contextualizes the entire trajectory of Friedkin’s work both historically and theoretically, from his first production in 1962, The People vs. Paul Crump, to Killer Joe
• Offers a comprehensive understanding to his creative oeuvre, closely analyzing the director’s films and television productions
• Explores key theoretical issues around melodrama, the ideological boundaries between good and evil, the formations of modern institutions, problems of sovereignty, transgression, and the phenomenology of his obsessive imagery

William Friedkin is the director of genre-defining works such as The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973), controversial productions like Cruising (1980) and Killer Joe (2011), as well as understudied films including The Birthday Party (1968), Sorcerer (1977) and The Hunted (2003). This book, the first scholarly study of Friedkin’s films, reveals how they confront the ambiguities of law and morality, issues of subjectivity and problems of faith, while raising key questions around emotion and narrative in the cinema.

Placing his work in the historical contexts of the Vietnam War and Nixon’s presidency, ReFocus: The Films of William Friedkin also examines the director’s representations of sex and violence after the dismantling of the Production Code and in light of the rise and fall of New Hollywood cinema.