(2023, USA, 108')
Six years since documentary The Devil and Father Amorth and twelve since the beautiful Killer Joe, William Friedkin would have been to Venice with his latest fiction feature, 2023′ The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Unfortunately, Friedkin died but a few weeks ago, and what we will see will be his last film. Adapted from Herman Wouk’s 1952 novel and a remake of Edward Dmytruk’s 1954 classic of the same name (seven Oscar nomination and a great performance by Humphrey Bogart), Friedkin’s feature modernizes the original script and sets the Caine story in the present day, only, it won’t be set in Pearl Harbor, but in the Hormuz Strait, the only passage between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Lieutenant Stephen Maryk relieves Captain Francis Queeg of his duties. Lieutenant and attorney Barney Greenwald will act as Maryk’s counsel, although himself being convinced of Maryk’s guilt.
The director of The Exorcist (1973) – the film that redesigned the canons of horror cinema and frightened whole generations, William Friedkin is also the filmmaker behind one of the best crime thrillers of all time: To Live and Die in L.A. of 1985 and of one of the best car chase scenes in cinema history in The French Connection of 1971. Friedkin is one of the few filmmakers who was able to explore the perverted, fascinating mechanics of violence and the complex architecture of evil that nest in the soul of men. A politically troublesome director, William Friedkin employs breakneck, brutal dynamics and a dark, sinister humour, paired with absolute moral disenchantment. A pessimist, maybe, rather than cynical, though irresistibly attracted to the dark side of reality. William Friedkin died in Los Angeles on August 6, 2023, a few weeks shy of his eighty-eighth birthday.
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