The French Connection Analysis

The French Connection

Directed by: William Friedkin

Won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1971.

The poster of this film reads, 'The time is just right for an out and out thriller like this'. This film was quite successful and that means that this film was tight for the attention span of those times. Now, we are used to even more tight screenplays and cliffhangers like what we've seen in Money Heist where they hook us right from the first frame. By today's standards of what's tight, this film isn't that tight but I can definitely understand that it was a tight film for back then. It's a film about cops trying to bust a drug cartel. This film came right when the new Hollywood wave was forming, this film has a lot of scenes shot on real locations with handheld cameras to bring in more realism. 

Grounding the normal world is important for other events to feel more dramatic. Films usually don't do that with thrillers, because thrillers open with a dramatic event that the film is already set on a larger than life setup. What they can do is, keep increasing the stakes which is what Money Heist does. They start with they wanting to rob a bank, then they want to print notes, the rest of the show is hooked on the thing that they don't want to kill people. This film runs on plot points and events, Pauline Kael didn't like the film saying that she didn't want films to become just about the plot moving forward, she probably would've liked the film to be more about characters, their flaws, how they overcome them in the course of the movie. It's challenging and interesting, creating character acrs for detective characters.