Bug (2007)
Directed by William Friedkin
In Oklahoma, Agnes, a lonely waitress living in an isolated and dilapidated roadside motel, meets Peter, a quiet and mysterious man with whom she establishes a peculiar relationship.
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14 films that influenced Bug
What critics say influenced Bug
Not since Faye Dunaway immortalized the phrase "No more wire hangers!" in "Mommie Dearest" has an actress delivered as delirious a line at as high a decibel level and with as much sincerity.
(Occasionally, Bug seems like the nasty little brother of Anthony Harveys They Might Be Giants (1971).)
Several of his films, including an adaptation of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party , his Showtime cable adaptation of 12 Angry Men, and his episode of the 80s Twilight Zone revival “Nightcrawlers” demonstrate his knack for keeping a small setting visually interesting without resorting to lame attempts to “open up” a play to more locations as though that made it somehow more “cinematic”.
The scratching, the manipulation, the queasy self-mutilation: Not since Michael Haneke's "The Piano Teacher" has the line between besotted and nuts been so hard to glean.
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It was also thirty years ago that William Friedkin made his last great movie, "Sorcerer."
At more than two hours, Sorcerer is, for the most part, a palpably overlong drama that's rife with superfluous scenes and subplots - with the movie's saving grace a handful of absolutely enthralling action-oriented sequences.
Regarding the director, well, it’s tough to knock the man who gave us “The Exorcist,” “Sorcerer,” and “The French Connection,” but over the last several years his output has been more like “Jade,” “Blue Chips,” and “The Rules of Engagement” — so I can be forgiven for doling out some skepticism on that end, too.
Sorcerer was released in stereo, but the soundtrack has been "reimagined" (in Friedkin's term) by Aaron Levy of Todd-Soundelux, who worked on Friedkin's Bug and Killer Joe .
He would follow Sorcerer up with the justifiably hated Cruising and for the rest of his career trifle with mostly unsuccessful and unmemorable works (he would have some occasional bright spots with To Live And Die In LA , a number of cable films and more recently with the Ashley Judd ick-fest Bug ).
Se virmos The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A. (Viver e Morrer em Los Angeles, 1985), Jade (1995) ou mesmo o mais recente (criminosamente subvalorizado) The Hunted (O Batedor, 2003), mas mesmo se pensarmos nos seus filmes mais estáticos ou teatrais, como os magníficos Bug (2006) (curiosamente, desenrolado num motel à beira da estrada, não estando de modo nenhum indiferente à vertigem do alcatrão) e Killer Joe (2011) (curiosamente, passado em rulotes estacionadas, dentro das quais personagens inquietas põem a acção em movimento ), ficamos conversados quanto a uma ou duas coisas: o drama gera-se do exterior ( set /meio) para o interior (personagem) e, “em campo aberto”, a perseguição (figura ontológica, segundo Kracauer, da linguagem cinematográfica) ou o movimento das pernas, o deslizar dos carris, o rolar das rodas… é uma performance discursiva para ser veiculada ao espectador apenas pelo recurso às imagens, no potente silêncio das palavras.
Staying away from the commercials and advertisement for "Bug," the latest movie from director William Friedkin ("The Exorcist", "The French Connection"), may be the only way to truly enjoy it for what it is.
William Friedkin's new Bug is being advertised as a straight-up horror film, invoking his Academy Award (for The French Connection ) as well as his cache as director of the original The Exorcist (1973).
Director William Friedkin who gave us Exorcist and The French Connection expertly helms this relatively narrow-focused screenplay by playwright Tracy Letts.
But when you win an Oscar for "The French Connection" and then follow it up with "The Exorcist," expectations are raised.
The now 71-year-old Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist, Rules of Engagement, The Hunted) is one of a just a handful of veteran filmmakers remaining who continues to do interesting work and make real movies.
It’s always the dark side of the dark that this director finds compelling, whether it’s Popeye Doyle’s accidental killing of an FBI man at the end of The French Connection or Father Karras’ sacrifice to the demon Pazuzu in The Exorcist.
Saying that Bug is the best film to come from William Friedkin in years isnt saying all that much from my perspective, since apart from The Boys in the Band (1970) and The Exorcist (1973), Ive never really understood his creditable reputation.
William Friedkin is still best known as the director of The Exorcist, but his work on this low-budget effort has more in common with the little-seen 1988 drama Rampage than with any of his slick studio pictures.
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I enjoyed "Blue Chips" and the television production of "12 Angry Men."
Regarding the director, well, it’s tough to knock the man who gave us “The Exorcist,” “Sorcerer,” and “The French Connection,” but over the last several years his output has been more like “Jade,” “Blue Chips,” and “The Rules of Engagement” — so I can be forgiven for doling out some skepticism on that end, too.
Like all his work, except maybe the recent, excellent Bug , it takes place in a thoroughly researched, vividly documented sociopolitical world, in this case, the gay S&M leather bars of New York City, circa the late 1970s and early 1980s.
William Friedkin ("Exorcist"/"The French Connection"/"Cruising") keeps the low-budget film interesting through the first act by introducing the edgy characters while they're at their best, but by the second act it has a case of diarrhea of the mouth and in the third act it goes into a meltdown as it overstays its creepy motel visit and becomes bugged without much sting.
Seventy-one-year-old director William Friedkin is the guy who brought you the most intense horror movie of the 1970s, The Exorcist, as well as other bold '70s stuff like Cruising.